Three Christmas Curiosities
In the version of this that went into our church newsletter, I called this “Mangers, Stables, Two Bethlehems, and a Rough Donkey Ride.” In any event, this is sort of a “catch-all” for miscellaneous Bible objections surrounding the Christmas story. These are fairly weak—somewhat in the same category as “Where did Cain get his wife?” except even weaker. Many people seem to think that curiosities and contradictions (or at least improbabilities) are the same thing. So it is here.
Out of some level of sympathy for such a skeptic, I will call these “curiosities,” perhaps to come alongside him and say that we’ve all been there, wondering such things ourselves. Nevertheless, they remain mild curiosities that are seen to be coherent on a moment’s worth of reflection. Here are three such cases.
Curiosity 1: “Are there two Bethlehems? I heard that somewhere and I wonder if this could have confused the Gospel writers.”
Answer 1: “Yes, there are two Bethelems; but contrary to the inference skeptics may draw from that, no, the Bible is not confused about which one was which. First, there is the famous Bethlehem, located in the hill country of Judah. This is the one referred to as Ephrath (Genesis 35:16), Bethlehem Ephratah (Micah 5:2), Bethlehem-Judah (1 Samuel 17:12), and “the city of David” (Luke 2:4). Second, there is another Bethlehem, in the north near Nazareth, or as it is mentioned in Joshua 19:15, that of Zebulun (v. 16). However, the Old Testament prophecies are all linked directly to the one in the south, as Jesus was to be a descendant of Judah. The link to David’s line and therefore the lineage in Bethlehem is the reason why the census caused Joseph and Mary to travel down there in time for his birth.
Curiosity 2: “Was it a manger or a stable? I’ve heard both. And are we really to believe that He was born right where large animals were feeding?”
Answer 2: The note in the Reformation Study Bible for Luke 2:7 gives the following description: “a manger (a feeding trough for domestic animals)”1 Now if we note the three instances of the word in the narrative of Luke 2 (vv. 7, 12, 16), all three only say what is traditionally said about the baby being set in the manger. In the three other uses of the word in Scripture (Job 39:9, Prov. 14:4, and Luke 13:15), there is nothing specific to the animals eating, but it can easily be inferred. How large the manger was in the case of the place where Mary gave birth I could not say, and I am not aware of any study claiming to know with that level of specificity. So I cannot speak for all of the people who do not distinguish between the place where the birth physically took place versus the place where Jesus was then set down. But this would be the basic breakdown.
Curiosity 3: “Mary couldn’t have made the trip down to Judah on horseback when she was so far along, could she?”
Answer 3: First, we might want to ask: Where is our information coming from? Luke’s Gospel is the only of the four that even records the timeline between the angel’s announcement to Mary and the birth (Matthew takes us immediately from the angel’s announcement to Joseph, right to the birth). So what does Luke say? A few things: (1) It was the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy (1:26, 36) when Mary was being told that the miraculous conception was still to occur. (2) It is in 1:39 where the scene changes to Judah, where Mary came to visit, and (3) while 1:56 tells that “Mary remained with her about three months and returned to her home,” that would allow the rest of three months of Elizabeth’s full term before giving birth to John. (4) So Mary could very well now be only three months along herself.
That leaves six full months to make it back down to Judea. When exactly did they respond to the census? It never tells us. It only says, “And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth” (2:6). Likely our own cultural ideas of an “inn,” and the corresponding image of them looking for a place that very night, is the source of the need skeptics feel exists for some overnight “rough-ride” on a horse. The fact is, none of these descriptions are in Scripture. Why would inns be full though for an extended period? Answer: Others had come down for the same reason Joseph and Mary had, to register for the census. Many whose lines went back to the capital in the old kingdom had been displaced by the Babylonian Captivity and the many circumstances of their return in the centuries in between.
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1. R. C. Sproul, ed., The Reformation Study Bible, 2nd Edition (Orlando, FL: Reformation Trust, 2015), 1785.
