Frank Kermode writes:

Vermes closes his account with the just observation that if we looked at the Nativity narratives carefully we’d find it a little harder to talk about a happy Christmas. We take the singing angels, the gift-bearing kings, the star, but forget 'Joseph's psychological torture' and the fear and panic caused by Herod's massacre of the Bethlehem children. One or both may be fictive, but they belong to the story as much as the happy shepherds and the gift-laden tree. A moment spent on thought about them might even enhance our Saturnalian delights.

Penguin | paperback 177 |ISBN: 9780141024462