29 Years Ago In TIME

While much biblical study today is turning to the Gospels that were discarded and forgotten, an earlier generation of scholars, as TIME noted in a 1974 cover story, was focused on the literal accuracy of the BIBLE we know:

In a Bethlehem stable, a child was born, wrapped in swaddling clothes, laid in a manger ... To Christians--and perhaps to a good many others at this time of year--the familiar details seem etched on the heart. Yet they have been questioned by liberal scholars for years. Though often believers themselves, these scriptural experts have challenged nearly everything in the Nativity story: the angels, the star, even the wise men. As recorded in the Gospel of Matthew, the only one to mention them, the Magi are not the familiar three kings of Christmas legend (later piety gave them names, ages, races and crowns), but rather an unspecified number of astrologers, perhaps from Babylon. Even in that guise, some critics suggest, their existence is questionable, possibly merely a preaching device used by the evangelist to suggest the import and universality of the astonishing event: God become man. --TIME, Dec. 30, 1974