J. D. Kingsbury also sees this chapter as an exercise in apologetics with the cooperation of the chief priests and scribes with Herod, as described in and , as prefiguring how the Jews and Gentiles will later respond to Christianity. American theologian Robert H. Gundry notes that persecution is an important theme of Matthew, who was writing at a time when a number of forces were working to crush the new religious movement. Paul L. Maier and R.T. France reject this however, France writing "What Christian writer of exemplary fiction would willingly chose Herod the Idumaean, of all unlikely candidates, to represent Israel, and a group of innocent children murdered in Bethlehem to stand for Israel's punishment."