The question of where Jesus was born and who was there, takes us into socio-historical or socio-economic questions where our answers either shape our political views and / or are shaped by them. The birth of Christ may be the most famous Bible story of all, reprised annually in nativity scenes across the world each Christmas: Jesus was born in … In Luke though, my only pushback on your argument is that rejection of Jesus the guest is an extremely important theme throughout the gospel. The most prominent use of it in the LXX is in Samuel; it’s not an especially common word, so I’d be a little wary of making too definite an argument based solely on its definition. It seems to me that the following is both credible and consistent with the Biblical narrative: I am glad also that you spoke up for the women of Bethlehem, assisting (as all women around the world do) a woman in childbirth. Nice to see that one part of a traditional Christmas is intact in 2020 – this post! In the absence of a better English word, I don’t think stable is too bad after all. I suspect that the honest answer is that we cannot be sure; Luke intertwines the census of the Emperor with the lives of very ordinary people, like Mary and Elizabeth. I’m not intending to stir here – I’m genuinely ignorant! It is Judea, right? This kind of one-room living with animals in the house at night is evident in a couple of places in the gospels. In Matt 5.15, Jesus comments: Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. [17], The term is generally accepted to be a translation of the Biblical name Peleshet (פלשת Pəlésheth, usually transliterated as Philistia). This has nothing to do with the major teachings of the Bible. Moreover, the actual design of Palestinian homes (even to the present day) makes sense of the whole story. Jesus was Born in a House These details help us to draw other conclusions. And a study here from the Guardian. So the notion of Bethlehem being the ancestral home and thus requiring to go there for census or taxation reasons has examples there in the region and beyond. However, culturally it it surely undeniable that shame would be a major factor in the events described, and one that needs factoring in somehow. So why has the wrong, traditional interpretation persisted for so long? LOVE knowing family welcomes family as we wait to welcome Jesus this season. I am afraid I do not know enough to be able to say whether Luke’s primary reader (Theophilus as he is described) was, given his Greek name, actually unlikely to be someone who was culturally Middle Eastern. (Answer: not necessarily!). Joseph had only to say, “I am Joseph, son of Jacob, son of Matthan, son of Eleazar, the son of Eliud,” and the immediate response must have been, “You are welcome. 3) The betrothal ceremony takes place in Nazareth and Joseph returns to Bethlehem to prepare a place for them as an annex to Joseph’s parents house. Thanks for the comment. The “rejection narrative” simply does not hold as it cannot be argued from the text and is also not found in the writings of the early Christians on the Incarnation. Wasn’t Palestine only recognised at a state in the 20th century? this excellent example from Stephen Kuhrt. The actual name that Herodotus used for the region was “Suria he Palaestinè” or ” Palestinian Syria” and this was Romanised in AD 135 as “Syria Palaestina”. It is about the region and its culture, not the province and its religious distinctiveness. If you look down the whole comment list you will find I have engaged at more length with some women, and in only one line or not at all with some men. 11) When they are able to return their initial thought is to return to Bethlehem, but they do not consider it safe so go to Nazareth. is surprisingly tricky. I would be delighted! Paul himself first wrote about the misinterpretation of the word in 2013, and re-posted his theory this year “because I have been struck again how often the message of Christmas is summed up as ‘Jesus was born in a stable’, both within and beyond the church.”. Carlson’s contribution inspired me to try and put together a new narrative. I am still not convinced that the idea of a ‘stable’ has no merit. I think suspect that there is a deep anti-Semitism that drives this entire train of thought. It isn’t. I believe it is because Western Christians are obsessed with the idea that Jesus must have been rejected by everyone, right from the very start. “But Jesus wasn’t born in a stable, and, curiously, the New Testament hardly even hints that this might have been the case.”. Interestingly, none of Jesus’ critics respond, ‘No I don’t touch animals on the Sabbath’ because they all would have had to lead their animals from the house. Dec 16, 2020 | Hope. Keep going Katie!!! I raised my children, and now influence my grandchildren, with a vibrant constantly changing nativity scene. I like it. If that happened in a crowded family home, the message is preserved. