When the Savior Was Born

This much we know: Jesus of Nazareth was born and raised in a time of horrifying violence.

Modern scholars often dismiss the gospel story of the slaughter of the innocents as mere legend, but it’s virtually certain that far worse atrocities were committed around the time when Jesus was born.  When Herod the Great died around the year 4 BC, a bloody revolt broke out in the Galilee region, centered in the newly founded Greek city of Sepphoris (…