Advent Week 4:
Your NATIVITY SCENE
Is Possibly Wrong

One of my seminary professors took a group of friends to tour Israel.  A tour guide gave the traditional rendering of the Biblical story surrounding a certain site.  My professor took his friends aside and pointed out what the tour guide got wrong.  One of his buddies looked at him, paused, looked at the beautiful site prepared by the tourist bureau, then the desolate place the professor argued where the events had actually taken place. He paused again and said to my professor, “Shut up!”

I get it.  Nobody wants to hear that the stories they grew up with are historically flawed.  After all, as we grow older, we want to hang on to the cherished stories of our youth.  They are comforting.  So, prepare yourself for the fact that the traditional nativity scene isn’t close to Biblically accurate.

First, The Wise Men

Most scenes displayed near Christmas feature Mary and Joseph under the shallow cover of a small cave with a few animals standing nearby.  Baby Jesus is laying in a little wooden contrivance that looks like something you’d buy at Hobby Lobby.  Looking on stoically are the wise men and the shepherds.  Everyone has seen it, and every Christian adores it.

Yet, Scripture paints a different portrait.  For example, Matthew 2:11 states that the “wise men” found Jesus when the family was living in a house.  Jesus is described as “paidion” or young child.  Thus, Jesus was probably already walking at that point.  He was probably at least a year old.

Next, The Inn

We have also all heard the story that Joseph could not find a place at “the inn.”  However, the little town of Bethlehem (and it was little) did not boast a Hilton or Marriot!  On that holy night, Jesus’ earthly parents were headed to the home of a relative of Joseph’s.  Here is where a little information about the typical house in Israel during this time comes in handy.

Kenneth E. Bailey was a New Testament scholar who spent many years in the Middle East as a teacher and missionary.  He penned the very helpful work Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels (Downer’s Grove, IL: IVP, 2007).

Bailey points out that the average first-century Palestinian home had a flat roof where bedrooms or guest rooms were often built.  The first floor featured a living room where guests could also find rest, as it was typically walled off from the elements.  Outside the living room was an area largely open to the outside (think of a large front or back porch).  This space also featured a sunken area where the family’s animals would be penned in for the night to guard them from theft or predators.  Running along the animal pen and in front of this porch was a food trough. This is where Jesus was born.  In a semi-open area of a home, next to a food box for animals.

Why do the NIV and other Bibles translate it as “no room for them in the inn”?  The Greek word translated as “inn” is katalyma, which according to scholars like William D. Mounce, means “guest chamber,” not inn.  Kenneth Bailey suspects that a Christian novel penned around 200 A.D. by an unknown author outlined the basics of the traditional Christmas story we have all come to know, even though said author had little or no knowledge of Israel or its first-century culture.

The real Christmas involved a young Mary (probably 14 or so) giving a painful birth to our savior while Joseph’s relatives tried to sleep in the next room and animals looked on.  Jesus was then placed in a feeding trough while poor Mary probably tried to sleep.  Yet, at some point that night, a number of shepherds showed up at the stairs leading to the “porch” to get a glimpse of the Lord of the universe in human form.

Now, the Wisemen

A year or so later, Joseph, Mary, and young Jesus were living in Bethlehem; Joseph had probably taken Mary with him for the census because her life was in danger as an unwed mother.  In all likelihood, they stayed in Bethlehem to avoid any further danger.  One day, some men come calling (we don’t really know how many) bearing gifts.  The young family probably used these gifts to escape from Palestine to Egypt to avoid the sword of King Herod.

Finally, the Main Point

This was the first Christmas.  You don’t need to go and change your nativity scene, for the most important part of that story is that God stepped down from His throne to live as a human being to save us.  That was, is, and will always be the message of Christmas.