Away in a manger, but not in a barn

What does the normal picture of Jesus?

Where do we find the description of this image in the bible?.

This image is clear in our minds. Can we question it?

It can make you be considered a scrooge or even have you end up in the Spanish Inquisition

“In 1584, the great and outspoken philologist at the University of Salamanca, Francisco Sánchez de las Brozas, discovered this the hard way when his students reported him to the Spanish Inquisition. He had criticized the depictions of the nativity in church paintings, and one of his criticisms was that Jesus was not born in the stable nor were his parents rejected by an innkeeper as commonly thought, but that Mary gave birth in a private home belonging to friends or relatives. Summoned before the Inquisitors later in September, El Brocense defended his positions in writing,

Where do we learn Jesus was in a stable?

Ian Paul gives 3 reasons

Traditional elaboration Issues of grammar and meaning; Ignorance of first-century Palestinian culture

Elaboration means how tradition has developed

& where do you find a manger for feeding?

Animals are kept in a stable afterall?

But not reallya

As Bailey explores in his Jesus Through Middle-Eastern Eyes, most families would live in a single-room house, with a lower compartment for animals to be brought in at night, and either a room at the back for visitors, or space on the roof. The family living area would usually have hollows in the ground, filled with hay, in the living area, where the animals would feed.

What do you think of when you hear Inn?

What do you think of when you hear Inn?

But this iis not the right translation.

Even the bible dictionary puts the only translation as inn with this verse when it is used elsewhere to speak of a guest room in a house

Mark 14:13–15- And he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him, and wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’ And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready; there prepare for us.”

And Luke uses a different word to talk about a place for strangers to stay

Luke 10:34-35 the good samaritan takes the injured jew to a inn, but this is a completely different greek word

Where do we see that mean inn keeper who sent them away?

-There is no room, but the inn keeper is not part of the story

So the translation gives us the wrong image

the Bible makes no mention of any innkeeper who told them that the inn was full for the night

Whose town was Jospeh going to? His own families!

it would be unthinkable that Joseph, returning to his place of ancestral origins, would not have been received by family members, even if they were not close relatives

Turn to:

1 Timothy 5:8- But if anyone does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.

Even unbelievers knew the importance of caring for family

The inner room

The guest room would been a separate sleeping area for friends and families to stay at in this hospitality focused culture

most families would live in a single-room house, with a lower compartment for animals to be brought in at night, and either a room at the back for visitors, or space on the roof.

The room would have been full of other family members coming, and poor mary would not want to give birth there,

So Joseph and Mary must stay with the family itself, in the main room of the house, and there Mary gives birth. The most natural place to lay the baby is in the hay-filled depressions at the lower end of the house where the animals are fed

Animals would be brought in at night, so there would be mangers there to feed the animals.

And yes, stone mangers, not a cute wooden one.

There was probably no one more deserving.

So what’s up?

It was known she was pregnant before married?

Read: John 8:39–42

“We are not illegitimate”—with [the] innuendo that he was (John 8:41).

On another occasion, [people asked,] “Is not this [the] son of Mary?” [That’s] a rude question in a patriarchal society (Mark 6:3).

#1- it is very easy to think that the ancient world was just like our world and we forget the differences. If this is something as simple as a stable, how much more the bigger issues

#2- I heard from a man once when this was brought up… pssssh… I just don’t buy that. It can be hard for us to move past tradition.

#3- —Jesus wasn’t born in a place where we can happily visit once a year, and then forget about.

Rather, he comes to the centre of human life, and cannot so easily be romanticised or ignored.

Jesus is not sad and lonely, s

ome distance away in the stable, needing our sympathy. He is in the midst of the family, and all the visiting relations, right in the thick of it and demanding our attention