Guest in the Stable

This week, and for the two weeks following, I am going to talk about my book “Meeting Jesus: Three Christmas Stories.” Each week I will take one of the three stories and talk about why I did certain things. When writing this book I wanted to make the stories as Biblically accurate as I could while still challenging traditions that we have surrounding Christmas.

Each of my stories covers the Christmas story from a different angle/group. I had ideas for these stories for years, and I wrote the stories themselves a few years ago. It was only published last year though. I will say I’m not crazy about the artwork, but it’s what I ended up with. It looks too kid-ish to me. I meant the story to be for kids around the age of twelve (old and younger can read it too.)

I hope that reading this book will make people think. In America, I feel like we have all heard the Christmas story so many times. We may not even really listen anymore. (For many we hear it again every year.) But the version we hear every year, is it accurate? Maybe it is. I’m not trying to say that you have been taught is wrong. BUT, if I can make you pick up your Bible to read it again (or do some research of your own) I feel I have done my job.

But I do want to take the time here (and over the next two weeks) to explain some of the things I did and why.

First of all my main characters and their backstories are completely made up. Any characters who you do not find in the Bible are made up by yours truly. Now there were shepherds and wise man but who they were and what they were like, we can only guess. I came up with what I thought or wanted. Do not take my words at all as scripture.

Now getting down to the first story “The Guest in the Stable.” We don’t know how old Mary and Joseph were. I wanted to make them young. Mary could have been any age from thirteen and up. Often she is shown as a teenager (16 to 18) which I think is probable right. However, Joseph is often made much older. This may come from the fact that in the Catholic Church they believe that Mary remained a virgin and that the “brother and sisters” of Jesus were cousins or step-siblings from Joseph’s supposed previous marriage. There is no scripture to back this point of view though, and I believe that these siblings were children of Mary and Joseph. The Bible says “but kept her a virgin until she gave birth to a Son;” in Matthew 1:25. That "until" to me says that after Jesus was born Mary and Joseph were husband and wife in every sense. Anyway, you don’t have to agree with me. This is the conclusion I came to after my own research. If you disagree research it for yourself. Anyway, I wanted Joseph to be a young man, not an old or an older one. Nothing in scripture says either way so I made him a young man.

Now to the big thing in this first story. I do not have them stay at an inn. Now you may say, “Now wait, the Bible clearly says in Luke 2:7 “because there was no room for them in the inn.” NASB. Let me explain. I remember hearing that this was a bad translation and some made the argument that it was not an inn. I decided to do some research into this myself. In Bible College for a project in Greek class, I did a word study on this word that is often translated as inn in this passage in the Bible. The Greek word here (and Luke wrote the Gospel of Luke in Greek) is katalumati. Now if you look up the meaning of katalumati , it is best translated as a lodging place or guest room. (See Strong's Concordance word number 2646). I proceeded to look up this Greek word in other dictionaries of Greek words and it is translated as “guest room.” A variation of the same word “kataluma” is used in Luke 22:11 and Mark 14:14 for the upper room where the last supper was held. So why is one place this word translated a guest room or upper room and clearly a room in someone’s house and at another place it translated as “inn.” In short, I don’t know. But from the word itself, it seems to imply there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the main house where guests would normally be placed. Also, my other research seems to support this. Inn and public places to stay were a very Roman and Greek thing. Not a Jewish thing at all. ( I remember reading that it was boasted doing one Passover Feast that had some of the highest numbers of people in Jerusalem for it, it was said that no one was without a place to eat their lamb or lay their head. Sorry I don’t remember where I heard this, so…) Throughout scripture you hear of people staying at people’s houses, not at inns and such. Repeatedly in the Old Testament, you read cases of people coming into a city or going to the town square and someone asking if they have a place to spend the night, then inviting them to their house though they are complete strangers. If inns were about, why would the travelers not go straight there? Even in the New Testament when Jesus sends the disciples out to do preaching on their own, he says that if they are not welcome to shack the dust off their feet as a sign against them and whatever house they enter to bless it and stay there the whole time (Matthew 10:12-15).