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0230043. I wish I had the benefit of all of these thoughtful reflections and intriguing questions back then! The site includes the view we had from the roof!). (I promise, not a word about your Great-uncle Vlad…. But evangelical scholar Rev Ian Paul has argued that the entire story may be based on a misreading of the New Testament, reviving an ancient theory that Jesus was not, in fact, born in a stable. Original Question: Was Jesus born in a stable or a cave? I remember visited excavated houses at Chorazin, with roofs made of basalt blocks because of a lack of timber in the area. Another interesting conjecture. Remember however, that a … Maybe it points to the involvement of some of the family? Jerusalem was also renamed then as “Aelia Capitolina” in an attempt to abolish its Jewish character. I find it impossible to believe that Palestinian Jewish women in the first century would have been any different. Safety of livestock was primary; so, yes, at night they were brought in too. There are various examples of good preaching following this approach elsewhere on the blog. Im so glad I found this and I can’t wait to introduce this new information when I preach this evening. As you point out, it also cleverly keeps Jesus far away from us and on a pedestal, making it both impossible and pointless for us to actually follow Jesus, which was the entire point of the Incarnation (read Athanasius, people!). It is comforting to me to learn new things (even though I have been hearing bout this since I was in seminalry about 10 years ago). He was laid in a feeding trough. Matthew : “she was found to be pregnant..”. The Wiki entry is helpful here: ‘The first clear use of the term Palestine to refer to the entire area between Phoenicia and Egypt was in 5th century BCE Ancient Greece,[7][8] when Herodotus wrote of a “district of Syria, called Palaistinê” (Ancient Greek: Συρίη ἡ Παλαιστίνη καλεομένη)[9] in The Histories, which included the Judean mountains and the Jordan Rift Valley. This interpretation is hardly new. Does Matthew or Luke tell a better Christmas story? Amy Orr-Ewing is the only female apologist I’ve heard of, and a very able one she is. It is the term for the private ‘upper’ room where Jesus and the disciples eat the ‘last supper’ (Mark 14.14 and Luke 22.11; Matthew does not mention the room). There is some reason for doing this; the word is used in the Greek Old Testament (the Septuagint, LXX) to translate a term for a public place of hospitality (eg in Ex 4.24 and 1 Samuel 9.22). What were the early Christian communities like. 2 Timothy 2:23 Ian’s motives are entirety honourable. Another possible explanation i haven’t seen anyone mention was that maybe Mary who was pregnant and ready to burst was unable or advised not to climb up a ladder to the Katamula. I Google searched “Jesus wasn’t born in a stable” and here i found your writing. Narratively, Jesus being rejected at some level even at birth is perfectly in line with his reception by Israel—they did not know the hour of their visitation. 3. The term and its derivates are used more than 250 times in Masoretic-derived versions of the Hebrew Bible, of which 10 uses are in the Torah, with undefined boundaries, and almost 200 of the remaining references are in the Book of Judges and the Books of Samuel. And the etymology of the word is quite general. It comes from kataluo meaning to unloose or untie, that is, to unsaddle one’s horses and untie one’s pack. I wish it were not so, but there we are. Thank you for posting this article. It’s worth noting that Roman Iudaea was not culturally (or at least religiously) uniform: it comprised Judah, Samaria, Galilee and Paralia, and the latter two areas had significant numbers of Greek- speakers and pagans. The Roman province was called “Iudaea” or Judea ( which was also the name for the southern toparchy), and as Ian notes, “Israel” is used several times in the New Testament to designate the land. “Most families would live in a single-room house, with a lower compartment for animals to be brought in at night, and either a room at the back for visitors, or space on the roof. We get to a point where what you/men say has no meaning nor value for us. It is used in Mark 14.4. Several years ago, I attended a Christmas drama performed by members of a local church. How does that fit in with defining the birth by non-Palestinian understandings? Simeon foresees this will happen (2.34), but there is nothing in these chapters to match Herod’s murderous intent. He argues that the shame that Mary’s out of wedlock pregnancy would bring on Joseph’s family explains why nobody would accept the couple in their guest rooms. Katie wasn’t ignored, and neither have you been. Once Joseph agreed to claim the baby, who else would have known the baby was “illegitimate”? I also think it is clear that discussions in comment all too quickly engage each other in a combative debate between commentators, rather than commenting