…Bash Rowan Williams Train today (based on the headlines), do check out Zadok’s post, which includes a portion of the transcript about what Williams actually said about the Nativity narratives. Short version: he didn’t say that the Magi were legend. He said that certain aspects of our imaging of them are the results of centuries of story-telling and legend (that there were three, that one was black, that they were kings, etc.)
Update:
Do check out what Irenaeus has to say about this at Catholidoxy. Or Retractiones. Whatever he calls it, we’re glad he’s back!
And let’s make one thing clear: Most New Testament scholars, I’d guess, don’t believe the Infancy Narratives have an historical value at all. None. So despite his hedging and problems that Irenaeus points out, the fact that Williams cedes any historicity at all to the Infancy Narratives puts him, frankly, outside mainstream Biblical scholarship. In that one little sense.