Bart Ehrman and Some Dead Babies

Bart Ehrman

The following comes from Bart Ehrman:

“In terms of the historical record, I should also point out that there is no account in any ancient source whatsoever about King Herod slaughtering children in or around Bethlehem, or anyplace else. No other author, biblical or otherwise, mentions this event. Is it, like John's account of Jesus' death, a detail made up by Matthew in order to make some kind of theological point?”
 ― Bart D. Ehrman, Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible & Why We Don't Know About Them 

 I'm curious what Ehrman considers an "ancient source," and I mean that in all sincerity. No sarcasm. While it is true that no contemporary of Matthew, Biblical or otherwise, commented on it, we do have some quotes from only a short time later.

 First is the 2nd-century apocryphal Protoevangelium of James of c.150 AD:

"And when Herod knew that he had been mocked by the Magi, in a rage he sent murderers, saying to them: Slay the children from two years old and under. And Mary, having heard that the children were being killed, was afraid, and took the infant and swaddled Him, and put Him into an ox-stall. And Elizabeth, having heard that they were searching for John, took him and went up into the hill-country, and kept looking where to conceal him. And there was no place of concealment. And Elizabeth, groaning with a loud voice, says: O mountain of God, receive mother and child. And immediately the mountain was cleft, and received her. And a light shone about them, for an angel of the Lord was with them, watching over them." 

The first non-Christian reference to the massacre is recorded four centuries later by Macrobius (c. 395-423), who writes in his Saturnalia:

"When he [emperor Augustus] heard that among the boys in Syria under two years old whom Herod, king of the Jews, had ordered to kill, his own son was also killed, he said: it is better to be Herod's pig, than his son." 

Some skeptics view the story as being apocryphal or symbolic because it is not even mentioned by Josephus, but many scholars argue for its historicity. R. T. France argues for plausibility since “the murder of a few infants in a small village [is] not on a scale to match the more spectacular assassinations recorded by Josephus” and Gordon Franz points out that Josephus also fails to mention other important first century events, such as "the episode of the golden Roman shields in Jerusalem which was the cause of the bad blood between Herod Antipas and Pontus (sic) Pilate".

Also, Barclay finds Josephus' silence not relevant, comparing him to John Evelyn, who failed to mention the masscre at Glencoe. Paul L. Maier argues that skeptics and Biblical scholars alike have tended to "regard opinion as fact, and have largely avoided a careful historical search into the parameters of the problem". After analyzing the arguments against the historicity of the infant massacre Maier concludes they all "have very serious flaws". Maier follows Jerry Knoblet in arguing for historicity based on the "identical personality profiles that emerge of Herod" in both Matthew and Josephus.

While it may be true that no contemporary of Matthew mentions the massacre, and that certain parts of the Bible, even in the life of Jesus, are the product of later Christian interpolation, the jury is still out of the massacre of the infants. Scholars are divided and there are reasonable grounds to believe it happened, while arguments against its historicity "have very serious flaws." But despite what Ehrman thinks, the incident is mentioned by ancient authors, depending on his definition of "ancient," with the oldest reliable source being c.400 AD.

Ehrman on First Century References to Jesus

I recently stumbled across a quote by Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is a Biblical Scholar who started his career as an Evangelical Christian, but became an atheist due to the numerous (hundreds of thousands) of textual errors found in the Bible. Bart said the following in a 2010 debate:

The first thing I thought was, "What about Josephus?" Josephus was a Romano-Jewish Historian, meaning that he was a Roman of Jewish descent. Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, written around 93–94 AD, includes two references to Jesus in Books 18 and 20.

The first reference, known as the Testimonium Flavianum (meaning the testimony of Flavius [Josephus]) reads:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day; as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.

 There are numerous arguments for and against the Christian references in the writings of Josephus, and the Testimonium Flavianum is no different. Many scholars have different opinions regarding its authenticity.

However, it is generally agreed that the section was altered by Christian writers, most likely Eusebius in 324. Nevertheless, scholars also agree that the alteration was built around an authentic reference to the execution of Jesus.

One of the ways we know this is because we have found older copies of Josephus' writings which do not include these changes. In 1971, Schlomo Pines uncovered a 10th century Arabic version of the Testimonium which differs in small, but important, ways from the Greek text. For instance, the Arabic version does not blame the Jews for the death of Jesus. The key phrase "at the suggestion of the principal men among us" reads instead "Pilate condemned him to be crucified". And instead of "he was Christ," the Syriac version has the phrase "he was believed to be Christ".

In other words, Josephus does actually reference Jesus, but then Christian writers came and messed it up. So in Josephus, we have a first century reference to Jesus from a Roman historian and religious scholar. Bart Ehrman is mistaken.