Timothy Larsen (Letters, October 1), writes that when he saw that the index of his Oxford Handbook of Christmas included “Joseph, father of Jesus” he knew he had to step in. The Handbook, Professor Larsen tells us, went to press with the entry changed to “Joseph, husband of Mary”. I can only assume he was telling us that God, and not Joseph, was Jesus’s father, as though it were an incontrovertible fact. Something like 30 per cent of the world’s population, at most, is Christian, and not even all of those people believe that Jesus was literally the Son of God. I hope Professor Larsen won’t be offended therefore if I point out that “the things that you’re liable / to read in the Bible, / it ain’t necessarily so”.

F. W. Nunneley
Beckley, east sussex