Rev. Dr. Eric Laverentz — Why Was There No Room in the Inn? Did the “Law of Moses” Cast Out God’s Only Son?

Why Was There No Room in the Inn? Did the “Law of Moses” Cast Out God’s Only Son?

One of the most popular Biblical narratives, told in Christmas program after Christmas program, is the story of how the Son of God, the King of all creation, came to be born in a stable. The ignoble location of His birth is an important comment on the humble origins of God’s only Son in the world He created, who prayed to His Father on the night before He was crucified to “…glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.” —John 17:5

The common narrative is that Joseph and the very pregnant Mary arrived in Bethlehem to be counted for the census and went door to door knocking in search of a place to stay. Mary and Joseph, because they were from out of town, sought out commercial lodging, an inn, to stay to be counted as part of Caesar Augustus’ census. Because the census had filled to bursting the city of Bethlehem with travelers, so the story goes, there were no vacancies available even for a mother about to give birth and her husband. Finally, so we are told, an innkeeper with a generous spirit and gentle heart gave them space in his stable as for Mary to give birth as her contractions began. And in the borrowed stable of a stranger, surrounded by farm animals, the King of Glory was born. This particular re-telling is a comment that from the very beginning the world rejected its Lord and Savior and we must keep room in our hearts for Jesus.

There are parts of this narrative, upon a more detailed reading of the text, that are almost certainly wrong. As we pull that thread, it raises other questions. And those questions, along with a greater understanding of Jewish practice and Old Testament ceremonial law (what Luke calls “The Law of Moses”) tells a different story that is richer and deeper than our commonly told version and aligns with a grand theme in Luke’s writings. Could Luke the Gentile’s version of the Gospel be making a subtle point about the shortcomings of legalism and our need for salvation by grace alone?

The first domino of our different and hopefully more accurate understanding of Jesus’ birth begins with the idea of where Mary and Joseph chose to stay. Would Mary and Joseph really have chosen to stay in an “inn?” Would they have sought to stay for at least several weeks in commercial lodging, our modern equivalent of a hotel?

The likely answer is no.

Many versions translate Luke 2:7 to say, “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling clothes and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.” Yet, the word often translated as inn, katalyma, is commonly translated as ‘guest room.’ In fact, when Luke recounts Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, he uses a different word, pandocheion, to describe the place where the Samaritan stays with and leaves behind the man going down from Jerusalem to Jericho who was beaten and left for dead. The Samaritan, in Jesus’ parable, promised to pay the innkeeper to care the man he picked up along the road. So, this was clearly a commercial lodging arrangement.

Might Luke who was an excellent writer have just been using different words? Perhaps but it would have been highly unusual for a family traveling, especially to a place where extended family lived, to stay in commercial lodging. We even know Mary’s cousin Elizabeth lived not far from Bethlehem in the hill country of Judah. In fact, the traditional location of Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah’s home is in Ein Karem a mere six mile walk from Bethlehem. Mary had recently lived in their home for three months during the early stages of her pregnancy. Moreover, Mary and Joseph returned to Bethlehem for Augustus’ census because his family, the family of David, was from Bethlehem. It stands to reason that he would still have had family living there. Between Mary and Joseph, the likelihood of having family with whom to lodge seems highly probable. Mary, Joseph and Jesus, it appears according to Matthew’s Gospel, also stayed in Bethlehem for an extended period of time—as much as two years. Staying with family for that amount of time would make more sense than staying in commercial lodging.

However, if Mary and Joseph did stay with family, it raises the question of why would they not provide a more reasonable place for her to give birth to her first-born child? Again, it's important we do not read more into the text than is present. The traditional Christmas Eve picture we have is of Mary, Joseph and Jesus in utero arriving at night in Bethlehem with Mary astride a donkey. They desperately knock on doors, as her birth pangs intensify. However, the text does not even imply this. The text simply says that Mary, who was with child, and Joseph came to Bethlehem. The picture of the breathless door to door dash as Mary prepares to deliver Jesus does not come from Luke.

