The story is universally known. A young couple, recently married, makes a long journey from their home country to a small town in the hills to be numbered in a government census. The road is dangerous, and the young wife is very pregnant, soon to give birth to her first child. Upon entering the town, the couple can find no place to stay; there is no room in the inn. The innkeeper, pitying the young mother-to-be, or perhaps looking to make some extra denarii, offers them lodging in his stable. Later that chilly night, amidst the braying of donkeys, bleating of sheep, and lowing of cattle, the young woman gives birth to the long-promised Messiah. This baby boy, destined to someday sacrifice His life for the sins of humankind, is wrapped in swaddling clothes and placed in a manger. The stable is a very lively place that night as local shepherds, informed by a host of singing angels, come to worship the child, and three wise men from the east follow a star to the little town of Bethlehem, bearing gifts fit for a king. It was the night of the dear Savior’s birth, the first Christmas.
This story is so ingrained in our culture that we sing songs about the events and the participants. We stage plays and reenactments in our churches and even schools. On our mantles are models of the stable and the various players. The season never passes without some acknowledgment of the familiar elements.
But how much of this is true history?
Are our depictions of the nativity based on true historical data or are they founded on poorly contextualized tidbits from the text and supplemented with a healthy dose of imagination and interpretation?
I’m not suggesting that we should question the biblical account, I’m asking how many of the details come from tradition, assumptions, and cultural and linguistic misunderstandings.
With so many details, it would be a monumental undertaking to address each aspect of our current cultural understanding of the Christmas story. This is an endeavor best reserved for a tome dedicated to an understanding of the event based on a first-century Jewish cultural and historical context, supported by archaeology, epigraphy, religious, and historical study. A whole book on how archaeology ruins Christmas—sounds like a bestseller to me.
Over the years, I’ve read many articles on the origins of the wise men, the census of Quirinius, the shepherds of Bethlehem, and the nature of the star. Numerous scholars have weighed in on these important topics and it seems that each one has a different opinion and is absolutely sure of the veracity of his or her own interpretation of the particulars. I am not an astronomer, so my opinion on the star wouldn’t do anyone much good, and while I would enjoy digging deeply into the historical and cultural world of shepherds, Roman governors, and eastern Magi, I would instead like to examine an often-overlooked aspect of the Christmas story: the inn, the innkeeper, and the stable of Bethlehem.
This article first appeared in Issue #18 of the Prophecy in the News Magazine. Read full article here.
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