Did Matthew invent the massacre of innocents?

[marco]

My view is that Matthew made things up. He stumbled on Jeremiah, lamenting as only Jeremiah laments:


“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.� Matthew 2:16-18 (NKJV)

What was upsetting the woman? Matthew explains that Herod was so annoyed at being deceived by the Magi that he just decided to kill all the male children, two years and under, in the entire region. A bit excessive. The incarnation was God's plan; the Magi were invited; so the murdered babies were collateral damage in God's plan. Rachel, in a town far away, is inconsolable, though she didn't know the babies personally.

What's Rachel got to do with anything?
Is this just Matthew inventing or can we believe the story?
Is Matthew blaming God - indirectly - for killing baby boys again?

[marco]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]


The main lesson is that Matthew is a wonderful writer of fiction, gifted with a good imagination, able to take some innocent text and miraculously transform it into something significant in Christ's life.

One wonders how Matthew hit on the idea of having baby boys killed.

[Tart]

My view is that Matthew made things up. He stumbled on Jeremiah, lamenting as only Jeremiah laments:


“A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children, refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.� Matthew 2:16-18 (NKJV)

What was upsetting the woman? Matthew explains that Herod was so annoyed at being deceived by the Magi that he just decided to kill all the male children, two years and under, in the entire region. A bit excessive. The incarnation was God's plan; the Magi were invited; so the murdered babies were collateral damage in God's plan. Rachel, in a town far away, is inconsolable, though she didn't know the babies personally.

What's Rachel got to do with anything?
Is this just Matthew inventing or can we believe the story?
Is Matthew blaming God - indirectly - for killing baby boys again?

[Replying to post 1 by marco]


The main lesson is that Matthew is a wonderful writer of fiction, gifted with a good imagination, able to take some innocent text and miraculously transform it into something significant in Christ's life.

One wonders how Matthew hit on the idea of having baby boys killed.

Great question... Im not too sure... I have found from my studies that the Bible has a lot of parallels, has a lot of deeper meaning, is embedded with things that there is deeper messages to the story...

This is actually why Dr. Carrier says its a myth. This is his foundation of why he believes the Gospels to be myths, because there is obvious deeper meanings to its message, then just some historical kind of story that has no deeper meaning... He uses a lot of examples that point to this... However, if Christianity is true, and for example Jesus is the Messiah, God directed Jesus through destiny to fulfill a greater purpose of being the "Lamb" of God. (which has deeper meaning then just some story)... So who's right? History may have no deeper meaning, unless God exists (or something like that) to where deeper meaning may exist in the Gospels (or in all things)...

I mean who is Rachel? Maybe it has no significance at all, if its just some lady in history? Maybe if God exists, there is some significance in the story? Idk...

But the Gospels are obviously works of history... There is no way around it (and ill give you the case if you want).. At most we would have to conclude they are quasi historical, quasi fictional... They couldnt be fictional, period...

So questioning that quasi state, is tricky... It's strange we have nothing from the 1st century telling us any of these things are fictional, and we have many letters and books, telling us they are historical... Did Matthew make up the story of the "massacre of innocents"?

How would he know about it? Who told him? Is there other records of it? (i dont know of any)...

However, maybe it was "revaluation", which is certainly a theme in the scripture. That people are taken within the spirit to know certain things. Certainly possible, especially if God exists...


Or maybe my brain is in a vat, and im the only one in existence, and God has directed everything that i experience, or at least in design... I mean shoot, that is a legitimate question too...

[SallyF]

The males-only Roman Catholic priesthood has long had what appears to me to be a homoerotic obsession with naked male bottoms in their Christian art …

And with the killing of humans …

And the killing of even more humans …

And more bottoms.

The naked bottoms and the killings above depict the "Massacre of the Innocents" …

Which is yet another item in the Christian "Word of God" without a scrap of independently verifiable evidence to back it up.

Matthew's story is found in no other gospel, and the Jewish historian Josephus does not mention it in his Antiquities of the Jews (c.  AD 94), which records many of Herod's misdeeds including the murder of three of his own sons.[2][3] Most modern biographers of Herod dismiss the story as an invention.[1] Classical historian Michael Grant, for instance, stated "The tale is not history but myth or folk-lore".[4] It appears to be modeled on Pharaoh's attempt to kill the Israelite children (Exodus 1:22), and more specifically on various elaborations of the original story that had become current in the 1st century.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massacre_of_the_Innocents

But if we acknowledge that whoever wrote this fable in the first place just made it up, we have to honestly ask ourselves what stuff was NOT just made up ...?

