The cattle are lowing, but were they in Bethlehem?

WASHINGTON (RNS)—Close your eyes and picture a Nativity scene. Baby Jesus, Mary and Joseph are there, for sure. Chance are, there are three wise men, a few shepherds. Maybe a donkey, ox and lamb stand nearby in the stable.

Centuries of Christmas carols, creches and pageants—among countless other works of art—have ensconced this scene in the heart of the Nativity for generations of Christians. But the Bible doesn’t.

The New Testament has two accounts of Jesus’ birth, in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Matthew doesn’t say anything about animals or shepherds. Luke omits any reference to wise men. Neither mentions a stable.

Luke says Mary wrapped Jesus in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, or trough, because there was no room at the inn. Matthew says the wise men—the Bible doesn’t say how many—follow the eastern star to find Mary and Jesus in a house. Matthew doesn’t mention whether Joseph was present when they arrived.

The plot of the Christmas story is one of the most well-known narratives in human history, carved in cherished creches on living-room tables, or re-enacted by Magi in bathrobes, who travel on rented camels beneath animatronic angels. But over the centuries, artists have taken certain liberties, which have become as much a part of contemporary Christmas as the Bible’s narratives themselves.

In fact, though nearly everyone knows the rough outline of the Nativity story, many people are ignorant of the Bible’s specific details, argue controversial scholars Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan in their book The First Christmas. That’s a shame, they say.

“Paying attention to the distinctiveness and details of the Nativity stories is how we enter into the possibility of understanding what they meant in the first century and might still mean for communities of faith today,” Borg and Crossan write.

Matthew and Luke intended their Nativity narratives as thematic introductions to their respective Gospels, Borg asserted in an interview. For instance, Luke presents Jesus as a champion of the poor and the marginalized.

“So, it is perfect that in Luke’s Gospel Jesus Christ is born away from home, that his birth is attended by shepherds, who were very low in the social order,” Borg said.

As for the inn and stable, they were probably for traveling merchants—the Bible’s version of door-to-door salesmen. So, the animals would have been beasts of transport—donkeys, camels and horses, not sheep or cows, Borg said.

Some contemporary scholars like Borg and Crossan may view the Bible stories as something other than strictly factually accounts, but not the early Christians, said Darrell Bock, a professor of New Testament studies at Dallas Theological Seminary.

“They would have taken the Nativity stories as historical accounts that tell us something real about Jesus. They are an important part of understanding who Jesus is,” Bock said.

For instance, the Gospel writers highlight aspects of the Nativity that seem to fulfill Hebrew prophecies.

Christians still argue, however, about whether Jesus was born in a stable or a house. This year, for example, the Creation Museum in Kentucky is ditching the stable in its Nativity scene, instead sheltering the Holy Family in a first-century-type house, believing it to be a more likely birthplace.

In Bock’s view, the wise men probably visited Jesus and Mary in a house some time after the shepherds followed the angels’ beckoning to the baby in the manger. “To have them both there on the same night is unlikely,” Bock said.

But artists have been collapsing the stories of Matthew and Luke and adding extra-biblical material to Christmas scenes for centuries, said Diane Apostolos-Cappadona, a professor of art and cultural history at Georgetown University. “They combine all the books. They don’t worry about that,” she said.

Take, for example, the two-hour “Miracle of Christmas” show at Sight & Sound Theatres in Lancaster, Pa., and Branson, Mo., which features 45 actors, 400 costumes, dozens of animals and angels that fly over the audience.

Glenn Eshelman, the evangelical who founded Sight and Sound 33 years ago, said the audience is forewarned that “this is a fictional account of a factual occurrence” and encouraged to read the biblical accounts.

“And some of the things that Scripture is silent on, that you know had to be there, we do write them in as characters,” Eshelman said. “It stretches people’s thinking and causes people to think that these characters are just as real as people today.”