THIS MIGHT SURPRISE YOU
The answer
Disagree. Josephus catalogued Herod's brutalities — a wife, three sons, rivals — yet says nothing of Bethlehem, and no source outside Matthew records the event. Scholars weigh the silence differently: a village atrocity involving perhaps a dozen boys could escape the record, or Matthew may be telling the story in the shape of Pharaoh and Moses.
Why it’s interesting
A dozen village boys would be a footnote beside Herod's executions of his own sons — which is exactly why the silence settles nothing by itself. Matthew mourns them with a verse from Jeremiah: Rachel weeping for her children.
Scholarly consensus
You can know the Bible.
Not just the stories, but the history, authorship, and scholarship behind it.