withallyourmind.net

Craig Blomberg, here, points out a major misstep in an what sounds to be an otherwise well-documented, detailed examination of Herod the Great and the discovery of his tomb approximately 1 1/2 years ago. Blomberg highlights the problematic statement:

But, gratutiously, and highlighted by a quotation box, they insert the claim that Herod almost certainly did not kill the babies two years old and under in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus’ birth. The sole reason given is that the report of this massacre occurs only in the Gospel of Matthew. Of course, very liberal scholars have said something similar for a long time, but without good reason.

There is of course a very reasonable explanation for why only the Gospel of Matthew records this event:

So why didn’t Josephus say anything about these babies (see Matthew 2 if you are not familiar with the story)? Because, like all other historians of his day, he was concerned to recount the events related to the kings and queens, military generals, aristocracy, and institutionalized leaders of religion of his people–not the lives and times of ordinary peasants. Bethlehem had at most 500 people and, even factoring in large families, one can scarcely imagine more than 20-25 babies affected by Herod’s soldiers’ raids, and perhaps less. It was a blip on the horizon of Herod’s nefarious resume. It may even have been little reported in circles outside of later Christian ones.

This is not an idiosyncratic view. Any of the numerous scholarly evangelical commentaries on Matthew will present it. R. T. France, author of one of those commentaries, wrote a whole article in a major scholarly journal (Novum Testamentum) almost thirty years ago explicating the detail. Today, not a few non-evangelical sources at least cite the opinion, too.