Luke 2:1-18
The traditional events of the Christmas story are well-known to all Christians. The birth of Jesus includes three wise men bearing gifts, shepherds in the fields in mid-winter, a baby born in a stable and “no room in the inn.” These aspects of the account are firmly fixed in the popular mind. The question becomes: Is there a critical distinction to be made between the text and the traditional understanding of it? Have the centuries added meanings to our understanding of the text that are not there?
The more familiar we are with a biblical story, the more difficult it is to view it outside of the way it has always been understood. And the longer imprecision in the tradition remains unchallenged, the deeper it becomes embedded in Christian consciousness. The birth story of Jesus is such a story.
The traditional understanding of the account in Luke 2:1-18 contains a number of critical flaws. These include:
Joseph was returning to the village of his origin. In the Middle East, historical memories are long, and the extended family, with its connection to its village of origin, is important. In such a world a man like Joseph could have appeared in Bethlehem, and told people, “I am Joseph, son of Heli, son of Matthat, the son of Levi” and most homes in town would be open to him.
Joseph was a “royal.” That is, he was from the family of King David. The family of David was so famous in Bethlehem that local folk apparently called the town the “City of David” (as often happens). The official name of the village was Bethlehem. Everyone knew that the Hebrew Scriptures referred to Jerusalem as the “City of David.” Yet locally, many apparently called Bethlehem the “City of David” (Lk 2:4). Being of that famous family, Joseph would have been welcome anywhere in town.
In every culture a woman about to give birth is given special attention. Simple rural communities the world over always assist one of their own women in childbirth regardless of the circumstances. Are we to imagine that Bethlehem was an exception? Was there no sense of honor in Bethlehem?Surely the community would have sensed its responsibility to help Joseph find adequate shelter for Mary and provide the care she needed. To turn away a descendent of David in the “City of David” would be an unspeakable shame on the entire village.
Mary had relatives in a nearby village. A few months prior to the birth of Jesus, Mary had visited her cousin Elizabeth “in the hill country of Judea” and was welcomed by her. Bethlehem was located in the center of Judea. By the time, therefore, that Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem they were but a short distance from the home of Zechariah and Elizabeth. If Joseph had failed to find shelter in Bethlehem he would naturally have turned to Zechariah and Elizabeth. But did he have time for those few extra miles?
Joseph had time to make adequate arrangements. Luke 2:4 says that Joseph and Mary “went up from Galilee to Judea,” and verse 6 states, “while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered” (KJV, italics added). The average Christian thinks that Jesus was born the same night the holy family arrived—hence Joseph’s haste and willingness to accept any shelter, even the shelter of a stable. Traditional Christmas pageants reinforce this idea year after year.
In the text, the time spent in Bethlehem before the birth is not specified. But it was surely long enough to find adequate shelter or to turn to Mary’s family. This late-night-arrival-imminent-birth myth is so deeply engrained in the popular Christian mind that it is important to inquire into its origin. Where did this idea come from? Glad you ask. A Christain Novel.
A Christian Novel
The source of this misinterpretation stems from approximately two hundred years after the birth of Jesus, when an anonymous Christian wrote an expanded account of the birth of Jesus that has survived and is called The Protevangelium of James. James had nothing to do with this. The author was not a Jew and did not understand Palestinian geography or Jewish tradition. Scholars date this particular “novel” to around the year A.D. 200, and it is full of imaginative details. Jerome, the famous Latin scholar, attacked it as did many of the popes.
The average Christian, who has never heard of this book, is nonetheless unconsciously influenced by it. The novel is a fanciful expansion of the Gospel account, not the Gospel story itself. It added many details that are not factual the same way Hollywood ads dramatic effect in many of it's true story re-tellings. Many of these imaganitive add ons have been added to our conciousness althouth not supoorted by the actual culture or text.
For the Western mind the word manger invokes the words stable or barn. But in traditional Middle Eastern villages this is not the case. In the parable of the rich fool (Lk 12:13-21) there is mention of “storehouses” but not barns. People of great wealth would naturally have had separate quarters for animals. But simple village homes in Palestine often had but two rooms. One was exclusively for guests. That room could be attached to the end of the house or be a “prophet’s chamber” on the roof, as in the story of Elijah (1 Kings 17:19). The main room was a “family room” where the entire family cooked, ate, slept and lived. The end of the room next to the door, was either a few feet lower than the rest of the floor or blocked off with heavy timbers. Each night into that designated area, the family cow, donkey and a few sheep would be driven. And every morning those same animals were taken out and tied up in the courtyard of the house. The animal stall would then be cleaned for the day. Such simple homes can be traced from the time of David up to the middle of the twentieth century. Both types can still be viewed in Upper Galilee and in Bethlehem. See example below:
The roof is flat and can have a guest room built on it, or a guest room can be attached to the end of the house. The door on the lower level serves as an entrance for people and animals. The farmer wants the animals in the house each night because they provide heat in winter and are safe from theft. The same house viewed from above it:
The elongated circles represent mangers dug out of the lower end of the living room. The “family living room” has a slight slope in the direction of the animal stall, which aids in sweeping and washing. Dirt and water naturally move downhill into the space for the animals and can be swept out the door. If the family cow is hungry during the night, she can stand up and eat from mangers cut out of the floor of the living room. Mangers for sheep can be of wood and placed on the floor of the lower level. This style of traditional home fits naturally into the birth story of Jesus.
