It's highly unlikely that the slaughter of the innocents occurred because it should show up in some Jewish or Roman records, but it doesn't. Does that make it a lie? No. What the author is probably doing is drawing a parallel between Jesus and Moses in all likelihood. Moses saves the Hebrews and Jesus saves the believers.

As far as saints are concerned, we have to remember that the ancients tended to believe that dreams were visions of reality, so my guess is that's what we're seeing getting played out here. How many of us have had dreams about loved one's who have left us?

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"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

I would agree that was the purpose behind it.


So, is Matthew delusional, and ifhe is, how reliable is his testimony? How are we to know what state of consciousness he is in for any part of his testimony?

-TC

Well, let's start with the last question. Not very significant at all.

If X, Y and Z are all reporting the same thing, and X makes a reprt that something happened, but Y and Z do not, you cannot make any argument at all about the truthfulness of the recollection.

Y and Z may not have known about the incident. They may not have thought the incident important enough to record. The record itself may have been damaged or lost or edited out of existence. The mere absence tells us nothing.

It is, of course, possible that X made the whole thing up, but one cannot prefer that without some other basis than mere absence fro the testimony of Y and Z.

If, however, Matthew says that Jesus fled to Egypt, and Mark and Luke say Damascus, then we could assume that either: a) Matthew is modifying the story to fit the "prophecy", b) that Matthews source is inaccurate. or c) that Mark and Luke's sources are inaccurate. One cannot, logically, claim any of these alternatives is "true", one can only prefer one of them, largely doe to reasons having nothing to do with the text itself.

The other synoptics do not mention the Massacre of the Innocents; does that mean it didn't happen? Well, Herod, at least, is an historic personage and we can look to historical sources for some sort of verification.

But, would the historical sources necessarily mention it? Bethlehem was a small place "least of the villages of Judah", so probably only had, at most, 150 people living in it. Doing some quick back-of-the-envelope calculations, we are probably only talking about 5 lower class infants being killed. Herod, let us remember, made a habit out of killing his wives and sons; would 5 anonymous Amhaaretz children, who likely would have died anyway, merit much notice? One has to doubt that. Certainly, I would doubt the Romans would bother mentioning it, and as for Josephus, he had his own agenda in writing and, since we just had a massive and learned debate on how his writing may have been tampered with one, at least, has to admit that such a reference might also have been tampered with or excised from the existing text.

In other words, while an evangelist might have found it significant to play up such an event, others may have thought it barely noteworthy; people's recollections are different, historians give different accounts of things, because no two people are engaged exactly the same way by what happened.

I rather suspect that this is a fictional incident; it smacks of the mythological to me. But that is a gut instinct, based on the ubiquity of the motif. I can, rightly I think, be suspicious of it...but to come out and say it never happened? I hesitate to go there.

The "wise men"? Leaving aside all arguments for the "Christmas Star", I think there inclusion is due to political motivations, but one cannot exclude it from possibility. It is improbable, but Judea does lie on major trade routes, and people do have a habit of travelling along major trade routes. That some (however many you want to make it) might have stopped off in Nazareth is not impossible.

The fact that Mark, say, does not mention it doesn't seem that surprising. Mark was, most scholars agree, written in Rome, so it is likely that many things that happened in an obscure village in an obscure province might be missed, Peter being the source notwithstanding (he wasn't, after all, from the same village).

Similar rationalizations could be advanced for its omission in Luke.



While tradition ascribes the Gospel to Matthew, I think it is a big leap to assume that he was the actual author. But, assuming for a moment that he was, there are a number of reasons why it might not be mentioned:

a) it may never have happened.

b) it may be something he thought should be kept secret.

c) it may have been mentioned, but it may have been excised at some point or lost due to damage in transmission.

d) it may be poetic licence.

e) it may be a visionary experience not shared by Peter and the rest.

Again, I can prefer one, or more, of these, but I cannot know and cannot with due difference to honesty say that one of them is more likely than the others.

I do not consider much in the gospels to be "gospel truth", really. I think most of it represents an effort to give narrative structure to the collations of "Jesus sayings" that may have been in circulation toward the end of the First Century; I further think that most of the narrative elements are A) culled from run-of-the-mill folklore, B) attempts to make the historical kernel of Jeshua fit with the emergent Christology of Paul's disciples, or C) attempts to flesh out and create "teaching stories" for the relating and memorization of the Christian mysteries.

