Massacre of Innocents. In the New Testament, the Massacre of the Innocents is the incident in the nativity narrative of the Gospel of Matthew in which Herod the Great, king of Judea, orders the execution of all male children two years old and under in the vicinity of Bethlehem.
A majority of Herod biographers, and robably a majority of biblical scholars, hold the event to be myth or folklore. The Catholic Church has claimed the children murdered in Jesus's stead as the first Christian martyrs, and their feast; Holy Innocents Day; is celebrated on 28 December.
Matthew's story is found in no other gospel, and the Jewish historian Josephus does not mention it in his Antiquities of the Jews, which records many of Herod's misdeeds including the murder of three of his own sons. Most modern biographers of Herod dismiss the story as an invention.
Classical historian Michael Grant, for instance, statedThe tale is not history but myth or folk-lore. It appears to be modeled on Pharaoh's attempt to kill the Israelite children, and more specifically on various elaborations of the original story that had become current in the 1st century.
In that expanded story, Pharaoh kills the Hebrew children after his scribes warn him of the impending birth of the threat to his crown, but Moses's father and mother are warned in a dream that the child's life is in danger and act to save him. Later in life, after Moses has to fl
A majority of Herod biographers, and robably a majority of biblical scholars, hold the event to be myth or folklore. The Catholic Church has claimed the children murdered in Jesus's stead as the first Christian martyrs, and their feast; Holy Innocents Day; is celebrated on 28 December.
Matthew's story is found in no other gospel, and the Jewish historian Josephus does not mention it in his Antiquities of the Jews, which records many of Herod's misdeeds including the murder of three of his own sons. Most modern biographers of Herod dismiss the story as an invention.
Classical historian Michael Grant, for instance, statedThe tale is not history but myth or folk-lore. It appears to be modeled on Pharaoh's attempt to kill the Israelite children, and more specifically on various elaborations of the original story that had become current in the 1st century.
In that expanded story, Pharaoh kills the Hebrew children after his scribes warn him of the impending birth of the threat to his crown, but Moses's father and mother are warned in a dream that the child's life is in danger and act to save him. Later in life, after Moses has to fl
Wikipedia ...