There are writers who defend the historicity of the massacre. R. T. France states that the massacre was a low magnitude event of a nature that would not have demanded the attention of Josephus but was in line with Herod's character.[173] Paul L. Maier argues that Bethlehem was small, and the massacre would have been too small for Josephus to have heard of it given that it allegedly took place over 40 years before his own birth.[174] Paul Barnett and, separately, Craig L. Blomberg also state that Bethlehem was a very small village with few inhabitants, and the massacre would have involved too few children to have been recorded by historians in general.[175][176]