No Room in the Inn

Christmas is a wonderful time of the year, and people have often wondered what it would have been like to witness the very first Christmas. I mean, what would you have seen?

Unfortunately, our ideas about that aren’t always accurate. They’re affected by things like artwork, creches, and Christmas cards.

Today, I’m going to be telling you one idea about the first Christmas that is very likely . . . to be wrong.

 

A Debate

A few years ago, I debated the noted New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman, and during the cross-examination period, one of my answers surprised him

BART: So, do you think Jesus was born in Bethlehem?

JIMMY: Yes, I do.

BART: How do you account for the fact that Matthew and Luke disagree about how it happened? In Luke, there’s a census, they’re from Nazareth, and in Luke they have to go to Bethlehem. And while they’re there to register for the census happens to be the time when Mary goes into labor and she gives birth. Whereas in Matthew, they’re in Bethlehem and they flee to Egypt. But when they come back from Egypt, they want to go back to Judea, but they can’t. That shows that their home is in Judea, and so they relocated to Nazareth. So in one of them they’re from Nazareth, and in the other they’re from Bethlehem. So how do you [explain that]?

JIMMY: I think that—my own view is that they had homes in more than one place—that Joseph was originally from Bethlehem. So he had property there, and he moved to Nazareth for work and he had property there

BART: Historically. You think that he had two homes?

JIMMY: Yeah, at least I think he was part owner of the family estate in Bethlehem.

BART: So, you think they’ve got sizable income?

JIMMY: Well, I think that they were economically deprived enough he had to leave Bethlehem for work.

BART: But he’s maintaining a home in both places. That’s an interesting idea. I hadn’t thought of that.

Bart was surprised, and this idea understandably hadn’t occurred to him because for many people today the idea of having two homes implies you are rich—which Mary and Joseph definitely were not.

But this isn’t the way it works for migrant workers. All over the world, people who are economically deprived enough that they have to leave home to make money end up having two homes.

They’ll maintain one home where they’re from, which they consider their real home, and they’ll have a second home where they migrate to get work.

For example, if a couple is from a village in Sinaloa, Mexico but they migrate to Los Angeles, California for work, they’ll have one home in Sinaloa, and they’ll go back there periodically to visit family and friends. But they don’t just sleep on the street in Los Angeles. They try to find some kind of accommodation there as well.

The same is true of migrant workers from Africa, from Asia, and around the world.

As a descendant of David, Joseph had a residence in Bethlehem, and he no doubt took pride in not only being descended from David but also living in the village where David was from.

But there weren’t a lot of work opportunities for him in Bethlehem, so he moved to Nazareth for work.

I think that Luke tells us that Joseph had two residences. I’ve written about that before, and I’ll talk about it in a future episode of the podcast. But at the moment, I want to discuss something else.

 

“No Room in the Inn”

When people first hear this view, they often understandably wonder about something else Luke says. Here’s the relevant passage from the familiar Protestant King James Version:

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, KJV).

What people wonder about is Luke’s statement that “there was no room for them in the inn.”

They imagine that Mary and Joseph were staying at an inn located in Bethlehem, and the inn had no rooms available because of the census. It was like Tom Bodett had turned on the “No Vacancies” sign at Motel 6.

This translation has resulted in all kinds of Christmas paintings showing Mary and Joseph looking disappointed as they’re being turned away from an inn by a sometimes grumpy innkeeper.

So people naturally wonder: If Joseph had a home in Bethlehem, why didn’t he go there instead of trying to stay at an inn? And if he did go to a family residence, why does Luke mention there not being room at an inn?

 

Was It Really an “Inn”?

The answer is that this translation is very likely wrong. The word that’s being rendered “inn” in English is the Greek word kataluma, and kataluma does not simply mean “inn.”

In fact, there are two words in the Greek New Testament that are commonly translated “inn”—meaning a place where you pay for lodging.

The other word is pandocheion, and it more clearly refers to what we think of as an inn.

Luke himself uses this word in the parable of the Good Samaritan. When the Samaritan rescues the man who got mugged on the roadside, Luke writes:

He went to him and bound up his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he set him on his own animal and brought him to an inn and took care of him.

And the next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper, saying, ‘Take care of him, and whatever more you spend, I will repay you when I come back” (Luke 10:34-35).

The word that Luke uses for “inn” is pandocheion, and the word he uses for “innkeeper” is pandocheus. It’s clear from the context—since the Samaritan is paying the innkeeper money—that this is the type of inn that we are familiar with today.

So if Luke uses a term that specifically means the modern kind of inn when he tells the parable of the Good Samaritan, why does he use a different word when he relates the birth of Jesus? Could he be referring to something different?

 

Kataluma

Indeed, he could. The word kataluma does not simply refer to a modern inn. It has a broader semantic range than that.

