FACTORALY - CHRISTMAS: DAY 9 - THE NATIVITY

Episode Date: January 1, 2025

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Merry Christmas, Simon. Merry Christmas, Bruce. Welcome to Factorial, everyone. Yes, hello, everyone. This is a special because we are going to be giving you 12 in 12 days, because there are 12 days of Christmas. Indeed, instead of the usual one a week, you get one every single day for the whole 12 days of Christmas. But because it's one a day, they're obviously not as long as they normally are. Indeed. So these are going to be relatively short, relatively punchy, quick little snippets of festive, Christmassy, informative fun.

Yeah, of course we're going to take a subject every day. Yes. But the subjects will be Christmas relevant. Indeed. So that's the plot. Let's get on with it. Off we go. So Simon, today, what are we going to be talking about? Today, Bruce, we are going to be talking about the Nativity. The Nativity.

Which essentially just means the birth. Anyone can have a Nativity if you're talking about someone's birth. That is a Nativity. Right. It just so happens that when you say Nativity, you instantly think of the story in the Bible about the birth of Jesus. And that's what it's become. Which is probably the one that started with Francis of Assisi in an Italian cave, like telling the story with little models.

Yes, he is officially accredited as being the person who invented the nativity play, isn't he? Did he have his children all dressed up as octopuses? No, but he did have locals joining in. Did he? So I read about this. This was in 1223 in italy um saint francis of assisi was concerned about people making the pilgrimage to the holy land to visit bethlehem and so on okay because at the time it was owned by the turks and it was a slightly violent place to go to so in order to dissuade his parishioners from doing that he set up the world's first live crib

scene so he had a little makeshift live yeah with with animals and people right um so he he set up a makeshift stable with a little crib and a baby and a couple of animals standing by and so on and he sat in the middle of it um telling the nativity story and preaching a sermon and it became popular the next year some locals said hey can we join in can we come along and dress up as characters he said yeah go ahead fine and it grew and it grew and it grew um and then yeah that's it that's the first nativity play so were there animals in it? Yeah, there were real animals in it, like a donkey and so on. Because according to the Bible, the Bible doesn't say whether there are any animals or not in the stable. No, it doesn't, does it? No.

It kind of hints that there might be an ox and a donkey, but that's from because those are the animals that would recognise the birth of the Messiah. Yes, okay. It was a prophetic thing wasn't it yes um so the there are an awful lot of things around the nativity that we all know as absolutely this is how the nativity looked if you actually go and read what it says in in the bible there are quite a few details missing that have been sort of embellished over the years yes um we all know that um it took place in an inn yeah apparently the translation of the greek word in the bible for in could equally turn out to be family home or spare room or guest room okay so the likelihood is mary and joseph stayed with family yes um the

idea of putting the baby jesus in a manger uh, the ground floor of the family home in that particular culture at that particular time was often shared with the animals that the family owned. So there would have just been a manger there in the main room. You know, we all picture this drafty manger in a forlorn stable on the outskirts of town. Not necessarily so. Okay. Would there have been a badger there?

I couldn't say for certain. Or an apple? Not sure where we're going with this. A giant raisin? What? A bungalow? What are you doing, Bruce? A dinosaur?

These are all characters that have appeared in school nativity plays. Oh, I see. Oh, how wonderful i i looked up and i found a whole list of things that people's children had played in nativity plays right i mean back in my day if you'd sort of run out of characters it's fine we'll just bung another shepherd on the end yes bring along a tea towel wrap it around your head with a rubber band and you can be a shepherd well given that we didn't know how many wise men there were. Well, yes, exactly.

There were as many wise men as you like. Yeah, totally. Apparently, again, we've mentioned those three wise men before, sometimes called three kings, as in the Christmas carol. They weren't kings they were referred to in the bible as magi yes mystical magical prophetical people from the east um they're not named in the bible but um apparently there are documents and traditions and legends and things that were established thereafter um in which they're named okay and according to one particular greek

document which was sort of aged to be a few hundred years after the new testament was written these three chaps are named as melchior casper and balthazar and so in certain traditions around the world that is taken as if you'll excuse the pun that is taken as gospel that that is what those guys are called right okay there was a painting of the nativity by caravaggio oh yes which was huge yeah it's designed to go in a church right okay and um back in, some people asked to be shown around the church. And the following day, no Caravaggio. Gone.

They nicked it? It had been cut out of the frame. No. And it's never been found. There are rumours about the priest having stolen it himself. There are rumours about the mafia having stolen it. Really? You know, because there were offers to sell it back to the church.

Oh, right. Okay. And it was like, sort of, put an ad in the paper and we'll sort of talk to you about the money. And then it was like, then there was a put a second ad in the paper and we'll tell you where to meet up and we can do the exchange. But by this point, the police thought that it was this priest. So they never put the ad back in the paper. So they never found out where this Caravaggio had actually disappeared to. So someone somewhere has a six metre Caravaggio stashed away in their attic, not quite sure what to do with it. Yeah.

In Belgium, they have a tradition in which the nativity play performed at schools is actually a puppet show. Okay. Rather than acted by the children. So they have little hand puppets and shadow puppets doing the nativity scenes with people sitting by and watching. I think that's quite cute, isn't it? There is a thing where, you know, when you have those little models, nativity scenes that are made with models, a lot of the time people nick the models. And some of the time people put extra bits in. So like there'll be a nativity outside a church and suddenly overnight there'll be a dinosaur appearing.

Oh, I love that. Just go and bung one of your action figures in there. Yeah, exactly. He-Man suddenly appears at the nativity. Oh, that's cool. I love that. I want to do that. Well, thank you for listening to this Christmas special. Indeed. Thank you very much for coming along. We hope you'll join us again next time for another fun-filled episode of Fact or Lazy. Bye-bye. Au revoir.