And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth.—Luke 2:4-6

Nowhere does Luke suggest that Mary and Joseph arrived in town just in the nick of time. If anything, the text suggests a more leisurely pace, that Mary and Joseph went from Galilee to Bethlehem and were in the middle of their stay, when the blessed moment of the birth of the Savior of the World arrived. The idea that Joseph and Mary arrived in Bethlehem in plenty of time before Jesus’ birth also dismisses any irresponsible and dangerous tactic of traveling for the better part of a week through the countryside with Mary nearly ready to give birth.

So, let’s assume that Mary and Joseph were staying with family. Did Mary and Joseph live in the stable with the animals for weeks or days before because the family guest room was full? And did they stay in the stable afterward for weeks and months because the house was filled with other family coming to town for the census? Again, it's important that we stick close to the text and divorce ourselves from the narrative we have seen in movies and books and even told from the pulpit. The text tells us only that Jesus’ birth took place in the stable because there was no room or place for her to give birth. Again, Luke 2:7:

And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.

We also know that the shepherds visited Mary, Joseph and Jesus in the stable and a plain reading of the text suggests they visited on the very day Jesus was born. We are told that the shepherds went from tending their flocks in the fields at night with “haste” over the Bethlehem after the angel told them:

For unto you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior who is Christ the Lord. —Luke 2:11

Again, if we read the text simply, ‘unhearing’ what has been suggested and outright asserted in the many tellings and re-tellings, a plausible and perhaps even plain reading seems to be that Mary and Joseph stayed in Bethlehem with family. When the time came for Mary to give birth, she was moved into the stable. This is not what we have been told time and time again. However, the text does not say when Mary and Joseph arrived in Bethlehem they were placed in the stable because there was no room nor is it suggested. The text recounts their stay in the stable only in relation to Jesus’ birth.  

Are we really suggesting that Mary and Joseph stayed with family and then at seemingly the most inopportune time were suddenly moved out to the stable for the birth of a child? What possible motivation could there be for this kind of action?  

Luke the Gentile and anti-legalist suggests a motivation because he is clearly aware of a circumstance that would make practical such a move under the Old Testament ceremonial law. Not unlike when she menstruated, when a woman gave birth, according to Leviticus, she was ritually unclean. The Hebrew term for this unclean state is called niddah. The timeframe of niddah for the birth of a male child was seven days. The birth of a female child rendered mother and daughter unclean for 14 days.

 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to the people of Israel, saying, if a woman conceives and bears a male child, then she shall be unclean seven days. As at the time of her menstruation, she shall be unclean. And on the eighth day the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised. Then she shall continue for thirty-three days in the blood of her purifying. She shall not touch anything holy, nor come into the sanctuary, until the days of her purifying are completed. But if she bears a female child, then she shall be unclean two weeks, as in her menstruation. And she shall continue in the blood of her purifying for sixty-six days. —Leviticus 12:1-5

 Luke was clearly aware of this because he recounts that on the eighth day after His birth, Jesus was circumcised and given his name. Luke even goes further to say that at this same time Jesus and Mary were made ceremonially pure at the temple.

 And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. Jesus Presented at the Temple

And when the time came for their purification according to the Law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord (as it is written in the Law of the Lord, “Every male who first opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the Law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” —Luke 2:21-24

So, there is no debate if Mary and Jesus were considered unclean for the first week of his life. Luke clearly recounts they were. Indeed, we might even say that Luke is captivated with this topic. We tend to gloss over these parts of the text because Jesus’ naming, circumcision and purification do not inspire as easily as the grand narrative around Jesus’ birth. But Luke expends a nearly equal number of words on this this part of Jesus’ story as he does on His birth. So we need to ask the question “What are the implications for others if Mary and Jesus were considered ceremonially unclean and how might they have needed to take steps to prevent their own uncleanness?”

A woman was supposed to remain sexually separated from her husband during this time and she could not come near the temple. But that is not all. During niddah coming into physical contact with the woman or infant rendered that person unclean as well. And most things an unclean person touched were rendered midras. According to Leviticus 15:5, coming into physical contact with anything midras, like a chair or couch or rug on which the woman or infant sat, lay, or stood rendered the person unclean. For example, if baby Jesus had been laid on a couch rather than a manger or if Mary stood on a rug and one of Joseph’s cousins sat on that same couch or stood on the same rug afterward, they would also be rendered impure. Certainly, there would be no holding of the newborn by loving family as we expect today. In a busy, cramped, first-century Jewish home, this kind of arrangement might have proven extremely problematic. Some Jewish communities even specified specific places for women to spend their niddah—known as a niddah hut. The niddah hut was a small structure away from the regular family residence where a woman stayed during her niddah before ritually cleansing herself in a mikveh, a ritual cleansing pool, or a river.

