Nonsensical Nativity Narratives
• Popular Culture
Most Christians don’t know that the Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus Christ contradict one another. Or that many popular images associated with the nativity are accretions from post-Biblical times.
The two Gospel accounts have been more or less homogenised, strenuously by scholars, but lazily by all who decline to think there are differences between them, or that the differences matter; or who don’t mind whether any of the incidents described actually happened. Few of us could say offhand whether the episode of the Roman tax census is reported in Luke or in Matthew, or whether there was such a census; or which of them includes the circumcision, or introduces Herod’s crafty consultation with the Magi. The various episodes are either forgotten or mixed randomly together in our minds and the minds of our children, who see no objection to adding Santa Claus, reindeers, Christmas trees, intolerable pop songs, office parties and so forth, to the Nativity mix.
Frank Kermode reviews The Nativity: History and Legend by Geza Vermes: Was it a supernova?