Could you point to textual evidence of a shame motif in Luke’s account? 2) Through Z & E a marriage is arranged between Joseph of Bethlehem and Mary I remembering noticing the place for cattle underneath the family home in houses in Switzerland. I don’t see a rejection of Jesus in his infancy and childhood in Luke 1-2. In the first place, it would be unthinkable that Joseph, returning to his place of ancestral origins, would not have been received by family members, even if they were not close relatives. Why was Jesus born in a stable? And the etymology of the word is quite general. Thank you for taking the time to reply. Hi Ian, Thanks for the blog. Amy Orr-Ewing is the only female apologist I’ve heard of, and a very able one she is. 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. 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. It seems harsh to exclude the inn-keeper in the current economic climate, but the birth does seem to be domestic in location. This blog is highly valued by many. More broadly, I have often wondered how far our culture’s contemporary concern with risk assessment and risk avoidance reflects not just the power of lawyers and insurance companies but also the greater salience of women in professional and public life. Kenneth Bailey’s very interesting (and to my mind persuasive) exposition of the parable of the prodigal son to answer the Muslim assertion that the cross is not referred to in that parable is an extended case in point. The question of rejection and shame comes later, with Jesus’ death on a cross. This is a beautiful story retold countless times at Christmas time. Joseph was not a carpenter. Why make a big issue of this? There we have the trough of hay or something to feed the cattle. Previous. It seems to me that having a baby (Jesus) “out of wedlock” would only be shameful if it were actually true. In reading the comments I saw the debate about the shame aspect. “Luke 13.10–17, Jesus comments: Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the manger [same word as Luke 2.7] and lead it out to give it water?” The explanation is given that ‘manger’ is a place where the animals are tied. A. The paper was published in NTS in 2010, but is available on Carlson’s blog for free. I have been convinced of this way of looking at the Christmas story since I first read Kenneth Bailey’s book around 10 years ago. Shepards and sheep graze on a ‘hill’ from the day the set goes up on the first day of Advent, Mary and Joseph travel around the house from windowsill to windowsill on there way to Bethlehem for three weeks. 8) Shepherds visit How poor and how marginal? Yes of course—but the things we are referring to here (such as hospitality, the importance of family connections, the keeping of animals) were not distinctively *Jewish* practices, but part of the wider culture of that part of the world. I think it is quite well documented that women are much more reluctant to engage in online conversations generally. Travels in Israel/Palestine to various archeological sites support your view, and offer opportunity for fresh interpretation of birth narratives. But Matthew 2:1 says, “[W]hen Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem.” In other words, Matthew never says that the magi were present at Jesus’ birth. What can we do for you?” If Joseph did have some member of the extended family resident in the village, he was honor-bound to seek them out. 6) During Mary’s stay something is indeed sorted out with Joseph (with the help of the angel) and it is decided that Mary (then 3 months pregnant) should return to Nazareth before it is obvious she is pregnant and that Joseph will come and take his bride complete the marriage, With them, Jesus is now revealed as the host/Savior because they became his guests. My Hungarian isn’t very good…, Oh, you are too modest, Ian …. I’d be interested to know your thoughts on this. 2. The point on the shepherds is well taken, and I wonder if the real problem here is one of exaggeration. In the Christmas story, Jesus is not sad and lonely, some distance away in the stable, needing our sympathy. 10) After they have gone the family flees to Egypt One last comment on this. After Mary places the baby in the manger, Luke immediately draws attention to the shepherds, whom I am inclined to think were ‘outsiders’ of some sort even though they also had a significant biblical heritage. B. Jesus was born too quickly for Mary to make it back to her room in the inn. Thanks for the comment. But the message of the incarnation is that Jesus is one of us. After Jesus is born, they then return together to set up home near Mary’s family. There are various examples of good preaching following this approach elsewhere on the blog. Older versions translate this as ‘inn’: And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And I have noticed in the kind of sites I like to visit – apologetics, philosophy, cosmology etc – where strong opinions abound, there are very few female voices. “In the Christmas story, Jesus is not sad and lonely, some distance away in the manger, needing our sympathy. ), Read with interest and happy to learn about another perspective which meets the rules of reasonable. Women are less combative or ‘agonistic’ than men generally, and so mostly do not engage in these kinds of exchanges. I think I have seen one, which someone pointed out last year. Really enjoyable, always informative (annual) read – thanks! He looks widely at the use of kataluma and in particular notes that in the Septuagint (LXX, the Greek translation of the OT from Hebrew in the second century BC) it translates a wide variety of Hebrew terms for ‘places to stay.’ He thus goes further than Bailey, agreeing that it does not mean inn, but instead that it refers to any place that was used as lodgings. Safety of livestock was primary; so, yes, at night they were brought in too. The most natural place to lay the baby is in the hay-filled depressions at the lower end of the house where the animals are fed. Pandocheion, pandokeion, pandokian (Gr.) Dec 16, 2020 | Hope. Wasn’t Palestine only recognised at a state in the 20th century? Critics of the historical accuracy of the Bible often find what they believe are contradictions among the writers of the gospel accounts because there are differences. 2 Timothy 2:23 …and yet there is not a single hint of all that in Luke’s text. It was the same in ancient China. In Luke’s gospel this somewhat fits with the theme (though I know the wise men do not appear here), of Jesus looking for and finding ‘saving faith’ in surprising places. Carlson's study turns the traditional interpretation of the "inn" as being a kind of ancient hotel on its head. This should fundamentally change our approach to enacting and preaching on the nativity. In fact, one late manuscript variant reads ‘lead it out from the house and give it water.’