The Inn, the Manger, the Shepherds, and the Stable

 

I never want with these posts to make musical texts less meaningful to those who sing or hear them, and that is especially true with Christmas music. If I disagree with conventional ideas, rest assured that there will always be a deeper and richer meaning to be had in their place. As usual, I’ve had a ball diving down into various and sundry websites, finally coming up for air to share with you what I’ve discovered.

Probably everyone reading this post knows that the context for the birth of the Christ child in the town of Bethlehem is a Roman census: everyone has to go “to his own city.” (There’s a ton of controversy out there about what and when this “census” was; I’m not going to get into that whole issue here.) Joseph, we are told, was descended from King David, who came from Bethlehem and had been plucked out of obscurity as a youngest son and shepherd boy, ruling Israel way back around 1,000 BC. Bethlehem was therefore probably where Joseph was born. Why wasn’t he living there at the time of the census? We don’t know; in fact, we know very little about Joseph. Perhaps he had moved to Nazareth because there wasn’t much work for a carpenter in Bethlehem. But now he and Mary have had to travel back, a distance of about 100 miles. They would almost certainly have traveled in a group with other people; a lone journey was very dangerous, and they can’t have been the only ones needing to show up for the census. And those scenes with Mary barely making it into town and almost giving birth in the street are most assuredly not confirmed in the text, since we’re told that “while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered.” They got there with time to spare. I’ve wondered, though, if perhaps they’d delayed their journey in the hopes that the baby would come before the trip? Impossible to know.

Okay. They got to the town and needed a place to stay. Here’s the verse that has spawned many a Christmas card and many a sermon about hard-hearted innkeepers:

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 2:7)

First of all, charming and delightful as are all those pictures of the little stable with the animals gathered around a wooden hay-filled manger, they’re not accurate. (The star wasn’t there, either–it comes along later, with the wise men, or Magi.) Israelites didn’t typically keep their animals in an outdoor stable or barn; they actually kept the animals in a lower level of their own homes at night to keep them safe from thieves and predators. Sounds a bit disgusting, doesn’t it? But hey—we keep animals in our homes, too, don’t we? Cats, dogs, birds, hamsters, guinea pigs, pot-bellied pigs—you name it. Right now there are two litterboxes in our living space for our three cats. It’s not a terribly different situation from back then. If we were living in biblical times we’d let the ox or donkey out in the morning and shovel out that lower space, letting it air out before putting down fresh straw for the next night. And there would be a manger or mangers for those animals to eat from, almost certainly made from stone and not wood.

We’ll get back to where the real manger might have been in a minute. But first let me deal with the “no room in the inn” issue. Since the town of Bethlehem was very small, it probably wouldn’t have had anything like a commercial hotel or motel. No Holiday Inns, in other words. May I impose a little Greek on you? The word translated “inn” is “κατάλυμα,” or “kataluma,” and it actually means “guest room” or “upper room.” Interestingly enough, it’s the same word as that used in the story of the Last Supper: Jesus tells the disciples to prepare a “kataluma”:

Say ye to the goodman of the house, The Master saith, Where is the guestchamber, where I shall eat the passover with my disciples? (Mark 14:14)

There is a Greek word that means a commercial inn, “πανδοχεῖον” or “pandocheion,” a term Luke uses in the story of the Good Samaritan in chapter 10 of his gospel. He clearly knew the difference between the two words since he used both of them.

But so what? They weren’t at this “inn,” whatever it was. Oh, right. Where does that leave us? Here’s where theories abound, two in particular, and I have to say that I find one of them to be quite compelling. First let me tell you about the one that seems likely at first blush but then seems to fall apart. As noted above, the word “inn” refers simply to the upper level of the house, the main space where everyone slept, ate, cooked, and lived and where guests could also be accommodated. Since Joseph and Mary were both descendants of David, they’d have had family in Bethlehem and probably planned to stay with them in that part of the house. But the little town was bursting at the seams because everyone had to show up for the census. There was no place for the couple to sleep on the main floor, so they were sent to bed down with the animals, manger and all. There would have been women in the house available to help with the birth. There was no dramatic scene with the innkeeper standing with arms crossed, shaking his head and shooing Joseph and Mary off, because there was no actual inn. All very clear, right?

Well, it might be except for one fact: the shepherds who came to the manger seemed to know exactly where to go. Here’s all that the angel who appears to them says:

Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. (Luke 2:10-12)

Did they stand around trying to figure out what the angel’s “sign” meant? No they did not. We’re told that as soon as the angels left them from them they got going:

Let us now go even unto Bethlehem, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. And they came with haste, and found Mary, and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger. (Luke 2:15-16)

They hurried right to the designated place, didn’t they? There’s no indication in the text that they had to go up and down the streets of the town, stopping passersby and saying, “Do you know anything about a baby being born tonight and put in a manger?”

So where was this manger that the shepherds seemed to know all about? Here’s where a more likely and compelling idea (to me, at least) comes to the fore: that Jesus was actually born in a structure right outside Bethlehem called the “Tower of the Flock.” Stick with me here, as I know this post is going to be longer than my usual limit of around 1,000 words. I hope, though, whatever your personal faith may be, that you’ll find this information to be truly fascinating. Prophecies about the coming Messiah in the Jewish Bible specifically referenced a “tower” at Bethlehem. Remember how the Magi came to Jerusalem asking where the “King of the Jews” had been born? Herod, who was technically the “King of the Jews” himself, called together the scribes and they came up with this verse:

But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2)

(“Ephratah” means “fruitful” and is a sort of nickname for Bethlehem, which itself means “house of bread.”)

