Questioning the First Christmas: the Nativity Story in Early Christian Traditions - four online talks by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones

We are all familiar with the scene: a babe laid in a manger under the loving gaze of the Virgin Mary, his mother, and the protective watch of Joseph the carpenter.

Oxen and a donkey and a few sheep make up the stable-setting of the picture too. There are shepherds, in wonderment, on their knees, their eyes full of tears. And three splendidly-costumed foreigners, kings or wise men, tentatively approach bearing precious gifts for the new-born child. Overhead a host of angels rejoice and a brilliant star lights up the sky. We see this image replicated every Christmas on a million cards and in thousands of Nativity sets. But the scene as we know it is never depicted in the New Testament. It is a creation of a later age.

This stimulating series takes a deep-look at the Christmas story we think we know and shows how the birth-story of Jesus is, in fact, a series of separate narratives and varying traditions that were intended to appeal to different peoples in Jewish or Greco-Roman society. Our lecturer, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, is both a professor in ancient history and an ordained priest.

They take place every Thursday from 28th November–19th December at 4.30pm (London) and, including Q&A, will probably last just under an hour. They are available for viewing for eight weeks after the last episode is streamed (13th February 2025).