{"id":3567,"date":"2013-11-10T15:32:38","date_gmt":"2013-11-10T15:32:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=3567"},"modified":"2013-11-13T21:00:28","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T21:00:28","slug":"slaughter-of-the-innocents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2013\/11\/10\/slaughter-of-the-innocents\/","title":{"rendered":"Slaughter of the innocents"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s another one from Julian Haydon which is of interest as it is something I brought up in my last book, The Nativity: A Critical Examination<\/em> (available from the sidebar):<\/p>\n

O BEAUTIFUL STAR OF BETHLEHEM?<\/p>\n

IT CAUSED THE SLAUGHTER OF EVERY MALE BABY UNDER TWO IN BETHLEHEM AND VICINITY<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Surely both, that the star appeared and the wise men knew to follow it to find the baby Jesus, was a miracle. Can there be any doubt?So why did it lead them to Jerusalem, the wrong town —\u00a0and much worse — to Herod,\u00a0who only became aware of His\u00a0rival after the wise men inquired about the new born King of the Jews? It was\u00a0then<\/i>\u00a0that Herod resolved\u00a0to kill Jesus.<\/p>\n

Herod told the wise men in effect, “Go to Bethlehem, find Jesus, and then return to me so I can go and worship him too.” This\u00a0time the star took the wise men unerringly, not just to Bethlehem, but\u00a0to the very house of Mary and Jesus!<\/i>\u00a0There, they were warned in a dream not to go back to Herod.<\/p>\n

Herod, furious that he was not obeyed, then decreed<\/i>\u00a0that\u00a0every boy in Bethlehem and its immediate vicinity, age two and under, be put to death.<\/p>\n

Why\u00a0didn’t the “miracle”\u00a0of the star lead the wise men to\u00a0baby Jesus in the first place\u00a0so there would never have been a slaughter of the innocents?<\/i><\/p>\n

Was it God’s intention that\u00a0they\u00a0be slaughtered? He surely knew they would be. In fact, Christians claim it was so prophesied in scripture:<\/p>\n

“Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they were no more.” (Matthew 2:17)<\/p>\n

It is not possible that a loving, just and merciful God, who is all-powerful and knows everything that has ever happened or will ever happen, could do such a thing.<\/p>\n

It is yet more proof-positive that the whole Christian story is a man-made farrago of impossibilities, contradictions, some good advice, much barbaric advice and the absolute nadir of evil: eternal punishment forever for most of all humanity, by a God who is very definition of justice, love, mercy and forgiveness!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Surely both, that the star appeared and the wise men knew to follow it to find the baby Jesus, was a miracle. Can there be any doubt? So why did it lead them to Jerusalem, the wrong town — and much worse — to Herod, who only became aware of His rival after the wise men inquired about the new born King of the Jews? It was then that Herod resolved to kill Jesus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1054,9,14],"tags":[1049,110,238,197],"class_list":["post-3567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-gods-characteristics","category-morality","tag-slaughter-of-the-innocents","tag-star-of-bethlehem","tag-the-nativity-2","tag-the-nativity-a-critical-examination"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3567\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}