A few verses earlier in Micah we see this:

And thou, O tower of the flock, the strong hold of the daughter of Zion, unto thee shall it come, even the first dominion; the kingdom shall come to the daughter of Jerusalem. (4:8)

The Hebrew for “tower of the flock” is מגדל־עדר, or “Migdal Eder.” There are indeed stone watchtowers scattered throughout Israel, some of them used by shepherds to keep watch over their sheep. There is also the traditional location of Rachel’s tomb just outside Bethlehem which incorporates a “tower” or “pillar.” Scattered references in post-New Testament writings indicate that the fields around the town might have been used to raise the special sacrificial lambs for use at the Temple in Jerusalem, with the tower being used not only to keep watch but, in the lower level, for the ewes to give birth. So maybe the shepherds that the angels appeared to weren’t the humble, dirty outcasts usually portrayed but instead men trained in the Law and carrying out priestly duties. In the spirit of total transparency here, I will say that there’s much scholarly dispute about this idea and no hard-and-fast archaeological or documentary evidence.We have to be careful not to just say, “Well, it sounds good to me!” and leave it at that. Having admitted all that, though, I’m going to give you my take on how all of the foregoing would fit together using this theory. The narratives in Matthew and Luke simply don’t tell us everything. but the following ideas are perfectly in line with what little detail we are told:

The Roman census/enrollment/tax is proclaimed by Caesar Augustus, requiring that all those under Roman rule return to their place of birth or ancestral home. Mary is “great with child,” but there aren’t any exceptions being made. She and Joseph have to get to Bethlehem, and they do so, whether on foot or using a donkey. The journey probably takes at least a week and maybe longer, depending on how fast Mary can travel.

Perhaps because of the slowness of their travel, when Mary and Joseph finally get to Bethlehem there isn’t any room for them to stay with their relatives in the upper chamber. Also, and I didn’t get into this idea in the material above, a Jewish woman was considered ceremonially unclean for a certain period of time after childbirth, and we always have to remember to put this story into its Jewish context. So welcoming Mary into a crowded house where she couldn’t really be kept apart from everyone else would have caused a logistical problem not easily solved. Normally a pregnant woman would have arranged separate accommodation for the birth and its aftermath and wouldn’t have been doing any traveling for some time before. But Mary hasn’t had any choice. So what’s to be done?

There’s one place she and Joseph can go, someone says, a place that’s safe, protected, and clean: the birthing stalls for the lambs in the lower level of the Tower of the Flock. So that’s where the couple goes, and where the Christ child is born. Mary has probably brought along those “swaddling clothes” that puzzle us moderns so much; they’re simply cloth strips that are used to wrap up newborns. If she’d been living today she’d have brought along diapers and onesies.

Meanwhile, the shepherds out in the fields get the news about the new Messiah’s birth from the angels. They understand what they’re being told and know immediately where to go: back to their own tower with its mangers. Once they’ve seen the child they start spreading the word:

And when they had seen it, they made known abroad the saying which was told them concerning this child. And all they that heard it wondered at those things which were told them by the shepherds. (Luke 2:17-18)

Mary and Joseph stay at the Tower until her 40 days of purification are accomplished, at which time they go to Jerusalem to offer the required sacrifices. We know that they’re poor because they offer the two turtledoves/two pigeons alternative to a lamb. The trip to Jerusalem is often said to have occurred on the eighth day after Jesus’ birth, but that’s not what the text says. He’s been named Jesus and circumcised (by the town rabbi?) on that day, but the family doesn’t go to Jerusalem then. After their return from the ceremony they might have gone into the town of Bethlehem itself to stay with the relatives who had been their first choice. Or—who knows?—they might have returned to the Tower. Maybe they liked it there; maybe Joseph had found work with the shepherds. (Wild speculation on my part.) But whatever their exact lodging place may have been. they must have gone back to Bethlehem and not Nazareth because the Magi show up there and present their gifts, and this event has to have been after Mary’s 40-day purification. There simply hasn’t been time for the Magi to have gotten to Bethlehem all the way from Babylon in a shorter amount of time. (And remember, the Magi have gone to Jerusalem first to inquire of Herod: “Where is he that is born King of the Jews?” Herod is . . . “troubled” . . . by this question, but he recovers enough sang-froid to ask the Magi to come back and tell him where the child is, so that “I may come and worship him also.”)

The Magi are warned in a dream not to return to Jerusalem and report back to Herod, so they go back home by an alternate route. After Herod realizes that the Magi have ignored his request, he becomes enraged and orders the massacre of all children in Bethlehem under the age of two. (He’s probably giving himself a generous margin of error here.) Joseph has also been warned about Herod and takes his family to Egypt for some indeterminate period of time. They would have had the rich gifts from the Magi to use for living expenses. Upon their return to Israel they go to Nazareth. Then, except for the story about the 12-year-old Jesus visiting the temple and astounding/confounding the scribes there with his knowledge and wisdom, we don’t have any other information about his childhood.

And with that I’m going to force myself to stop. But if you’ve found this all to be quite intriguing I’m listing just a few additional sources at the bottom of this post that you might enjoy. In the meantime, here are a couple of lovely performances of “Away in a Manger,” a carol which doesn’t contradict what I’ve outlined above as long as you substitute “the sheep are a-bleating” for “the cattle are lowing.”

The first video has the tune that’s most commonly heard in America:

And here’s the most common one in the UK:

A-n-d, here are those extra resources I mentioned:

First, from a source that would be worth reading for its title alone, “Dr. Platypus”–“When Was Jesus Born? The Census”

Then, a very well-researched article about the whole “Tower of the Flock” idea, “Migdal Eder and the Birth of Christ”

And another one on that same subject, exploring the symbolism of the “tower” idea: “The Christmas Lamb”

Here’s the clickable link to the website referenced in the image caption: “Away In a Manger at Migdal Eder”

All Scripture references in this post are from the King James Version of the Bible, public domain.