The Greek word for wise men in Matthew really signifies astrologers. “From the East” means from Mesopotamia or Persia, the home of the Zoroastrian faith, a religion which, with its angels, its conflict between darkness and light and its teaching on the immortality of the human soul, preceded Judaism. Heaven and hell were originally, Zoroastrian ideas.

In mainstream Christian tradition, the wise men are called kings although it has no scriptural warranty. The presumed sources were Isaiah: “The nations come to your light and kings to your dawning brightness” and Psalms 72: “The kings of Sheba and Seba will offer gifts; all kings will do him homage”. So the wise men became kings.

The ox and the ass in the stable also have no New Testament basis. They will have been from Isaiah: “The ox knows its owner and the ass its master’s crib”.

Then it is customary for Joseph to be depicted as an elderly man, again without New Testament warranty. But, as with so much else, this is not accidental. It arose because of the orthodox Christian theology that Mary remained perpetually a virgin. Since the New Testament refers plainly to Jesus’s brothers, Joseph had to have been a widower who had already had a family and that the brothers were really only half-brothers. An elderly man fits this image.

The complete development of the classic Christmas scene took many centuries. In the early Church the feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the wise men and Jesus’s baptism, was more important than Jesus’s birthday. It was not until about 330 AD that Christmas was recognised as a feast. The importance of it grew as part of a conscious policy of Christianising the Pagan midwinter rites which had already long existed. The first model crib, for placing in church, appears to have been made by S Francis of Assisi as late as 1224.

So by a rich combination of tradition, legend and interpretation there developed the Christian Christmas.