All in all from all I can find and read, a good Jew did not go stay at a place for foreigners when any other good Jew would give them a place to stay in their home. The Jewish people (Middle Eastern people in general) were (and still are?) very hospitable (at least to their own as far as Jews went at this time.) A Jew would stay with other Jews or maybe camping out in the open rather than stay with foreigners or a place for foreigners. (Such places may have been unclean too.) Joseph probably would not have dreamed of taking a pregnant Mary into the foreigner’s inn. (Some research seems to say that there may have been something like an inn in Bethlehem.) Now there is a possibility that they did stay at an inn. A small chance at least, but it does not fit with what I found. Also from the

International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, I read that the person they went to may have been something like a town elder. This I feel makes sense. Joseph may have known some people in the area and went where he thought was the best chance of finding a place to stay. Also, the Bible never says that they were turned away more than one times before they were given the stable as an afterthought. The whole idea of Joseph with an in labor Mary arriving after dark in Bethlehem, going around banging on doors, begging for a room, being told “NO ROOM!” and having the door slammed in his face feels way overdramatized and more American/European. Yet I see this in many movies and hear it in songs. It makes for good storytelling but is not Biblical. In fact, it says that while they were there the time came for the baby to be born (Luke 2:6). The "while they were there" bit seems to dispel the idea of an in labor Mary arriving in Bethlehem totally desperate.

So with all of this, I chose not to have them at an inn but staying at a private residence. Now I have also heard that they may not have been staying in a stable at all. In fact, the Bible never says they were in a stable. It only says that they placed Jesus in a manger. A manager being a feeding trough for animals, so you would normally find such a thing in the stable. I have heard the argument that because the guest room was full, they would have made room for them in the main house and just have brought in the manager as a better place to hold the baby. This could be true, but I chose to leave them in a stable. Why? The angel(s) tells the shepherds they will find the baby in a manger. True they don’t stay in a stable, but where are you going to look for a manager? In a stable. Also, many homes likely had stables so rather than going to lots of homes asking if they had a baby in a manger inside, they could just quick check their stable and not disturbed the whole house. Also if Mary and Joseph were staying at an elder’s house, and this was common, the shepherds may have thought to look there.

Now a quick word about the stable. I know traditionally it’s suppose to be a cave. Now tradition is not fact. Maybe it was a cave and maybe it was not. I chose not to make it one. Like I said I want to make people think and challenge tradition. Now I made my stable the first floor of the house and house built up. Now I don’t know for sure about this. What research I tried to do on this did not tell me much, but I think traditionally Hebrew houses were built more long than tall. One of the side rooms would be the stable and the house would be connected right to it. (I think I did read this somewhere.) The stable was just a part of the house. This is why we must not think that it was so terrible to put a pregnant woman in a stable. Sanitation and standers of living were totally different from today. It may have been the next most private place they could give them since the guest room was taken. Anyway, I chose to make my house tall rather than long. Being in a town/city it would make sense to build up rather than out. However this may be historically incorrect, I don’t know. I have never been to the Holy Lands (I want to go!) and the architecture may be too different, or we may not be able to tell. If I had to write the story over again maybe I would make it long. What’s done is done now.

One last minor note, I don’t have Mary riding a donkey. I know almost all pictures show this, and originally I did have it. But it’s nowhere in the Bible. Farther more Mary and Joseph were poor. We know this from when they took Jesus to be dedicated in the temple. By law, you were to offer a lamb for your firstborn, but if you were poor you could offer pigeons or doves. We are told they offered the latter. A donkey seems like an extravagance for riding. Now she may well have ridden one, but I think it is also just as likely that she walked, even though she was pregnant.

In the end, very little of this matters one way or the other. The story remains the same. Whether there was an inn, stable, or donkey it remains that Jesus came to earth as a baby in a humble way to offer a way of salvation for the world, you and I included. I hope I was able to clear up any questions you may have for why I chose to write as I did. I tried to include the info in the back of my book for where I got my information. If you still have questions, please contact me and ask. I will do my best to answer you.

May we remember the reason for the season. God Bless.