Sir, – The Church of Ireland Bishop of Cashel, Michael Burrows, is worried about the correct sequencing of arrivals to the Christmas crib (Home News, December 17th).
What animals were present in the crib was a preoccupation of the former Pope Benedict XVI. Both men take the Gospel infancy narratives as historical fact and get caught up in the details of the stories rather than their intent which was to show that Jesus was the Messiah, the new David and the new Moses.
However, there is every historical probability that Nazareth in Galilee was the birthplace of Jesus as he was known and called Jesus of Nazareth rather than Jesus of Bethlehem. – Yours, etc,
BRENDAN BUTLER,
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Malahide,
Co Dublin.