None of the gospels, for example, tells us if a midwife came to the stable to deliver the infant Messiah. In Voices from the Fringe, Joseph finds the midwife.

AN ASTRAL PORTENT, elite visitors from the mysterious East, shepherds ushered in by angelic messengers, a baby born painlessly to a virgin. The gospel story of Christ’s birth is replete with miracles and marvels, as indeed was his entire earthly life, right from the Annunciation to the Ascension. But what about the people whose lives touched the Son of God’s in ordinary, everyday ways? Can history tell us what their lives might have been like? What would their account of the gospel events have been, if they were able to tell their stories?

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