More than two-thirds of Brits do not believe the biblical story of Christ's birth, a survey has found.
Young people were particularly doubtful about the Nativity, with 78% of 16-24-year-olds saying they were not convinced of the historical reliability of the account.
Overall, 70% were sceptical of the baby's birth in a manger to a virgin mother, according to the poll of 1,000 people.
The misgivings also extended to people of faith. About a quarter of self-described Christians admitted they did not believe certain aspects of the Bible's teaching about Jesus, the survey by the British Marketing Research Bureau found.
A total of 22% doubted Jesus was both God and man, a view shared by 28% of the public at large.
The online poll commissioned by St Helen's Church in Bishopsgate, London, included 43% who called themselves Christian, 6% who belonged to another religion and 46% who claimed not to be religious.
The Rev Charlie Skrine, curate at St Helen's Church, said: "The survey we commissioned and the people we interviewed for the film agree: most of the UK believes that the accounts of Jesus's birth aren't good history.
"Combined with a general lack of understanding about the real meaning of Christmas, this leaves people without the hope that Jesus offers.
"This year, as a church, we wanted to raise awareness about the true meaning of Christmas - that God became a human being to make himself known to us and eventually to die on a cross to bring forgiveness of our sins."
According to New Testament expert and author Dr Paul Barnett, the "broad outlines of the origins of Christianity" were confirmed by historical sources.
"Using routine historical analysis, we conclude that the outlines of Jesus' life, teaching, death and resurrection as we find them in the gospels are historically reliable," he said.
Click here to comment on this story...
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article