No room – in a town full of Joseph's relatives?
"And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn." – Luke 2.6-7.
If Joseph returned to his "ancestral" home in order to register for the census, presumably so too did other relatives, both close and distant. One would also anticipate that some, and probably many, members of the tribe continued to live "in the city of David". Which makes it all the more surprising that there was "no room" in a village made up of Joseph's own kinsmen. Were the villagers all so heartless that they would not even accommodate a heavily pregnant young woman, one to whom they were distantly related and who was supposedly of the Davidic line? It is preposterous to suppose that the occupants of any lodging house would not have given priority to a woman about to give birth.
Here, of course, is a streak of Luke's anti-semitism.
In reality, the story of baby Jesus was enhanced by a "humble birth" in which the infant was placed into an animal feeding trough. Despite the tradition, no "stable" is mentioned in the gospels. In the Greek, the word used is
kataluma (καταλυματι), meaning a place “to break a journey”, which can be translated variously as "guest room", "lodging place" or even "cave". Certainly, early Christians developed a cherished "tradition" that the birthing of Jesus had taken place in a
cave and such a cave is so honoured in the
Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem to this day.
The venue is significant because from the very first Christians made a bid to sequester the sites of ancient pagan veneration. Already by the time of Justin (circa 150) the cave tradition had been established:
"But when the Child was born in Bethlehem, since Joseph could not find a lodging in that village, he took up his quarters in a certain cave near the village." – Dialogue with Trypho, 78.
Fourth century churchman
Jerome, a long-term resident of Bethlehem, gives the game away in a letter to the Gallic bishop Paulinus of Nola. In a passing comment Jerome reports that the cave shrine in "Christian" Bethlehem was formerly consecrated to the god Adonis-Tammuz!
"Even my own
Bethlehem, as it now is, that most venerable spot in the whole world of which the psalmist sings: the truth has sprung out of the earth, was
overshadowed by a grove of Tammuz , that is of Adonis ; and in
the very cave where the infant Christ had uttered His earliest cry lamentation was made for the paramour of Venus." – Jerome to Paulinus
Letter 58.3.
Besides the Babylonian god Tammuz, Hermes and Mithras were among the many pagan deities born in caves centuries before Jesus put in his subterranean appearance. No wonder Justin (
Dialogue with Trypho, 70) accused the "deceiving serpent "of preemptive imitation!.
Unlike
Matthew,
Luke makes no appeal to the Jewish prophet
Micah or any other prophet in his nativity story; for
Luke, announcements from angels suffice.
The whole thrust of his gospel is to present a saviour acceptable to the non-Jewish world ("
A light to bring revelation to the Gentiles ..." says the ancient but "living" prophet Simeon** in the temple, at last able to die happily –
Luke 2.32).
Thus, for example,
Luke extends the fantastical
genealogy of
Matthew way beyond the ancestor of the Jews (Abraham) to the progenitor of the
entire human race (Adam). In his nativity yarn,
Luke intrudes not eastern mystics, but humble shepherds.
These rustics represent humanity, receiving from yet another angel the "
good tidings" that a "
Saviour" is born (
Luke 2.10-11).
While Mary herself keeps silent on the momentous events (
Luke 2.19) – and
Matthew's magi make a fast exit –, the shepherds "
made known abroad ...
all the things they had heard and seen".
In other words, "the common man" is the prime witness to the wondrous message received from on high and the most important event in human
"history".
Curiously, we don't hear of these uniquely privileged shepherds again!