The killing of children by Herod is only recorded in the New Testament. Therefore it is a fabrication. Response?
Question:
How would you respond to people who say “King Herod’s murder of the children is only mentioned in the New Testament. Therefore, it is automatically wrong” or “The murder of the children by Herod was copied from the child massacre in the events with Moses and therefore is made up”?
Answer:
The vast majority of all things which happened in the ancient Near East is not recorded in any history. The New Testament has been shown again and again to be reliable history. Particularly notable is the historical reliability of Luke/Acts, with several events in Acts having been confirmed by other sources. The fact that the murder of the Jewish children is only recorded in the New Testament is not evidence that the event did not happen. On the contrary, it would be very surprising and unexpected for us to find this event recorded in any other history. Whose history would record this?
In fact, the recording of this event, though not exactly proof, is strong evidence that it did in fact happen. Why would the gospel writers invent events out of nothing, when many eye-witnesses were still around who could either confirm or deny facts–especially ones so rememberable as the killings of the children by Herod. People can say what they will, and they can speculate as they like, but it seems to me extremely unlikely that the author of Matthew would simply make up the event–to tell a lie–in order to “prove” the connection between Jesus and Moses. To tell such a lie would NOT lend credence to Jesus Christ, to say the least. It would destroy any credibility to the other events recorded in Matthew. Clearly, Matthew believed in the type/antitype relationship between Moses and Jesus. If he believed in this, then why would he create fake stories to back up what he clearly believed? No, this theory makes no sense at all.
John Oakes