. What happens to virtue in an age of social media? Though the gospels do use some of these terms, they often refer to the land of Israel, especially Matthew and Luke, which of course is a term drawn from the OT (see eg Matt 2.20, 8.10, Luke 1.80, 7.9). Moreover, the actual design of Palestinian homes (even to the present day) makes sense of the whole story. [Was Amos a sheep-owner shepherd, or a hired shepherd – it depends which word for shepherd we take as more important?] I have to agree with the author that there doesn’t appear to be a shame aspect. Keep going Katie!!! Is you thesis available online at all? Instone-Brewer does make a very interesting follow-on suggestion that perhaps the shepherds were told first because of the fact that shame was one of the things that defined their occupation. Ian’s response was a mere ‘That’s an interesting question…’ But when Brian posted on December 4th, Ian responded in an engaging way that drew out the conversation. I don’t engage with all comments, and I sometimes offer one line and at others comment at length. I Google searched “Jesus wasn’t born in a stable” and here i found your writing. I agree with you—it adds depth and meaning to the story. The strangeness of this is again emphasised by its repetition in vv. Ian, I really appreciate you writing about this every year. Luke 2:1-20. Secondly, it is easy to underestimate how powerful a hold tradition has on our reading of Scripture. Reformed pastor from Transylvania, Romania. I think this part of the story is a bit ambivalent—it’s unclear whether Jesus was shown proper hospitality in part because Luke doesn’t go into much detail about his reception (in contrast to most other hospitality encounters). Second, I think both the cultural and the linguistic evidence is very compelling that there was no stable, no banishment and no distance. Once Joseph agreed to claim the baby, who else would have known the baby was “illegitimate”? See my other comment! The shepherds seem to me to be in the “ordinary” group – but I don’t think we can be dogmatic about their actual economic and social status, and we need to be wary about using modern categories for what was a very different culture and class-structure. 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. Thank you for writing this article, Ian. For some reason I have never been invited again to preach in Advent. While the Bible doesn’t use the word “stable,” it does say that the baby Jesus was laid in a manger—in other words, a feeding trough, which tells us they were in an area where animals were fed (Luke 2:7). And Bailey notes that Alfred Plummer, in his influential ICC commentary, originally published in the late nineteenth century, agreed with this. People generally want to cling to what they they find comforting (familiar), especially during this difficult time we have been through over the past several months. 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). Ian then posted a research position about women being risk averse. 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. Perhaps your experience makes the case for involving children’s group leaders, and parents, in sermon planning…?! “But Jesus wasn’t born in a stable, and, curiously, the New Testament hardly even hints that this might have been the case.”. The name of the Roman Province was Iudaea (or ‘Judea’). Furthermore, if he did not have family or friends in the village, as a member of the famous house of David, for the “sake of David,” he would still be welcomed into almost any village home. David is usually quite careful in his writing, so I am a little surprised at this. 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. I’m so very glad I found this! And when Luke does mention an ‘inn’, in the parable of the man who fell among thieves (Luke 10.34), he uses the more general term pandocheion, meaning a place in which all (travellers) are received, a caravanserai. There is a hint of this in John’s gospel, where Jesus is called Mary’s son (rather than Joseph’s), but I am not sure I can find much hint of the shame motif in Luke’s narrative. If you enjoyed this, do share it on social media (Facebook or Twitter) using the buttons on the left. Carlson presses the argument even further by arguing three points: 1. (I promise, not a word about your Great-uncle Vlad…. 4) The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary In the first place, we find it very difficult to read the story in its own cultural terms, and constantly impose our own assumptions about life. It talks of women ‘being silencing’ but that is not really what is happening. That is for the article! Decades of research have shown that men and women often behave differently in situations involving risk taking [34–37]. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0230043. Or was Jesus the only baby lying in hay? If any one thing has defined most Jews post-AD 70 it is that the vast majority have been urban dwellers, not pastoralists. Women aren’t risk averse; we just get to a point through demonstrated behavior by men where we know there’s no point in engaging with you. Secondly, he argues that the phrase in Luke 2.39 ‘to a town of their own, Nazareth’ doesn’t imply that they were returning to their home town, but that they then made this their home. LOVE knowing family welcomes family as we wait to welcome Jesus this season. But it smacked me right across the face. I don’t think “Palestine” is a helpful term historically for the same reason I wouldn’t talk about “Roman England “, and the problem became worse in the 20th century. Our problem is constantly imposing modern estimations of value on the ancient context. Showing 12 coloring pages related to - Jesus Born In Stable. On the contrary, the term was used by Ovid in the fifth century BC with reference to the region as a whole, so it is not anachronistic to use it. And in fact women do not gestate for the assumed 9 months. Jesus was not born in a stable. It seems to me that the following is both credible and consistent with the Biblical narrative: Happy to be pointed to it and change my mind. But one last question remains. And given Arab mobility, some ask serious questions as to whether ‘Palestinian Arab’ can really be a national, political designation. My point there was that in the Persian, Seleucid, Hasmonean and Roman period prior to AD 135 the land was not designated “Palestina” by the inhabitants or rulers. this excellent example from Stephen Kuhrt. Time i comment rooms allotted to individual travelers ( Firebaugh 1928 ) at... Name Palestine was derived, had apparently ceased to be understood bother me but find. Is swimming with all comments, and website in this browser for the 9... This matters quite a lot but i find so many people pulling a night shift in a... Lot but i find so many wholes the the Carol Services the only issue with it that. According to the Protevangelium of James than the Gospel of Luke, why let... 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