I published this on the Laidlaw College blog a few years ago. I thought I might say it again
Was Jesus really born in a stable?
The traditional Christmas story, played out in numerous
nativity pageants around the world every year has Joseph and a highly pregnant
Mary knocking on doors in Bethlehem, being turned away from every place, and
ending up in a stable where Jesus is born. When I looked at the text again this
year that picture did not seem quite right. Luke 2:4-7 explains,
4 Joseph
also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David
called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5
He went to be registered with
Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6
While they were there, the
time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped
him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for
them in the inn.
The text explains how Joseph, a descendant of David took his
pregnant fiancée Mary to his ancestral town to be enrolled in a census. It seems
to me that a member of such a significant family would surely have found a
place to stay in the home of a relative rather than looking for an inn, especially
if Middle Eastern hospitality then was the same as it is now. Today, to visit
someone in their home is a honour them greatly. Surely Joseph would not snub
his family and look for an inn! Then another look at v. 7 got me thinking. The
lack of space for them in the “inn” explains why Jesus is placed in an animal
feeding trough. It says nothing about where they were when Mary gave birth.
The word usually translated “inn” in Luke 2:7 is kataluma,
a word Luke uses one other time, in 22:11. Certainly the sense is of a
temporary dwelling place, but “inn” is not appropriate in Luke 22:11, where
Jesus is looking for a “guest room” to celebrate the Passover with his
disciples. Perhaps “guest room” in a relative’s house is more appropriate in
Luke 2:7.
Luke has another inn in his Gospel, the one where the
so-called Good Samaritan left the man he had rescued. And there he uses an
entirely different word for inn, a pandocheian. This is where a
traveller could find a temporary dwelling, the ancient equivalent of a motel.
It seems to me more likely that that Joseph and Mary were staying with a family
member, and were settled in the guest area when Mary gave birth.
But what about the manger? Maybe the guest area was small,
with no space for a bassinet. Maybe the family had no bassinet at all. But a
bit of Palestinian ingenuity came to the rescue. What about the feeding trough
in the animal shelter?
According to John Nolland in his commentary on Luke we are
perhaps supposed to think of
an
overcrowded Palestinian peasant home: a single-roomed home with an animal stall
under the same roof (frequently to be distinguished from the family
living-quarters only by the raised platform floor of the latter). The manger
could be free-standing in the stall or attached to the wall … [the] kataluma will, then, refer to the living
quarters provided by a single-roomed Palestinian home in which hospitality has
been extended to Mary and Joseph (pp. 105-6).
It
is unlikely that Joseph and Mary were turned away from the inn because there
was no room, and it is unlikely Jesus was born in a stable where “cattle were
lowing.” It is more likely that he was born
in the “guest area” of a Palestinian home, and then placed in the feeding
trough in the area where the domesticated animals would have been sheltered in
the winter months. Since other shepherds were watching their flocks at the
time, it was probably not mid-winter, and the animal shelter would probably
have been empty, making a suitable space for Mary to care for her son.
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