Guest Room

In recent years I have gone back over the Christmas story and in Greek discovered some things that had me scratching my head because it didn't line up with the words and the culture reflected for that time period.  As I do when I'm stumped I went looking for the answers and found them in Luke and in a book called Jesus: Through Middle Eastern Eyes by Kenneth Bailey.  What we have typically accepted from the English has actually given us a bad translation and something totally different from what really happened.

In Luke 2:1-4 we learn that there was a census that took place so that Augustus could tax the Empire more efficiently.  Everyone was sent to where their ancestry was from which for Joseph was Bethlehem.  At first there was no evidence of this census taking place until the decade when a small reference was found on a stone tablet that indicated Luke was absolutely accurate. 

In Luke 2:5 we are told Joseph brought Mary who was pregnant.  From the narrative and the tenses in Greek Luke is telling us that Joseph and Mary went to Bethlehem and while there she at some point went into labor.  It was not as movies and paintings have portrayed, Mary being ready to have the baby on the donkey right as they enter Bethlehem.  In fact the lone journey was not how Mary and Joseph would have traveled.  Mary and her parents were also from the ancestry of David and they would have gone with them as was the custom for safety reasons.  We see this in Luke 2:43-44 when Joseph and Mary took Jesus up to Jerusalem and in the story of the Good Samaritan.

Luke 2:7 tells us that Mary bore Jesus and wrapped Him in a manager but the next phrase in the English says, "because there was no place for them in the inn."  In the Greek however it reads, "because there was absolutely no place for them in the guest room."  So how did the English version get so different?  That is a good question because Luke uses another word for "inn" pandocheion where the good Samaritan took the man attacked.  In Luke 22:11 when Jesus told the disciples where to go to get a place to hold Passover and He told them to ask for the kataluma the "guest room" of the house.

In Middle Eastern culture from the time of David till WWII the average person and the wealthy built a room onto their house that would be offered to travelers passing through their town or city.  A typical house was one room where the family slept, ate, cooked and kept the animals they owned.  Unlike the nativity scenes with the stables pictured, animals were brought into the house and served as heaters for the family in the winter time because their body heat together provided added warmth.  The guest room was only for entertaining guests and travelers.  In our culture, we only bring people we know into our homes but their culture brought strangers into their homes.  Paul encouraged the Romans not to forsake hospitality to both people they knew but also people who were strangers.

The house that Mary and Joseph stayed in, had a full guest room so they were put in the family room and not the stable we have been apt to put in the nativity.  In the house, because the animals were brought inside, they would construct a manager and put it near the animals so they could lean over the pen they were kept in and eat.  With a full house there would have been no where to put the sling babies were often put in during that era so a manager was the most logical.

This changes the idea that Mary and Joseph were put outside in a cave with no midwife and no provisions.  The women of the house not to mention Mary's family would have assisted with the birth of Christ.  The shepherds who were famous for their hospitality would never have left the baby Jesus and his parents outside.  They would have taken them home and made sure they were treated with honor.  In Luke 2:17 the shepherds told about the angels' message publicly and they would have had a guestroom and family room filled with people plus those around the house where they were led.  It says they rejoiced at all they saw so it was satisfactory hospitality for them. So what does this correction mean for us?  Instead of rejection God was illustrating where God wanted to be, in the family room, in the midst of our busy lives, in our day to day existence.  He wanted to be God with us.