The sources of the story

A Nativity scene is a depiction of Christ’s birth (thank you Captain Obvious). So it is no surprise that many components of the traditional nativity scene come from the Bible. But there are other sources as well.  Let’s take a look.

On This Page
The Gospels
The Other Biblical Sources
The Apocrypha
To Learn More

The Gospels

Two of the Gospels mention Jesus’ birth.

In the Gospel according to Luke, Emperor Augustus has ordered an ”universal” census (the Roman Emprire and its dependencies). Joseph, a descendant of King David, and his wife Mary travel from Nazareth in Galilee to his ancestral town, Bethlehem. There, Mary gives birth to Jesus. With no place at the inn, she lays him down in a manger. Informed by an angel, shepherds from nearby fields come see the newborn.

In the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus is born in Bethlehem. Wise men from the east visit hiim. Guided by a star, they have come to worship the new King of the Jews.  Herod, the King installed by Rome, orders the massacre of Bethlehem make children. Joseph, Mary and Jesus, who have fled to Egypt, later settle in Nazareth,

So we have two narrations, incomplete when taken separately, but complementary. We have the Holy Family, the mager, the shepherds, the angels, the wise men, the star. But… where are the barn and the animals? The Gospels do not mention them. Then, how do they appear in the representations of Jesus’ birth through the ages?

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The Other Biblical Sources

The Bible does not contain other narrations of Jesus’ birth. Christians have interpreted various texts from the Jewish prophets as annoucements of Jesus’ birth. Notably, Micah presents Bethlehem as the birthplace of ”a future ruler of Israel whose origins go back to the distant past, to the days of old” (Micah 5,2). Isiah tells of a great light and exclaims : ”For a son has been born for us, a son has been given to us” (Isiah 9, 5). That light wll become the star giding the Wise Men.

Tradition and depiction of Jesus’ birth will add these and other biblical text to  Luke’s and Matthew’s texts. For example, the present-bearing kings in Psalm 72 will become Matthew’s Wise Men.

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The Apocrypha

The apo-what? APOCRYPHA. The term refers to Jewish and Christian texts that were not retained was fixed. I will spare you the interpretetation of what is canonical or aprocrypha. Suffice to say that many ”gospels” were written during Christianity’s first centuries about Jesus’ life. Christian churches do not consider them to be canonical. However they contain some of the components of the traditional depictions of the Nativity.  Or is it the tradition that found its way in the apocrypha?

One of these texts, James’ Gospel, gives a cave has the location of Jesus’ birth. The apocrypha have also given us the depiction of Joseph as an old man, and the two animals in traditional nativity scenes, the ox and the donkey.

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To Learn More

For biblical texts, I refer you to the New Jerusalem Bible (Catholic) and the King James’ Bible.

On Wikipedia, two articles , on the aporypha and James’ Gospel.

The Glencairn Museum (Pennsylvania) Website includes a very good presentation of the sources and the main characters in the Nativity story.
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