The one-room village home with mangers has been noted by modern scholars as well. William Thompson, an Arabic-speaking Presbyterian missionary scholar of the mid-nineteenth century observed village homes in Bethlehem and wrote, “It is my impression that the birth actually took place in an ordinary house of some common peasant, and that the baby was laid in one of the mangers, such as are still found in the dwellings of farmers in this region.” The Anglican scholar E. F. F. Bishop, who lived in Jerusalem from 1922 to 1950, wrote: Perhaps . . . recourse was had to one of the Bethlehem houses with the lower section provided for the animals, with mangers “hollowed in stone,” the dais being reserved for the family. Such a manger being immovable filled with crushed straw, would do duty for a cradle.
For more than a hundred years scholars resident in the Middle East have understood Luke 2:7 as referring to a family room with mangers cut into the floor at one end. If this interpretation is pursued, there remains the question of the identity of “the inn.” What precisely was it that was full? If Joseph and Mary were taken into a private home and at birth Jesus was placed in a manger in that home, how is the word inn in Luke 2:7 to be understood? Most English translations state that after the child was born, he was laid in a manger “because there was no room for them in the inn.” This sounds as if they were rejected by the people of Bethlehem. Was that really the case?
There is a trap in traditional language. “No room in the inn” has taken on the meaning of “the inn had a number of rooms and all were occupied.” The “no vacancy sign” was already “switched on” when Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem. But the Greek word does not refer to “a room in an inn” but rather to “space” (topos) as in “There is no space on my desk for my new computer.” It is important to keep this correction in mind as we turn to the word we have been told was an “inn.” The Greek word in Luke 2:7 that is commonly translated “inn” is katalyma. This is not the ordinary word for a commercial inn. In the parable of the good Samaritan (Lk 10:25-37) the Samaritan takes the wounded man to an inn. The Greek word in that text is pandocheion. The first part of this word means “all.” The second part, as a verb, means “to receive.” The pandocheion is the place that receives all, namely a commercial inn. This common Greek term for an inn was so widely known across the Middle East that over the centuries it was absorbed as a Greek loan word into Armenian, Coptic, Arabic and Turkish with the same meaning—a commercial inn. If Luke expected his readers to think Joseph was turned away from an “inn” he would have used the word pandocheion, which clearly meant a commercial inn. But in Luke 2:7 it is a katalyma that is crowded. What then does this word mean? Literally, a katalyma is simply “a place to stay” and can refer to many types of shelters.
The three that are options for this story are inn (the English translation tradition), house (the Arabic biblical tradition of more than one thousand years), and guest room (Luke’s choice). Indeed, Luke used this key term on one other occasion in his Gospel, where it is defined in the text itself. In Luke 22 Jesus tells his disciples: Behold, when you have entered the city, a man carrying a jar of water will meet you; follow him into the house which he enters, and tell the householder, ‘The Teacher says to you, Where is the guest room [katalyma] where I am to eat the passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready. (Lk 22:10-12) Here, the key word, katalyma, is defined; it is “an upper room,” which is clearly a guest room in a private home. This precise meaning makes perfect sense when applied to the birth story. In Luke 2:7 Luke tells his readers that Jesus was placed in a manger (in the family room) because in that home the guest room was already full. If at the end of Luke’s Gospel, the word katalyma means a guest room attached to a private home (22:11), why would it not have the same meaning near the beginning of his Gospel? The family room, with an attached guest room, would have looked something like the diagram below:
Alfred Plummer in his influential commentary published in the late nineteenth century. Plummer writes, “It is a little doubtful whether the familiar translation ‘in the inn’ is correct. . . . It is possible that Joseph had relied upon the hospitality of some friend in Bethlehem, whose ‘guest-chamber,’ however, was already full when he and Mary arrived.”
Christianity in the Middle East has traditionally focused on the birth having taken place in a cave. Many simple homes in traditional villages in the Holy Land begin in caves and are then expanded. The tradition of the cave can be traced to Justin Martyr, writing in the middle of the second century. What I have already suggested is in harmony with this tradition.
To summarize, a part of what Luke tells us about the birth of Jesus is that the holy family traveled to Bethlehem, where they were received into a private home. The child was born, wrapped and (literally) “put to bed” (anaklinō) in the living room in the manger that was either built into the floor or made of wood and moved into the family living space. Why weren’t they invited into the family guest room, the reader might naturally ask? The answer is that the guest room was already occupied by other guests. The host family graciously accepted Mary and Joseph into the family room of their house. The family room would, naturally, be cleared of men for the birth of the child, and the village midwife and other women would have assisted at the birth. After the child was born and wrapped, Mary put her newborn to bed in a manger filled with fresh straw and covered him with a blanket.
The story in Matthew confirms the suggestion that Luke’s account describes a birth in a private home. With this understanding in mind, all the cultural problems I have noted are solved. Joseph was not obliged to seek a commercial inn. He does not appear as an inept and inadequate husband who cannot arrange for Mary’s needs. Likewise, Joseph did not anger his wife’s relatives by failing to turn to them in a crisis. The child was born in the normal surroundings of a peasant home sometime after they arrived in Bethlehem, and there was no heartless innkeeper with whom to deal. A member of the house of David was not humiliated by rejection as he returned to the village of his family’s origins. The people of Bethlehem offered the best they had and preserved their honor as a community. Our Christmas crèche sets remain as they are because “ox and ass before him bow, / for he is in the manger now.” But that manger was in a warm and friendly home, not in a cold and lonely stable. Looking at the story in this light strips away layers of interpretive mythology that have built up around it. Jesus was born in a simple two-room village home such as the Middle East has known for at least three thousand years. Yes, we must rewrite our Christmas plays, but in rewriting them, the story is enriched, not cheapened.
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