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16 When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:
18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
Baloney.
Anyone who decides to check Jeremiah for themselves will find that Jeremiah wasn't referring at all to slaughtered children. Here is what Jeremiah actually says:
Quote:
15 This is what the Lord actually says:
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
mourning and great weeping,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
16 This is what the Lord says:
“Restrain your voice from weeping
and your eyes from tears, [Rachel]
for your work will be rewarded,”
declares the Lord.
“They [the children Rachel is weeping for] will return from the land of the enemy.
17 So there is hope for your descendants,”
declares the Lord.
“Your children will return to their own land.
So we can clearly see that Rachel is weeping because her children have gone off to foreign lands and are "no more". But God promises Rachel that they will return to Israel.
Additionally, if you look at a map of Israel you will see that Ramah is nowhere near Bethlehem, where Herod slaughtered what historians now believe are not more than maybe a half-dozen children. Actually it is about 11 miles or 18 kilometers. More importantly, Jerusalem lies half-way between Ramah and Bethlehem and contained more children than all the 50 or so towns and settlements in the vicinity put together, so why didn't Herod include Jerusalem in the area he wanted his soldiers to go into:
There are a lot of reasons to assume whoever wrote Matthew just made the incident up:
1. no other NT writer makes mention of it
2. no historical evidence exists--it is not mentioned in Roman nor Jewish records. Josephus certainly would have recorded it, but he didn't.
3. such an event likely would have touched off a rebellion
4. Herod may have been ruthless, but he was no Caligula
Anyone who decides to check Jeremiah for themselves will find that Jeremiah wasn't referring at all to slaughtered children. Here is what Jeremiah actually says:
So we can clearly see that Rachel is weeping because her children have gone off to foreign lands and are "no more". But God promises Rachel that they will return to Israel.
Additionally, if you look at a map of Israel you will see that Ramah is nowhere near Bethlehem, where Herod slaughtered what historians now believe are not more than maybe a half-dozen children. Actually it is about 11 miles or 18 kilometers. More importantly, Jerusalem lies half-way between Ramah and Bethlehem and contained more children than all the 50 or so towns and settlements in the vicinity put together, so why didn't Herod include Jerusalem in the area he wanted his soldiers to go into:
There are a lot of reasons to assume whoever wrote Matthew just made the incident up:
1. no other NT writer makes mention of it
2. no historical evidence exists--it is not mentioned in Roman nor Jewish records. Josephus certainly would have recorded it, but he didn't.
3. such an event likely would have touched off a rebellion
4. Herod may have been ruthless, but he was no Caligula
So, ancient writers quoted verses out of context for their own purposes. Imagine that!
Isn't it nice to have posters that know more than Matthew(, who actually wrote this and was a student of Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. NOT. And yes, Herod was that evil. He had ordered that a large number of Jewish citizens be executed on the occasion of his own death, so that there would be guaranteed weeping at the time of his death. If I remember correctly, Josephus records this in his writings. Or maybe the OP wants to correct Josephus too.
Isn't it nice to have posters that know more than Matthew(, who actually wrote this and was a student of Jesus), and the Holy Spirit. NOT. And yes, Herod was that evil. He had ordered that a large number of Jewish citizens be executed on the occasion of his own death, so that there would be guaranteed weeping at the time of his death. If I remember correctly, Josephus records this in his writings. Or maybe the OP wants to correct Josephus too.
First of all, every historian worth his salt knows that the apostle Matthew did NOT write the gospel that bears his name.
Quote:
The Gospel of Matthew is anonymous: the author is not named within the text, nowhere does he claim to have been an eyewitness to events, and the superscription "according to Matthew" was not part of the first editions. The Gospel of Matthew was composed between 70 and 110, with most scholars preferring the period 80-90. The anonymous author was probably a highly educated Jew, intimately familiar with the technical aspects of Jewish law
Matthew was not educated enough to compose such a highly detailed Greek manuscript. Plain and simple.