[Tart]

The idea of Quasi Fictional/Historical is the question... But does that mean the Disciples lied? They made fiction? Does that mean they themselves dont even believe it? Or they made some kind of fiction that they believe in?

For example, the Resurrection... Certainly if the Resurrection happened, God could have revealed the massacre to Matthew, becuase then God would have shown he is all powerful.

But did the disciples lie about the Resurrection? It really didnt happen? Why die for it then? Why would the disciples not denounce it in the face of death? Why didnt anyone object to their claims in the early Christian years? (that we have records of)?

Why would they write their Epistles? Why change their lives? Why abandon the Laws of Moses, if Jesus wasnt the Messiah? Why believe in Jesus if he came and died on a cross (while supposedly everyone denied him, on the cross)? How the heck did the Christian Faith begin, after that? These may be far more important questions for determining why and how Matthew wrote about the first few chapters in Matthew.

[Tart]

[1] Classical historian Michael Grant, for instance, stated "The tale is not history but myth or folk-lore".[4] It appears to be modeled on Pharaoh's attempt to kill the Israelite children (Exodus 1:22), and more specifically on various elaborations of the original story that had become current in the 1st century.

See this is exactly what im talking about, the theme of many Jesus Myth supporters...

However... this is very slippery... For example, if we accept Jesus to be historical in simple ways, there may be deeper meaning to just his historical existence.. Like for example the fulfillment of Daniel 9 prophecy of the time of the "Messiah", if Jesus existed at this time, and was baptized according to Luke 2 (i believe is the chapter)...

If we give historical credit to the Crucifixion... Then we see deeper parallels within the sacrificial blood laws given to Moses in the Torah. Or the "Lamb of God", and the Passover lambs blood that the Israelite used in Egypt in Exodus. Or Isaiah 53 of the prophecy of the suffering messiah... If the Crucifixion is true, then these parallels could be drawn legitimately.

So even basic elements of the story being historical bring into existence a deeper message, and parallels within the stories of the God of Israel... Just because it may reflect parallels doesnt necessarily make it a myth...

For example... If scripture like this is true... Likewise, deeper parallels could be works of a all powerful God.

"For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." ... Ephesians 2:10

"For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit." 2 Peter 1:21

[ttruscott]

The males-only Roman Catholic priesthood has long had what appears to me to be a homoerotic obsession with naked male bottoms in their Christian art …

Why is your supposed homoerotic obsession put upon the Roman Catholic priesthood and not upon the non-priestly artists??? What's your proof that the artists of this and other paintings like it were in fact Christian and not pagans trying to influence Christians by insinuating their pov into so called Christian art?

What is your proof that naked male bottoms did not just present a unique aspect of human anatomy in artistic expression...ie, what are your credentials as a professional (or even dilettante) art critic?

[polonius]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]


The main lesson is that Matthew is a wonderful writer of fiction, gifted with a good imagination, able to take some innocent text and miraculously transform it into something significant in Christ's life.

One wonders how Matthew hit on the idea of having baby boys killed.

RESPONSE. It comes from the Old Testament when the ruler orders the Hebrew children to be killed. Fortunately, their mothers saved them. In Moses' case he was sent down the river in a raft to be rescued by a royal personage.

And Rachael weeping for her children was during the exile of the northern kingdom. It had nothing to do with Jesus.

Those old testament writers loved to repeat stories!

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 1 by marco]

It really seems Matthew was painting Jesus as a new Moses. The parallel is too striking. A literary transfer of authority.

[SallyF]

Yes … more bare bottoms: right in the foreground, viewed bent over and from behind …!

They seem to fit perfectly with what is often officially sanctioned and commissioned by the Church in the artistic depiction of scriptural massacres …

Of which the biblical propaganda is gleefully full.

And centuries AFTER what looks to ME like sadistic homoerotica, certain Christians are STILL convinced this (to me) anti-Herodian propaganda is the "Word of God" …

The Massacre of the Innocents is a name that may be familiar to you — or not. Some don’t know the event by its formal title, but can remember the account in Scripture in Matthew 2 where King Herod kills all the Jewish males ages 2 and under in order to kill Jesus, “the king of the Jews.� The story itself makes Herod look not only paranoid (that he would kill a baby), but also insecure in his political power that he would eliminate a generation of helpless babies in order to save his position as king. Matthew records the event in Holy Writ, and Christians who hold to the Scriptures as “the Word of truth� have no problems believing the event took place. https://essentialchurch.net/2019/01/01/ ... hew-21-23/