The nativity — from a Christian viewpoint

IN HIS Christmas eve column, Steven King asserted that “the nativity story is an invention” and he informed us that his source is the Hungarian Jewish scholar Geza Vermes.

I suppose we should be glad this time it was not the American thriller writer, Dan Browne, author of the of the Da Vinci Code, who was dished up to us with the plum-pudding.

Around this time last year I wrote to you about your editorial implying that Irish missionaries telling people in Africa about Jesus Christ — as my brother, a Kiltegan priest, has spent his life doing — is as relevant to their lives as telling them about Irish hurling.

If you deem yourself to be in the middle of the market square of ideas — crazy or otherwise — could I ask you for the sake of some semblance of balance to put in your library, for the benefit of Steven King and others, copies of these two books: The New Jerusalem Bible in English and the Irish An Bíobla Naofa.

Both are translations from the Hebrew-Aramaic-Greek of the original and both carry numerous introductory historical background articles written from a Christian, not some other, perspective.

Fr Tom Kelleher

Courceys

Kinsale

Co Cork