1st week of Advent
Were Mary and Joseph turned away from the only hotel in Bethlehem because it had no vacancy? Was Jesus born in a dirty stable with manure on the floor and wooden walls? Are our table-top nativity scenes accurate? Well, here’s the truth.
There were no Holiday Inns in first-century Bethlehem. In Luke 2:7, Luke says, “There was no room for them in the inn.” So, what about “inn” am I not understanding? Luke uses the Greek word kataluma (κατάλυμα), which is translated as “inn” in many translations. Kataluma is the same word he uses in Luke 22:11 when Jesus asks his disciples, “Where is the guest room [kataluma] where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?” Luke does describe an inn with a different word, pandocheion (πανδοχεῖον), in the parable of the Good Samaritan when the wounded man “was taken to an inn [pandocheion] and cared for there” (Luke 10:34). Luke’s use of Kataluma at Jesus’ birth clearly refers to a guest room, not a public building. But what does Luke mean when he says there was no space available in the guest room?
The kataluma was a guest room, but not like the one I have at home or the one you have in yours. It was more like a small storage closet that held grain and dried fruit for family use. When guests arrived (which was rare), the storage room was cleaned out so the guest(s) wouldn’t have to sleep in the main living space with the rest of the family. Mary and Joseph arrived late, and the kataluma had already welcomed earlier guests. So, where do you put a young woman about to give birth?
Bethlehem houses were built over caves so a few family animals could be kept overnight in a safe place, away from thieves and predators. Large sheep flocks were protected in a sheepfold, guarded by a watchman overnight until the shepherd returned for his flock in the morning. Mary could not stay in the larger living quarters, and the only protected place was the cave-stable below the house. The manger was a rock opening cut in the side of the cave wall where animals were fed.
The inn was not a lodging facility, and the stable was not a wooden structure like our modern barns. On the night he was born, the Christ child was protected in a cave under the family’s home. For more details about Mary and Joseph’s story, read my book Christmas Worship and the Birth of Our Savior, available on Amazon or at www.burshilling.com.