Five Christmas story elements that don’t appear in the Bible, from the little donkey to the inn keeper

By Chris Greenough, Professor of Social Sciences, Edge Hill University

Despite the secularisation of Christmas, biblical symbolism seems to be everywhere at this time of year.

From images of the Virgin Mary on Christmas cards to carols about the little donkey, the baby Jesus in nativity scenes and the three kings in school plays, there’s no shortage of retellings of the biblical story of Jesus’ birth.

Most cultural representations of Jesus’ birth are a combination of the accounts in the gospels of Matthew and Luke – there is no mention of Jesus’ birth in the gospels of Mark or John. Luke is the…

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