When Luke asserts that Jesus was laid in a manger because there was no place for them, is this what he is referring to? Is Luke saying there was not a sufficient space in the home for Mary to give birth without making impure or at least significantly inconveniencing the rest of the family staying there? And is Luke’s Gospel making a point about the shortcomings of the law?

This interpretation makes more sense than others commonly told. Luke has a way of implying the shortcomings of legalism and obedience to the “Law of Moses” without outright naming deficiencies or engaging in polemics. He’s critical without being disrespectful. Luke is very matter of fact in his task of carrying the Gospel to the Gentiles and breaking free of the law as a means of salvation.

For example, Luke’s Gospel, in telling the story of Jesus casting the demons out of the man living on the Gentile side of Galilee, a region known as Gerasenes, goes into the extra detail of saying that the demoniac man lived among the tombs. Among the bodies of the dead is a place that would render a Jewish person unclean. And recounts Jesus being right in the middle of all of it. Luke also shares the extra detail that Jesus cast the demons into a herd of swine dwelling there—another item considered unclean. Luke does not talk directly about the Jewish ceremonial law but it is a clear theme of the story. In the parable of the Prodigal Son, it is noted, to amplify his shame, that the wayward son fed pigs to keep himself alive—yet the father excitedly welcomes him back.

Another example of this subtly is in Acts, also authored by Luke. In Chapter 10 we are told that Peter stayed at the house of Simon the Tanner in Joppa. Simon, a Jew, because of his work with dead animals would have been left in a state of perpetual uncleanness. Staying in a home such as this would have rendered Peter unclean. It is in the house of Simon the Tanner as well that Peter is given a vision releasing him the Jewish dietary restrictions. It is also here that Peter is called to the house of the Gentile Cornelius.

Luke’s sometimes raises the ceremonial in the context of a negative example. In the parable of the Good Samaritan, as Jesus recounts it, the parable a priest and Levite crossed to the other side of the road when they saw the man who fell among robbers. Jesus said that the man had been left for dead. If those holy men believed he was dead any physical contact would have rendered them unclean. The Samaritan, of course, had no such compunction and he cleansed and bound the man’s wounds, placed him on his own animal and cared for him

Of course, the greatest example in Luke’s writings of our release from the ceremonial law is his re-telling of the deliberations of the Jerusalem Council in 50 AD. At that council, the Gentiles were released from holding to the ceremonial law as a requirement to following Jesus and were instead simply instructed to abstain from sexual immorality and not eat food sacrificed to idols.

Is Luke doing something similar here with the birth of the Savior of the World? Rather than saying at the outset that Jesus is rejected by the world is Luke’s Gospel instead implying that the religious ritual forced Mary and God’s only Son to be cast out of a family home and born among animals? Was it not a full and busy house that forced God’s only Son to be born in a lowly manger but obedience to “the law of Moses” that perpetually renders some insiders and others outsiders? What does it say about the law, and its need to be overturned, that even God’s only Son was considered unclean and an outcast for the first week of His earthly existence? Does Luke’s Gospel, from the outset, lay the foundation for the law’s shortcomings and our salvation by grace? And have we missed this profound point because another narrative, one unsupported by Scripture, has been imposed us? I believe we have.

To be fair, the traditional reading certainly has merit. “It will preach,” as they say. And it has. But we must admit its shortcomings. It simply does not square with what was likely reality and that mitigates its utility. Our teaching must, first of all, be grounded in truth. The interpretation strongly suggested by Scripture and a greater understanding of history and ceremonial law profoundly emphasizes a grand theme of Luke’s writings—the shortcomings of the law and our salvation by grace.

Reverend Doctor Eric Laverentz is the Lead Pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Edmond.