Historian Tom Holland on the Nativity narratives in Matthew and Luke :

“…Sadly, most unlikely to be true”

“The idea that Joseph had to travel to his ancestral home is insane”

“…Absolutely impossible to square them”

“…Jesus was clearly not born in Bethlehem”

“… In this instance it is pretty clear it didn’t happen”

“There are aspects of the story I am sceptical about, and pretty much anyone would be sceptical about.”

Tom Holland is a British historian and author specializing in antiquity and the development of Western thought. Educated at Cambridge and Oxford, his critically acclaimed works on Rome and early Christianity include Rubicon: The Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic (2003) and Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind (2019). A prominent public intellectual, he co-hosts The Rest Is History podcast.