Marina Warner & Justin Champion discuss Nativity myths [audio 30min]

What role have Nativity stories played in society since Matthew and Luke first mapped out their differing versions of what happened in Bethlehem? What evidence is there for the accounts they give? What other contemporary stories were there for divine intervention in the womb and, most importantly, how did a peripheral add-on to the main gospels rise to become the central story and the most important rite of the Christian World? Sociologist Laurie Taylor discusses the impact of nativity stories on western society with Marina Warner, Professor of Literature at Essex University, author of a study of the supernatural and the imagination called Phantasmagoria: Spirit Visions, Metaphors, and Media (Oxford University Press), and prize-winning writer of fiction, criticism, and history; Justin Champion, Professor of the History of Early Modern Ideas and Head of the Department of History at the Royal Holloway College London University; and Geza Vermes, Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at Oxford University and author of a new study, The Nativity: History and Legend (Penguin).