I started reading the article in National Geographic this morning and was stunned at how brilliantly Herod was portrayed in the opening paragraphs and how his murderous character was essentially shrugged off: "Ah shucks, that's what those crazy kings were like I guess." The violent megalomania of Herod was, as Dr. Blomberg points out, perfectly suited to the kind of character Matthew describes in his account, and perfectly suited to carry out this type of act. Thanks for providing the reasoning for why Josephus (or other historians) would not have included this in his writing, and for reporting on the scale of the genocide. Dave Fields