Did Herod really kill the infants of Bethlehem? Matthew 2:16

The passages

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, according to the time which he had diligently enquired of the wise men.

Matthew 2:16

The problem

Josephus wrote at length about Herod the Great and recorded his murders of his own sons, his wife Mariamne, and a long list of rivals. He does not mention an event in Bethlehem. Neither do Luke or any other Christian writer of the first century. A later Roman writer, Macrobius, repeats a joke that it is better to be Herod's pig than his son, but he seems to confuse that with the killing of Herod's own children.

What believers and scholars say

It was a small event. Bethlehem was a village. Estimates of the population vary, but a figure of perhaps a few hundred people would mean that the number of boys under two was small, perhaps a dozen or so. An event at that scale, set amid Herod's wider cruelty, might not have made a record, and Josephus did not write about everything.

Josephus was selective. Defenders also note that Josephus has gaps and that many of Herod's acts were not described by him. The silence of one source is weak evidence.

A literary creation. Many historians, including Brown, think the story is Matthew's construction, built on the Moses story in Exodus 1 (Pharaoh's decree to kill Hebrew boys) and on the quotation of Jeremiah 31:15 in Matthew 2:18. Herod's reputation made it credible to readers. The absence of any other source supports this, but absence does not prove it.

Where this leaves it

The event is consistent with what we know of Herod. It is also exactly the sort of story that could have been shaped by a parallel with Moses. Historians who weigh silence heavily lean toward the second explanation, and those who consider the Gospels reliable lean toward the first. The sources do not allow a firm decision.