Nativity of Jesus in later culture

This article deals with depictions of the Nativity of Jesus outside the fields of the figurative arts. For depictions in the fields of painting and sculpture, see Nativity of Jesus in art.

Literature

• Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Part One (1880)

Drama

• The Nativity appears in many cycles of the Mystery Plays.
• Laurence Housman (Bethlehem, 1902; musical accompaniment by Joseph Moorat c.1919^[1]).
• Lucjan Rydel (Polish Bethlehem, 1904).
• Cicely Hamilton (The Child in Flanders: A Nativity Play, 1922.
• Dorothy L. Sayers (He That Should Come, 1938). The first play of her radio-play cycle The Man Born to be King deals with the birth of Jesus.
• Jean-Paul Sartre's first play was Bariona ou le fils du tonerre, a nativity play performed on Christmas Eve 1940 while a prisoner of war in a German stalag. Sartre saw Christ as part of the Jewish Resistance to the Roman Empire's occupation, mirroring the French Resistance of Nazi Germany's occupation.^[2]
• Two From Galilee - A musical of Mary and Joseph leading up to the birth of Jesus Christ

Opera

• Rutland Boughton, English composer and founder of the original Glastonbury Festival, wrote a very popular Nativity opera in 1915 called Bethlehem. In 1926, in sympathy with the General Strike and the miners' lockout, he restaged it in London, in modern dress, with Jesus born in a miner's cottage and Herod as the top-hatted capitalist, flanked by soldiers and police.^[3]

Film

• Ben-Hur 's prologue recounts the Nativity, and Balthasar (a major character) also recounts it in the third person later in the film (1959).
• The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965) begins with the Nativity.
• Monty Python's Life of Brian (1978) depicts the Magi arriving at the wrong stable and almost giving their gifts to the infant Brian, before realising their mistake and going next door to the stable where Jesus is.
• The Nativity Story (2006)
• Nativity (BBC Films; distributed by E1) scheduled to be released in UK cinemas on 4 December 2009.

Television

• A scene in A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965) shows Linus recounting the Nativity Story as told in the Gospel of Luke.
• Jesus of Nazareth (1977) begins with the Nativity
• The Nativity (1978)
• An episode of the popular Christian themed anime series Superbook (1982) involves Chris, Joy, and Gizmo witnessing the Nativity
• The Liverpool Nativity produced by BBC Three in 2007, featuring Liverpool's music

Music

• "The Little Drummer Boy"

Notes

1. ^ Hunt, J. (March 1975). "Moorat". The Musical Times 116 (1585): 228. doi:10.2307/959098. 
2. ^ Quinn, Bernard J. (Spring, 1972). "The Politics of Despair versus the Politics of Hope: A Look at Bariona, Sartre's First pièce engagée". The French Review (Special Issue, No. 4, Studies on the French Theater): 95–105. 
3. ^ Liner notes to Hyperion Records, Russell Boughton, The Immortal Hours