on the content of the article. It’s absolutely not a money making exercise. Colin had worked for years as a missionary in the Middle East and was acutely aware of Middle Eastern laws of hospitality to strangers as well as one’s own family. I wonder what are your thought about the rejection of Joseph and Mary due to their unmarried but pregnant state? Just like to point out that a woman menstruates every 4 weeks or so. People might even start asking questions about how we read the Bible and understand it for ourselves! Why make a big issue of this? Some very reasoned thoughts on the message of Emanuel. Rev Ian Paul writes on his blog that birth of Christ story is based on a misreading of the New Testament, A 15th century nativity scene by Paolo Schiavo. So it is a later term. The kataluma was therefore in all likelihood the extra accommodation, possibly just a single room, perhaps built on the roof of Joseph’s family’s home for the new couple. This is clearly a reception room in a private home. I think you are right about the massive changes post-70. Can you? The birth of Christ may be the most famous Bible story of all, reprised annually in nativity scenes across the world each Christmas: Jesus was born in a stable, because there was no room at the inn. It’s my first time reading it. A stable is where animals are kept. Alongside putting up the Christmas decorations (usually far too early), finding a Christmas tree, preparing for carol services and planning where to buy your turkey, one of the annual routines at Christmas is my posting the argument that Jesus was not born in a stable. [Was Amos a sheep-owner shepherd, or a hired shepherd – it depends which word for shepherd we take as more important?] Bailey cites William Thomson, a Presbyterian missionary to Lebanon, Syria and Palestine, who wrote in 1857: 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. But as time went on, this term was used in a non-political cultural sense to refer to the culture of the region, especially in pre-modern times. This is a less scholarly response than most. I don’t disagree with some of the practical merits of seeing the other angle, I just think that Jesus’ more significant role is as the oft-rejected (by “good” Christians)stranger/guest who we are called to welcome as part of our own salvation. Luke 2:1-20. A long way away, (point to the distance) A little tiny baby, (cradle imaginary baby) In a bed of hay. A question was asked as to why more women aren’t commenting on this blog. I’m not a Biblical scholar, but I have a question in response to the threads regarding the shame Mary and Joseph may have experienced among relatives in Bethlehem. If it happened in an isolated stable, “that just shows that the descent was from a respected human to a disrespected human,” he argues. Joseph was a tekton, which I believe is the sort of carpenter who erects wooden frames for houses rather than the type who makes tables and chairs. Photograph: Philadelphia Museum of Art/Corbis. Tim Chaffey, AiG–US, examines this commonly held belief. Last modified on Thu 30 Nov 2017 02.36 GMT. I’d agree with you that it is a very general term, which I think its etymology points to. If we’re trying to read our Bibles correctly, surely we notice that the location is never given as Palestine in any of the gospels? Were they getting it wrong that long ago? Secondly, it is easy to underestimate how powerful a hold tradition has on our reading of Scripture. The main character of the play was an innkeeper. I was chatting to my friend about it and we were wondering whether Joseph and Mary’s families would have been prepared to host a woman who was pregnant with an (apparently) illegitimate child. James you are mistaken here. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/23/women-are-silenced-online-just-as-in-real-life-it-will-take-more-than-twitter-to-change-that. A manger (phatne) was a type of feed trough for animals. The house where Yeshua (Jesus) was born was a Jewish home. Once more: Jesus was not born in a stable. But it smacked me right across the face. The Kataluma in Luke 22 also has a genitive possessive “mou”—Jesus claims the room as his, a word that is conspicuously absent in Matthew. However, there are a number of alternate possibilities of the location of Yeshua's birth: But Jesus wasn’t born in a stable, and, curiously, the New Testament hardly even hints that this might have been the case. In the Christmas story, Jesus is not sad and lonely, some distance away in the stable, needing our sympathy. 2) Through Z & E a marriage is arranged between Joseph of Bethlehem and Mary The gospel accounts were written in a culture where it would not have been necessary to explain or describe the reactions of those in the story as the readers would have automatically shared it. The term has only very recently been politicised. God told Mary to choose the humblest place to give birth to Jesus. 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