Second of all, the fact that Josephus recorded all of Herod's other atrocities proves beyond a shadow of doubt that he was too good a historian to just skip over something as horrendous as Herod slaughtering babies just to try to kill one infant he had no proof was a threat to him other than an obscure scripture 600 years old.
Do you realize what this implies? That Herod was smart enough to recognize Jesus was the Messiah when the scriptures plainly state that Jesus would NOT be recognized as the Messiah.
Likely, the author of Matthew wanted to stress what kind of monster Herod was so he grabbed any one of a dozen OT scriptures that could be broadly interpreted to mean children being killed, but "they were no more" barely implies death. As you can see from the succeeding passage the explanation Jeremiah gives is that the children were not murdered but absent from Israel. How can anyone fail to notice this?
The easy way out is to just suggest there's double meaning. Why not triple or even quadruple meaning? Not good enough, let's go for quintuple or sextuple meaning.
The writer of the Gospel of Matthew was not the Apostle Matthew as is generally now recognized. He obviously didn't witness the events he described or he wouldn't have copied 95% of Mark's text (who was also a non-witness).
And since Luke has Jesus born in 6 AD during the census of Judea by the Roman governor Quirinius, Herod who died in 4 BC had been dead for ten years, so his Slaughter of the Innocent, Magi and Star stories, and the trip to Egyptstory would be chronically impossible.
The writer of the Gospel of Matthew was not the Apostle Matthew as is generally now recognized. He obviously didn't witness the events he described or he wouldn't have copied 95% of Mark's text (who was also a non-witness).
What is your source or that? Or are you going to use the standard fallback of "most scholars..."?
Quote:
And since Luke has Jesus born in 6 AD during the census of Judea by the Roman governor Quirinius, Herod who died in 4 BC had been dead for ten years, so his Slaughter of the Innocent, Magi and Star stories, and the trip to Egyptstory would be chronically impossible.
Riiiiiight.......
I'm sure no one alive at the time of Luke would have been smart enough to realize that.
Anyone who decides to check Jeremiah for themselves will find that Jeremiah wasn't referring at all to slaughtered children. Here is what Jeremiah actually says:
So we can clearly see that Rachel is weeping because her children have gone off to foreign lands and are "no more". But God promises Rachel that they will return to Israel.
Additionally, if you look at a map of Israel you will see that Ramah is nowhere near Bethlehem, where Herod slaughtered what historians now believe are not more than maybe a half-dozen children. Actually it is about 11 miles or 18 kilometers. More importantly, Jerusalem lies half-way between Ramah and Bethlehem and contained more children than all the 50 or so towns and settlements in the vicinity put together, so why didn't Herod include Jerusalem in the area he wanted his soldiers to go into:
There are a lot of reasons to assume whoever wrote Matthew just made the incident up:
1. no other NT writer makes mention of it
2. no historical evidence exists--it is not mentioned in Roman nor Jewish records. Josephus certainly would have recorded it, but he didn't.
3. such an event likely would have touched off a rebellion
4. Herod may have been ruthless, but he was no Caligula
Matthew 2:16-18
Baloney.
Anyone who decides to check Jeremiah for themselves will find that Jeremiah wasn't referring at all to slaughtered children. Here is what Jeremiah actually says:
So we can clearly see that Rachel is weeping because her children have gone off to foreign lands and are "no more". But God promises Rachel that they will return to Israel.
Additionally, if you look at a map of Israel you will see that Ramah is nowhere near Bethlehem, where Herod slaughtered what historians now believe are not more than maybe a half-dozen children. Actually it is about 11 miles or 18 kilometers. More importantly, Jerusalem lies half-way between Ramah and Bethlehem and contained more children than all the 50 or so towns and settlements in the vicinity put together, so why didn't Herod include Jerusalem in the area he wanted his soldiers to go into:
https://www.google.com/search?q=rama...tm%3B400%3B400
There are a lot of reasons to assume whoever wrote Matthew just made the incident up:
1. no other NT writer makes mention of it
2. no historical evidence exists--it is not mentioned in Roman nor Jewish records. Josephus certainly would have recorded it, but he didn't.
3. such an event likely would have touched off a rebellion
4. Herod may have been ruthless, but he was no Caligula
Thrillobyte, wherever you got all this information from is wrong on so many levels and shows no understanding of biblical history or prophecy.
1. Jeremiah was referring to both the slaughter, and also to Joseph, Mary, and Jesus getting out of Bethlehem and going to Egypt to avoid the slaughter. That's why it says the Lord told Rachel "they shall come again from the land of the enemy." Rachel, the mother of the tribes of Benjamin (where Rama was located) and Joseph, figuratively represents all the mothers of Israel.
2. In Genesis 35:19 we're told "So Rachel died and was buried on the way Ephrath (that is, Bethlehem). You're right, that was some 10-12 miles from Bethlehem in Rama(h). However, what you are missing is very important. After the Jews were exiled for 70 years and came home, the countryside was in large part unrecognizable. Ezekiel 33:28 confirms this, "For I will lay the land most desolate, and the pomp of her strength shall cease; and the mountain of Israel shall be desolate, that none shall pass through it." Archaeologists have confirmed that many of the towns were destroyed during the exile. Now, let's fast forward to Christ's time. Rachel's tomb or sepulcher was relocated to its present day location about one mile north of Bethlehem. Obviously, this is what Matthew was talking about.
3. What does it matter that Matthew is the only one to record the event? Are you suggesting that because it was recorded only in The Bible it can not be true?
4. Many bible and secular scholars have speculated why it was that Josephus did not record this event. Since, as you stated only six or so were killed, perhaps it did not warrant mention. After all, Herod killed three of his own children, one wife, and some 300 of his soldiers. There were other events Josephus did not record like the golden shields which caused the bad blood between Herod and Pilate.
5. Why didn't Herod send his soldiers into Jerusalem? Because in Matthew 2:1-12 we are told that when Herod heard the Magi were in Jerusalem looking for "The King of The Jews," Herod, the self-professed king of the Jews, "....called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. "'In Bethlehem, in Judea,'" they replied, '"for this is what the prophet has written."' Matthew 2:4-5. Herod then sent the Magi to Bethlehem and they confirmed they had seen Jesus, the Messiah. Why would Herod waste time sending his troops to Jerusalem when he knew Jesus was in Bethlehem?
6. Such an event would have set off a rebellion. The murder of six babies is terrible. But, the Jews were in no position to challenge Herod and his soldiers.
7. Herod was no Caligula:
Quote:
In 1988 I was attending a lecture at the Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies by Dr. Isaiah Gafni, a leading authority on the Second Temple period at the Hebrew University. His topic was the life of Herod the Great. Sitting next to me was Dr. Bruce Narramore, a Christian psychologist from Biola University.
Dr. Gafni recounted a seminar that was held at Hebrew University a few years before. Attending it were historians and archaeologists of the Second Temple period as well as psychiatrists and psychologists. They laid out (figuratively speaking) Herod the Great on the psychiatric couch and preceded to psychoanalyze him. The historians explained a recurring pattern in the life of Herod. He would hear a rumor that somebody was going to bump him off and take over his throne, but Herod would kill that person first. He would then go into depression. After awhile he would come out of his depression and would build, build, build. He would hear another rumor and would kill that person, then go into another depression. After awhile he would come out of this depression and would build, build, build. This cycle repeated itself a number of times in which numerous people were killed, including one of his ten wives as well as three of his sons! The shrinks diagnosed Herod the Great as a paranoid schizophrenic. Kasher, Aryeh; with Witztum, Eliezer 2007 King Herod: A Persecuted Persecutor. Trans. by K. Gold. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Last edited by bartstarr1960; 10-19-2013 at 05:27 PM..
Anyone who decides to check Jeremiah for themselves will find that Jeremiah wasn't referring at all to slaughtered children. Here is what Jeremiah actually says:
So we can clearly see that Rachel is weeping because her children have gone off to foreign lands and are "no more". But God promises Rachel that they will return to Israel.
Additionally, if you look at a map of Israel you will see that Ramah is nowhere near Bethlehem, where Herod slaughtered what historians now believe are not more than maybe a half-dozen children. Actually it is about 11 miles or 18 kilometers. More importantly, Jerusalem lies half-way between Ramah and Bethlehem and contained more children than all the 50 or so towns and settlements in the vicinity put together, so why didn't Herod include Jerusalem in the area he wanted his soldiers to go into:
There are a lot of reasons to assume whoever wrote Matthew just made the incident up:
1. no other NT writer makes mention of it
2. no historical evidence exists--it is not mentioned in Roman nor Jewish records. Josephus certainly would have recorded it, but he didn't.
3. such an event likely would have touched off a rebellion
4. Herod may have been ruthless, but he was no Caligula
Actually, it's unlikely that Bethlehem was even Jesus's birthplace. None of the gospel narratives make any sense with that regard, and are even contradictory.
quote: Luke 2:1-7 describes Joseph and Mary as residents of Nazareth in the Galilee. They would have had to travel for about a week to cover the approximately 90 miles (140 km) from Nazareth in the Galilee south to Bethlehem in Judea. Luke says that they had to do this in order to take part in the Roman census and taxation. Jesus was born whilethey were in Bethlehem. This version of the Christmas story seems a little strange, for many reasons:
In 1st century Judea women "...were considered second-class citizens, akin to slaves."Only Joseph would be required to register with the authorities, because "the husband was the spiritual and legal head of the house." The presence of his teenaged fiancé or wife would be redundant. Mary would hardly have made the 100 mile trip while about 9 months pregnant unless it was absolutely necessary. Joseph would have traveled without Mary, and probably in a group to give better protection from bandits. Aviram Oshri, a senior archaeologist with the Israeli Antiquities Authority (IAA), has said: "Basic medical knowledge tells you that a heavily pregnant woman could not ride a donkey that kind of distance without losing her baby." Although medical knowledge was primitive in those days, that much information would have been generally known. Joseph and Mary would not have had access to a method of transportation other than walking on foot or by riding on an animal. There is no record of a worldwide census as stated Luke having been made in the last decade BCE. If one had been conducted, it would have been so disruptive that its effects certainly would have been recorded at the time in many Roman documents. A local census was taken by Quirinius during 6 CE, but that would have been when Jesus was about ten years of age. Also, it was held in Judea, but not the Galilee where the Gospel of Matthew said that Joseph lived. It makes absolutely no sense to require Jews and other inhabitants of the Roman Empire to return to their ancestral town for registration. The economy of the Empire would be devastated if everyone had to make such a visit. The transportation facilities would be hopelessly overloaded. Censuses are generally taken where people live -- in ancient times and now. Circa 6 BCE, when Jesus was believed to have be born, it would have been impractical to require adults to return to the ancestral city of their tribe. Because of the extermination and scattering of Jews in the Northern Kingdom, and the enslavement and exile of the remaining Jews in Babylon of whom relatively few returned, many, if not most, Jews in Judea at the time would not be aware of their tribal identification.
end quote Where was Jesus born?#
Further, Mark contradicts Matthew by identifying Nazareth as Jesus' hometown--the place where he was born.
There was a great deal of apologetic additions to the scriptures over the years to help Jesus "fit in" to the various misunderstood prophecies of the OT. The mere fact that Nazareth was written as Jesus hometown by Mark is in fact remarkable because there is no mention anywhere else historically of the town of Nazareth prior to the third century.
It is not out of the realm of possibility for murderous Herod to have slaughtered a few children (later church fathers wrote the number killed from a range of 3000 to 64,000 (both preposterous numbers), because he burned rabbis at the stake and even killed his own family members, his son four days before his own death. He was such a blood thirsty individual that Caesar once commented, "I would rather be Herod's pig than his son."
But on a purely historical basis, it appears Jesus was always a Nazarene.
Last edited by Wardendresden; 10-19-2013 at 07:45 PM..
Reason: formatting
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In 1st century Judea 
