Was the Christ child born in a stable?

Kaikhohen Kipgen *

Evening of Christmas at Imphal area on December 24 2014 :: Pix - Bond Armando

In Luke 2:1-7 the physician-evangelist presents the birth narrative of Jesus briefly in a clear, familiar style. The story is straightforward, and the historical events connected with the birth are given in simple logical order. Fancy details are left out and the story is told with the minimum of words. There is little to misunderstand.

Popular story of the nativity: Unfortunately, the Christmas story which prevails in the churches throughout the world and is recounted from year to year bears little resemblance to the record set down by Luke. Contrary to Luke's straightforward account, the picture which is given is that the worry-weary Joseph having failed in his last-minute frantic search for suitable accommodation was compelled to lodge with his betrothed Mary, who was in the very last stages of her pregnancy, in a dingy stinking stable located in the vicinity of an overcrowded Inn! There the birth of our Lord took place with intruding cattle lowing! Every Christmas time the story finds expression of the kind in one form or another.

The popular stories of the nativity owe their origin to the Apocryphal Gospels of the Middle Ages. They are the product of pious attempts by Christians who were otherwise ignorant of the Palestinian cultural background of the Gospel tradition to fill in the gaps of the birth story on the basis of their own cultural background. Their influence on artists, Bible story tellers, Christmas sermons and hymn writers is more than evident. Most of the well loved carols fall into this category. As one would expect, commercial enterprise exploits these beautiful sentiments to the full. Less sentimental is the cave theory, but it belongs also to an Apocryphal Gospel of the second century A.D.(1)

Excavating the true story: The keyword in the birth narrative is the Greek kataluma. The word is derived from kataluo, meaning 'to lodge', literary koine for old katagogeion (resting place) which carries with it the idea of place.(2) In late classical Greek kataluma usually means 'lodging',(3) located possibly on a flat roof.(4) In Palestine of the day where rainfall was not severe as in many countries affected by the monsoon rains, flat rooftops were common. This kind of 'guest room' was probably served by an outside staircase. That was how it was possible for those who brought the paralytic to let him down through the opening of the roof to an overcrowded room where Jesus was preaching! (Mark 2:3-5) Sometimes it means simply public hospitality.(5)

In Septuagint (OT in Greek) the term kataluma is found twice: once in 1 Kings 17:19 as a reference to the upstairs room in the house of the widow in Zarephath where the prophet Elijah was staying during his exile from king Ahab; and again in 2 Kings 4:10 as a reference to the small room on the roof-top which the rich woman of Shunem and her husband specially built so that Elisha had a place to stay whenever the prophet visited them. The latter mentions the content of the room: a bed, a table, a chair and a lamp.

In the New Testament, apart from Luke 2:7, kataluma occurs two more times: Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11, and in each case it refers to the upper room where Jesus had his Last Supper with his disciples. The Matthean parallel does not even distinguish the room where the Passover meal was held from the house. (Matt. 26:18) One may ask the question oneself: would Luke have employed kataluma for an upstairs room in Luke 22:11 and for the traditional inn of the time in Luke 2:7? In the story of the Good Samaritan, Luke is careful to employ a different term for inn, namely pandocheion (Luke 10:34). Whatever later translators, who translated into vernaculars made of, it seems most unlikely that by kataluma Luke meant a traditional inn of his time!

The question is how did the idea of an inn come about? Most probably the rendering of kataluma for an inn traced its origin to Jerome's Latin Vulgate translation of the Bible in 4th century A.D. Jerome translated kataluma in Luke 2:7 in Latin as diversorium, meaning a roadside lodging – an inn, which is an entirely different proposition from the idea of an additional room on the roof-top of a normal Palestinian house! An inn immediately suggests a 'guest house' or a hotel to the mind of the present day reader. The impact of Jerome's rendering of kataluma as an 'inn' is far and wide: most of the subsequent versions, except NT in Basic English, NEB and New Jerusalem Bible, translate kataluma as 'inn'. Further, a number of Greek-English lexicons list 'inn' to be one of the meanings of kataluma! This seems absurd unless Jerome's rendering is deemed as being inspired!

If our line of reasoning is accepted, we can conclude that wherever kataluma is employed in the Bible, it means an additional room constructed on the flat roof-top in a Palestinian setting. Therefore in the birth narrative also it is probably more appropriate to translate it as 'lodging place' or 'guest room'. So Luke writes:

She gave birth to her first son, wrapped him in strips of cloth and laid
Him in a manger, because there was no space for them at the guest room
in the house. (Luke 2:7)

Then too, Luke's account rules out the possibility of an ill-fated emergency situation: "While they were in Bethlehem, the time came for her to have her baby." (Luke 2:6) And there was no question of their not finding a place to stay in Bethlehem. It suggests a much more relaxed atmosphere than that usually portrayed. Where does the manger come from? It would seem perfectly plausible that in an ordinary Palestinian house the ground floor was shared by domestic animals and its human inhabitants (as is the case with many oriental houses even to this day), so that a manger could very well be a household item for storing fodder. If so, it would have provided a conveniently safe place to lay the baby.

Furthermore, the immediate context suggests that 'for them' in Luke 2:7 could possibly refer to Mary and her child. Why was there no space for them in the guest room? According to some commentaries Jesus was born in the month of Nisan (April), the Passover month, and if so, the room could have been occupied by other relatives who had come to celebrate the Feast. Also, by its very nature, the guest room would be too congested for delivery of a baby to take place. On the other hand, for reasons of privacy and sanitary considerations it was necessary that the birth should take place on the ground floor of the house. It was probably an all-woman affair!

Admittedly, our rendering of the text will make the birth narrative less romantic than the traditional one, there is no denying the fact that it is a faithful interpretation of Luke's account. In fact the birth would have passed unnoticed as a normal event in the life of an ordinary Palestinian household. This, however, does not make any less of the incarnation event. God came down to identify himself with the lowliest of human beings.

The popular understanding that, because of the overcrowded inn, Joseph and Mary had to lodge in a stable and the birth took place there poses a further problem. Where did the family spend the intervening period before their travel to Jerusalem to present the child for purification? (Luke 2:21-22) It would mean that they had to find a place to stay for some forty days (See Lev. 12:2-4). Are we to assume that they stayed on in the imaginary stable or they found a room in the mythical inn? The fact that Luke did not mention this suggests that the problem did not arise for him.

NOTES:

1. The Protevangelium of James 18:1; 19:2-3; 20:4 and so on. The whole purpose of the work is for the glorification of Mary of which the birth narrative is a part.
2. A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the light of historical research, p. 151; cf. F Blass and A Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature, *109(2).
3. Cf. Polybius 2. 31. 1; 32. 19. 2; Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum 609.1; Jesus Sirach 14:25.
4. Cf. Epistle of Aristeas 181.
5. Diodorus Siculus (Diodorus of Sicily) 14. 93. 5.