--Wednesday, I went for a walk with a pastor friend and mentor who lives in the neighborhood. She told me about some ideas that her pastor son presented to the University of South Carolina students, where he is campus pastor. The Greek word for inn is actually much closer to guest room. If we say there was no room for Mary and Joseph in the guest room, does it change our understanding of the Nativity story in the second chapter of Luke? I'm going to write a sermon suggesting that it does, and I'll post it next week.
--If we accept the narrative in the Gospel of Luke that tells us that Joseph returned to his ancestral city, that doesn't square with our current vision of a couple far from home, all alone. And we tend to forget that Mary's relatives were nearby too; Elizabeth and Zachariah live in the hill country of Judea, which is not that far from Bethlehem.
--If Joseph's relatives wouldn't turn them away, yet there was no room for them in the spare room, Mary may have given birth in the living room, surrounded by far-flung family come back for census/tax reasons.
--What about the manger? In first century Palestine, people brought their animals inside for the night, and there were feed troughs.
--The work of Dr. Kenneth E. Bailey is important in so many ways. This article gives a sense of the scope of his argument and how it can reshape our view of the life of Jesus.
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