No Room in the Inn? | The Jimmy Akin Podcast

The Jimmy Akin Podcast | Episode 015 (December 23, 2024)

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.

For example, what does it mean when Luke says that Mary laid her son in a manger because "there was no room in the inn"? People imagine that Mary and Joseph were turned away from a first-century motel, but this is almost certainly WRONG.

Timecodes
00:00 – Coming Up
00:26 – Intro
01:01 – A Debate
04:02 – “No Room in the Inn”
05:18 – