MATTHEW AND
THE DEAD BABIES
Hugh
Matthew's
tale of infanticide (Matthew
This
story is ONLY found in one gospel, Matthew. According to the author of Matthew,
in and around
If
such an awful crime had actually happened it would have been recorded
elsewhere: in other gospels’ in secular histories; or in both. Mankind just
wasn’t that primitive and barbaric that people would have overlooked this awful
event with the greatest literary tradition in the world of that time. The
Jewish scriptures are man's earliest known attempt at a comprehensive history,
and as such they are impressive along with historians from
At
the time when Herod's decree was supposedly issued, there was great political
unrest in the land. Such a decree would have surely sparked a Jewish rebellion.
Yet, no account of any such rebellion is to be found. The fact that the only
source of this event is only one book in the Christian Bible, contradicts all
recorded historical events. It is well-known that Herod was loathed during his
reign, and many far less evil acts that Herod committed were carefully recorded
in several historical sources. An act of this magnitude would never have been
left out of any account in which Herod was involved. Furthermore, this horrible
offense was supposed to have occurred in a place that is very important to the
Jewish people, in
So,
why was it so important for Matthew to make up this story? In the overall
context of the New Testament gospel, this story just makes no sense. Why tell a
story of innocent babies being slaughtered in an attempt to kill Jesus if, according
to Christianity, God sent Jesus to earth to be killed so that mankind through him might be saved? What point did it prove? Unless
of course, Matthew was trying to force a prophecy to come true. “Then was fulfilled that which was spoken through
Jeremiah the prophet, saying, "In Rama was there a voice heard, lamentation, and weeping, and
great mourning, Rachel is weeping for her children, and will not be comforted,
because they are no more.” (Matthew 2:17)
The
original scripture which Matthew was trying to report was from Jeremiah
31:15-16 in the Hebrew Bible. "Thus says God: a voice in Rama
I hear. It is wailing, weeping bitterness. Rachael is weeping for her children.
She refuses to be comforted for her children, who are gone."
Then at the end of verse 16, God tells Rachael her children shall return from
the enemy’s land. "Thus says God: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from
tears, for your work shall be rewarded says God; And they shall come back from
the land of the enemy, and there is hope for their future says God, and your
children shall return to their own border."
Wait!
The KJV in Matthew’s story said that all the children were slain. This is a
typical ruse of using a text out of context as "proof" of a so-called
Christian prophecy fulfilled. As you can now clearly see, in no way is this
verse from Jeremiah 31, a prophecy that the children of
Was Matthew confused? Was Matthew copying what he read about
Moses in Exodus 1:15 when the King of Egypt committed “infanticide,” killing
all the male babies because his astrologers told him that the savior of the
Jews was about to be born? Probably so!
Christians
have yet another problem. If John the Baptist was six months older than
Jesus, how did he escape the massacre that only Matthew wrote about? Matthew 2: (KJV) 16 "Then Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was
exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years
old and under." Remember, no historian of this time mentions any such
massacre. Perhaps this is why the events of John the Baptist never discussed
this atrocity. The early Church assumed that according to Matthew thousands of
babies were killed in the massacre."
The late great Raymond Brown, the top conservative Christian Bible scholar of
our time, wrote the currently definitive book on the infancy narratives, "The Birth Of The
Messiah."This book devoted 752 pages to
the infancy narratives of "Matthew" and "Luke." At the end
of the book Brown concludes that the infancy narratives of Matthew and Luke cannot
be reconciled and come from two different traditions. Non-Christians ask; “why should there be any
different traditions in the story of Jesus’ birth? If Jesus was in someway
connected to be part of God, in the God-head and if the New Testament was Godly
inspired, why would any stories in the Gospels contradict each other?
The
New Testament's story of Jesus is fiction, replete with historical
inaccuracies, inventions and tales that have no support at all in
history. This is easily demonstrated by just examining the Story of
Herod's decree as shown above.
Herod’s
slaugher story is just one of many examples that
reveal how the authors of the Christian Bible intended to ensure the
propagation of their new religion. By fabricating events, tying them to verses
in the Hebrew Bible and then proclaiming the authenticity of Jesus' messiahship, the early Christians hoped to gain acceptance.
The
inventors and authors of Christianity blatantly fabricate history with a
careful eye to one objective, selling their pagan dead man-god, Jesus to
the ignorant. Using such fake events to incite tempers and indignation,
Christian authors did all they could to ensure that Christianity was
embraced and cultivated.
Never in their wildest dreams did the Christian
authors ever envision an educated populace who could unravel their lies,
exposing them bare for the entire world to see. Any intelligent and honest person can
clearly see that the New Testament is not the work of God, but a fiction―no more, no less. Blind faith does not create
truth. "As God created our minds, He
expects us to use our reasoning together with our faith. Faith is not a
substitute for reason, but a development from it and alongside it."