The Massacre of the Innocents

Carter’s dive into the afterlives of Matthew’s Massacre of the Innocents is a game-changer for the field of reception history. His careful attention to the event of meaning-making, his willingness to name and call-out numerous contexts of oppression, and his ability to write clearly and effectively make this a superb text for theological education. From ancient manuscripts to modern headlines, from indigenous art to children’s bibles, Carter’s work not only examines the way people throughout history have “thought with” this text, it also beckons readers to reflect on the ways they too have “thought with” Matthew.

Warren Carter has provided us with an informative and provocative survey of diverse ways in which readers/viewers/hearers have interacted with three poignant verses in Matthew’s Gospel (2:16-18) that narrate Herod’s massacre of the innocents. All told, Carter helps us to “read with” Matthew in diverse circumstances regarding a text that remains unfortunately timely given the continued prevalence of massacres in our own particular contexts.

With typical thoroughness, Warren Carter has written on one of the most riveting episodes in Matthew’s Gospel: King Herod sending soldiers to massacre young children in Bethlehem. This scene, as evidenced by a wide range of examples, has attracted the attention of theologians, artists, poets, playwrights, and musicians for centuries - as people in varying times and places wrestle with the enduring dynamic of tyrant, victims, and acts of unjust violence that Matthew’s narrative portrays. Carter’s approach reframes the concept of reception history from a static view in which the Biblical text “acts” on an audience to one in which readers “think with” the scene from a variety of perspectives. This stance is welcome, insofar as it opens space for diverse readers to read, respond to, and engage the Gospel story in their own ways - including the possibility of continuing to use Matthew’s narrative to address injustice and acts of violence in the world as so many have before.

Warren Carter is the LaDonna Kramer Meinders Professor of New Testament at Phillips Seminary in Tulsa, Oklahoma.