if herod killed all the babies how did john the baptist survive ?

Question

john the baptist was also a descendent of king david and would have been in bethlehem for the census. jesus escaped to ethiopa but how did john survive the reported massacre ?

Answer 1

Two parts to the answer.
1) John was 6 months older than Jesus. He was still the first born of his parents, though.

2) John lived in a different area. The babies in the Bethlehem area were targeted - not the whole of Israel.

Answer 2

John the Baptist's mother was related to Jesus. His father was a Levite so they would have gone to Jerusalem for the census.

The accounts of the birth and early life of Jesus given in Matthew and Luke were written long after his death and could not have been from first hand experience. They are probably mostly collected pious legend.

The slaughter of the innocents has a parallel with the death of the first born at the time of the passover. The first born Egyptians died and the Hebrew people left to go to the Promised Land. In Matthew, the first born sons of David died and Jesus left to go to Egypt. Look on both as theological constructs rather than literal history.

Answer 3

Herod had all the babies 2 years old on down killed, One way you can look at this is John was 6 months older that Jesus, Therefore John would had been over 2 yrs. Old

Answer 4

Mary's cousin Elisabeth begat John the Immerser. John was but 6+ months older than Jesus. After the Angel of the Lord tells Mary she will conceive a child "Luke 1:36: And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age: and this is the sixth month with her, who was called barren. Luke 1:41: And it came to pass, that, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost"

Mary stayed with Elisabeth for an additional 3 months before she left. "Luke 1:56: And Mary abode with her about three months, and returned to her own house." Elisabeth is now about ready to conceive. Mary has left before the birth.

Between Luke 1 and Luke 2, we are not given enough information to base any time frame upon. Luke 2 begins with the census that Joseph and Mary have to go register for and the birth of Christ.

There are NO scriptures that give the answer you are seeking and no one here knows the answer.
The only clear cut info we can glean from scripture is that Elisabeth was at least 6 months pregnant with John, when Mary visited her after the Angel told her she would become pregnant.

Answer 5

The Bible doesn't specifically say, but John was of the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe, and his father most likely served at the tabernacle. It's possible he was able to use his office as a protection for his family. Either way, John and his parents must have had God's protection during that time period so that John could grow to maturity and pave the way for the promised Messiah, Jesus Christ. And, as others have stated, John and Jesus weren't infants but rather toddlers at this point in time. John may have already been too old for the edict to have affected him.

Answer 6

John the Baptist was considerably older than Jesus. Herod's decree was to kill all the first born sons under the age of two.

Ethiopia? Egypt, surely? The flight to Egypt?

Answer 7

Herod killed all baby's under 2 so evidently John and his perant had left. the magi came up to 2 years after the birth at least 18 months later not as depicted in most nativity Sean's at the birth

Answer 8

I think you'll find that John the Baptist was a little older than Jesus and wasn't a new born baby. I am also sure that he was in a different area/country at the time of Jesus's birth.

Answer 9

John did not live in Bethlehem. It was only the children 2 years and under that were killed in Bethlehem. Does this help?

Answer 10

Herod's order came two years after Christ and John were born. Jesus went to Egypt, John would have returned to his home also, so who knows? But one thing we do know, is that he did escape it, and probably many more people as well.