From Angels to Zoroastrians

What we can know, what we must believe

Every Christmas, our little community stages a dressing of the crib. This commemorates the journey of Mary and Joseph journey to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus Christ. The children take it in turns to place figures of Mary, Joseph, shepherds, the wise men and the baby Jesus in the nativity scene, reenacting the Christmas story.

The sculptures we have have for this are beautiful (and still mostly intact) Italian pieces belonging to my grandmother. Usually the children also dress up as the character whose statue they carry. The costumes are a bit more variable: very nice for the main characters but as a kid I was often one of those wearing a tea towel and a headband to approximate the headwear of a first century shepherd. ¹

The story is one you all know: a child is born in a manger, shepherds hear angelic choirs, and wise men from the East follow a star.

It's a story rich with wonder, but how much of it is historically verifiable? Which parts are plausible but not proven? And what must Christians take on faith?

The nativity begins with a solid historical anchor: Jesus was born in Roman-occupied Judea. Both Matthew and Luke place his birth during the reign of Herod the Great, whose existence and reign (37–4 BC) are well-documented. Herod was known for his massive building projects and his ruthless paranoia, which saw him execute family members he suspected of plotting against him.

Matthew’s claim that Herod ordered the massacre of infants in Bethlehem is plausible in character, even if no external sources confirm it. Herod’s brutality was infamous, and such an act would not have been beyond him. Anyway, his reign ended in 4 BC. This means Jesus was likely born between 6 and 4 BC, a few years earlier than the calendar established by Dionysius Exiguus in the 6th century.

While Herod provides a historical framework, parts of the nativity narrative are less provable. Both Matthew and Luke agree, for example, that Jesus’s birthplace was Bethlehem. This fulfills Old Testament prophecy linking the Messiah to David’s lineage and Matthew leaves it at that.

Luke attributes the journey to a Roman census that required Joseph to travel to his ancestral town. This raises questions, as the only documented census under Quirinius, the governor of Syria mentioned by Luke, took place in 6 AD—several years after Herod’s death. While this poses a chronological challenge, what remains clear is Luke’s intent: to situate Jesus’s birth within a specific historical context. By grounding the narrative in time and place, Luke demonstrates an effort to write history, not to perpetuate myth.

Then there’s the story of the three wise men and the star of Bethlehem, which has fascinated astronomers and theologians alike. Could this star have been a real celestial event? Some scholars point to a conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that occured around 7 or 6 BC. This alignment would have been visible in the skies over the Middle East and could have caught the attention of ancient astrologers, particularly those from Persia steeped in the traditions of Zoroastrianism, who were highly skilled in interpreting celestial phenomena.

For them, a conjunction of two major planets might have signified the birth of a great king. No less than Johannes Kepler proposed thins might have been what happened. While we can’t know for certain, it’s entirely possible that an event like this inspired the journey of the magi, who later became symbols of the universal recognition of Jesus as both king and saviour.

Of course, certain elements of the nativity transcend history, requiring faith to accept. The fact of the Incarnation, the cornerstone of Christian doctrine, is not something capable of being proved or disproved by historical analysis or scientific method. It is a mystery that lies at the heart of Christian faith: that God became fully human in the person of Jesus Christ while remaining fully divine

Elements of the nativity story such as the various angelic announcements are also beyond the reach of historical inquiry. These moments signal the nativity’s spiritual dimension, revealing God’s direct intervention in the world. For believers, they are a call to see Jesus’s birth not just as an earthly event but as a cosmic one. For those who reject the existence of the supernatural, no amount of evidence would ever suffice to validate these claims, even if such proof were theoretically available.

It’s fashionable for Christians to say that what really happened in the nativity doesn’t matter, that its value lies in the inspiring, symbolic message it conveys—a story of hope and light in the darkness that everyone, regardless of belief, can appreciate. While I understand the superficial appeal of this perspective as a non-confrontational message it should also be rejected. Christianity is not a religion built on symbolism or inspiring myths and archetypes.

What sets traditional Christianity apart from groups like the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or fundamentalist Protestants is its falsifiability. The nativity is not a story plucked from a mythical past or based on unverifiable revelations received in secret. It places Jesus’s birth in a specific time and place—during the reign of Herod the Great, within the broader history of the Roman Empire. This historical foundation is critical because it shows that the Christian faith is not built on speculation or scriptural fanfiction but on events that unfolded in the material world.

At the same time, Christianity is not reducible to history alone. The heart of the nativity story—the Incarnation of God in Jesus Christ—is a mystery that transcends historical proof. It’s this blend of the tangible and the transcendent that gives the Christian faith its unique power. The historical details are important because they root the story in reality. It is, however, the truths that require belief that matter most.

The nativity invites us to see how God entered our world, not in abstract myth but in the flesh and blood of a baby born in a dusty corner of the Roman Empire among a people often overlooked by history but whose stubborn insistence on the one true God had already set them apart. This we know happened; the rest is a question of faith.

1. The most coveted roles were inevitably Joseph and Mary. Next most desirable was Melchio, simply because he had gold which was the preferred gift. Nobody "played" the infant Jesus, who was always represented by a doll, carefully placed in the manger as the centerpiece of the scene. I think one year it may even have been a Cabbage Patch Kid.