I, Baruch, an Israelite living in Alexandria, write this to tell unto you, even you who are the brethren from among the Gentiles, to make known unto you the works of the childhood of our Lord Jesus Christ and his mighty deeds, even all that he did when he was brought to our land, whereof the beginning is thus:
While the little child was yet an infant Mary, his mother, and Joseph, who was called his father, brought him into Egypt. They came fleeing the murderous ravings of the mad king. Herod thought to deal shrewdly to eliminate his rival. He said, “When he is grown he will fight against me and force me from the country.” So he sent his soldiers to kill all infant boys. But Joseph, being warned in a dream, took his family down to Egypt.
Joseph took his family
to Elephantine and settled there. And
there at what had been House of the Lord they offered prayers and sacrifices,
and Mary, with her son, was there with Joseph.
And as they prayed the statue of Khnum was fallen on his face before the
Lord. After that the hand of the Lord was against the city and against its people,
young and old, and there was a great panic.
Then the people began to plead with Joseph to leave.
So Joseph and Mary,
along with Jesus, came to Alexandria where they stayed until the angel told
them it was safe to return
To compose this Alternate Nativity I drew upon a number of sources, namely: the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, the account in Exodus of Pharoah ordering the death of infant Israelite boys, the account in 1 Samuel of the Ark of the Covenant in the temple of Dagon, and the account in Mark of Jesus encounter with the demoniac at Gadarenes. I also tried to incorporate the Jewish temple at Elephantine in Egypt. Scholars and historians would be right to point out that my little story is probably historically inaccurate and not entirely plausible. But the same can be said for the nativites recorded in our cannonical gospels... That's beside the point.
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