The highly respected Bauer Danker Arndt and Gingrich Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament—or BDAG—gives its basic meaning as “lodging place,” and it notes that while the sense of “inn” is possible in the birth narrative that Luke uses the more specific word for “inn”—pandocheion—in the parable of the Good Samaritan.

It thus says that kataluma “is therefore best understood here as lodging or guest-room.”

And “lodging place” better represents the meaning of the word. It appears 13 times in the Greek Old Testament, and it frequently means something other than an inn.

For example, in Exodus 15:13, Moses and the people of Israel sing a song to God and say:

You led this your people, whom you redeemed, in your righteousness.

You have called them by your power into your holy habitation (Exodus 15:13).

The word for habitation is kataluma, and God certainly isn’t running a holy hotel that he brought the Israelites into!

Similarly in 1 Chronicles 28:13, it says that David showed Solomon the plan according to which he would build the temple, and it included

The lodgings for the divisions of the priests and Levites for every work of ministry for the house of the Lord (1 Chronicles 28:13).

Now, the temple itself was not a holy hotel. Priests were not paying for rooms there. Instead, these are the lodging places for the priests and Levites when they came for their regular period of temple service.

And in Jeremiah 32:24, the prophet predicts a coming war and says of God:

Like a lion, he has forsaken his lodging, for their land has become untraveled, on account of the presence of the great sword (Jeremiah 32:24).

Now, neither God nor lions book hotel rooms for themselves, but they both have lodging places, and that’s the clear meaning of the word here.

It also appears three places in the New Testament. One is in Luke’s birth narrative, and another is in Mark 14:14, where—in preparation for the Last Supper—Jesus tells two of the disciples to follow a man to a house in Jerusalem and then say to the householder:

“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” (Mark 14:14-15).

The word translated “guest room” is kataluma, and Jesus makes it clear that the man will show the disciples “a large upper room” that they are to eat the Passover in. So the kataluma is clearly not an inn. The kataluma is a room within a house.

And in fact, Luke himself uses the word that way in his parallel to this passage. In Luke 22, we read:

Tell the master of the house, “The Teacher says to you, ‘Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’”

And he will show you a large upper room furnished; prepare it there (Luke 22:11-12).

Once again, the word translated “guest room” is kataluma, and it’s identified as “a large upper room”—not an inn. It’s a specific room within a house.

Fortunately, some recent translations have been picking up on this in the infancy narrative. For example, the New International Version says:

She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them (Luke 2:7, NIV).

And—even better—the Holman Christian Standard Bible says:

She wrapped Him snugly in cloth and laid Him in a feeding trough—because there was no room for them at the lodging place (Luke 2:7, HCSB).

In any event—to review the evidence just from Luke—he uses the specific term pandocheion when he refers to the inn where the Good Samaritan goes, but he uses the more general term kataluma when he refers to the room within a house where Jesus will eat the Last Supper with the disciples.

 

 

What Was the Kataluma in the Birth Narrative?

That would suggest that the word is also referring to a specific room in the house in the birth narrative. But what kind of room would it have been?

Was it a guest room? That’s not impossible, but it’s also far from certain.

The basic meaning of the term is just “lodging place,” and in the case of the Last Supper, “guest room” probably isn’t the best translation. Houses were small back then—including in a cramped city like Jerusalem—and it’s unlikely that a householder would have “a large upper room” specifically set aside for just guests.

It’s more likely that the kataluma in that case was where the family itself lodged.

This is supported by some of the verses we heard from the Greek Old Testament, because God didn’t lead the Israelites into a guest room. And neither God nor lions live in guest rooms. The more basic translation “lodging” or “lodging place” is to be preferred.

You really realize this when you think about how ancient Jewish homes were structured, which is something most people don’t know about.

In the first century, they typically had two levels. People sometimes went up on the roof, but it was the upstairs portion that was used as the living area, and the lower floor was where they kept the animals, especially at night.

This explains what Luke means. No doubt because of the census, many family members had returned to Bethlehem, and the upstairs living area was full of people. So Mary went downstairs and laid the baby Jesus in a manger on the lower floor, where the animals—and their manger—were kept. It was just too crowded upstairs.

This also fits in with the tradition that Jesus was born in a grotto or cave. We have evidence from the second century that this was the case, and today Christians often visit the Grotto of the Nativity in Bethlehem.

It fits because—in areas of Israel that have caves—people didn’t let them go to waste. They incorporated them into their houses. They might build the living area of the house above ground but then keep the animals down in the cave. In fact, they did this not only in the Bethlehem area but in Nazareth, too. That’s why there’s also a Grotto of the Annunciation in Nazareth.

So Joseph’s two homes—one in Bethlehem and one in Nazareth, and both of them humble—actually had similar designs.

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God bless you always, and Merry Christmas!!