More Christmas myth-busters

** (This originally appeared on Beliefnet.com and I would post a link but the article is no longer available.) Though I'm in favor of demystifying spiritual themes, I still don't fully agree with his conclusion in the last paragraph. I suspect the standard explanation of the "Incarnation" is itself a myth.

No Room at the Inn?
By Ben Witherington III

The whole notion of the Holy Family being left shelterless by the world was probably no part of the original story.

Whenever Christmas rolls around, and the stories of Jesus' birth are read or heard in word and song, various images of what happened back then in Judea are conjured up. The problem is that these stories have been embroidered in the human imagination and in print in so many ways during the past two millennia that it is hard to get back to the original story and hear it in a fresh and clear way. In this and in subsequent columns during the Christmas season, we will rethink these stories and see if we can get back to what the New Testament writers were trying to tell us.

Let us take, for example, the story in Luke 2:4-7. Joseph and Mary must return to Bethlehem, Joseph's ancestral home, to be registered for tax purposes. Bethlehem, then as now, was a very small town that may not even have had a wayside inn. Whether it did or not, the likely place a poor couple would stay when making such a visit, especially with a pregnant woman involved, is with Joseph's relatives. The Greek word in question in Luke 2:7, "kataluma," while it can mean "inn," also has as a normal meaning "guest room," which is in fact precisely what it means else-where in Luke-Acts, including in the story of the last supper. Furthermore, Luke uses a very different word for "inn" elsewhere (for example, in the parable of the Good Samaritan).

What then happens to our story if we make a simple and likely variation in the translation of the word "kataluma"? First, there is no image conveyed of the holy family being told there is no room in a wayside inn. What they learn is that they have arrived at their relatives too late to be accommodated in the guest room. But this is not the end of the matter.

Far too many Christmas sermons have been based on the assumption that the family then ended up in a barn somewhere. This, too, is doubtful. Peasant families with only a few precious farm animals in ancient Israel regularly brought their animals into the back of their own homes for safekeeping, especially at night and in winter. It is historically far more plausible that Jo-seph's relatives made room for the holy family in the back or lower part of their own home, where the animals were. In short, the whole notion of the holy family being cast out by the world is probably no part of the original story.

They may not even have had to share the space with farm animals. Notice that Luke 2:7 does not mention there were animals present--unlike the next story, in Luke 2:8, which explicitly be-gins out in the fields, where there are shepherds and sheep. It is entirely possible that Mary's placing Jesus in the corn crib is an act that bespeaks the absence of the animals in the home at this juncture.

Somehow, when we allow the Christmas stories and their legendary accretions to be blended together in our minds, we not only miss the original thrust of the story, we even mislead those who would like to believe in the stories. At heart, this story is about what John Donne said it was about: "Twas much that man was made like God long before; But that God should be made like man--much more." The Christmas story does not call us back to a faith in the fractured fairy tales of childhood. It calls us forward to deal with the miracle of the Incarnation. If there is to be a mental wrestling in an age of doubt, let it be with the real substance of the real story.

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