But, as I am not a Christian, and since I do not have a book to sell (unlike everyone in the Jesus Seminar) what I think hardly matters.

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Grassaf, Eolas

We can't make any determination about the truthfulness? I think you are right we can't make any conclusion about the truthfulness, but I think we can begin a determination, not just on concurrance, but also on content. For example, if X makes a supernatural claim about an even reported by three others who do not make the supernatural claim, doesn't that degrade the truthfulness of X' testimony? That seems pretty standard even in court cases today.


I don't think nothing is quite the right term. I agree with you reasons it may not have been mentioned, and we will get into those more as we progress, but it seems that many of these unique passages were important because it "fulfills prophecy", which seems to be a requirement of proof to authenticate Christ's claim (or those that claim it for him). The last mentions a doctrine not conceived until the Council of Nicea, can we not say anything about the "truthfulness" of this phrase actually from the mouth of Christ when none of the other Gospels report it?


Which again, may be true, but what does that say about the overall reliability as an historical document?


I think that is fair enough.


I agree with the rationalization, to a point. The text does not say it was confined to Bethlahem, it also includes "surrounding areas", so there is no way to fathom a guess how many infants were slaughtered if it had occurred. Further, I would expect a little more public outrage from an act against the general population as opposed to court maneuverings among the elite.


Well, we have to assume to some degree that this was something related to the apostles by the holy family. If they told this story, and thought it significant enough to tell, it seems a bit odd only one would note it. Wouldn't an officially sanctioned slaughter of children for a specific region leave some sort of mark on the community and the communities that surround it?


Fair enough.


Well, we are jumping ahead here a bit, but I'll count it as foreshadowing. Under current mainstream assessment, Mark is the first Gospel written and Luke and Matthew are said to "borrow" from him. Why would Matthew, who is an eyewitness borrow from Mark, who was not?


But, we also have to keep in mind that the prologue in Luke states that he means to lay the story out correctly as there have been many other "versions" out there. In other words, he's trying to set the record strait. Its only in Luke and Matthew that we have a nativity scene at all. So if Luke is setting the record strait, and he supposedly follows Matthew, why would he omit it if he means for it to have the "official" connotation he means to give it?


For the record, I don't think he was the author either.



a.) my preference

b.) though his version follows a version that already admits it?

c.) a possibility which only leads us to a dead end

d.) can we consider it history then, and how are we to know where the poet stops and starts?

e.) that's quite a vision, but then we have to ask, is Matthew delusional, and if so, how trustworthy is his testimony as a whole?



So, would you say the Gospels, as a whole, cannot be treated as histories or even very reliable biographies?

-TC

Why does it strike as so unlikely. There is a major event happening in Galilee at this time:


This was 4 BCE.

No, I wouldn't go that far. Again, people believed in visions, and I think this is more likely where Matthew picks this up, although we certainly cannot be certain whether it's his vision or someone else's.

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

I'm not trying to be evasive here, but you really have to take much of what Josephus supposedly writes with a very large grain of salt, particularly in this area. An occurrence of that magnitude should show up in sources closer to that time period but they appear not to be. First of all, we do not know if Josephus actually wrote what you posted, especially since most historians are convinced that some of the more Christian references may well have been inserted later. Secondly, even if Josephus did write it, who's his source?

Most Christian and Jewish theologians that I have read pretty much dismiss it as historical and feel that it's really an attempt to link Jesus with Moses. But since I wasn't there, I certainly will not bet the house on either possibility, but it does seem that a story of that magnitude should have shown up elsewhere.

__________________
"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."-- Einstein

Metis, this account is also in the War of the Jews:


If it's stated in multiple books, and no historian as far as I know has ever made the charge that this is interpolated in two different works of Josephus.

One interesting speculation is that Jesus's family was accused of this sedition, and they fled into Judea and then into parts of Northeastern Egypt to get away from Varus's men.

Can you paint your scenario for me as to why this is significant. I don't mean this as being obtuse, I just don't want to assume anything. Exactly what are you saying in relation to its relevance to the slaughter of the innocents as being an historical event?

-TC

But, if we take these visions into account, and assume they were important to the culture of the time, can we consider them historical, (the events of the vision itself)? A vision is not an event, so if we are writing things off as visions, can we do away with the texts as historical?

-TC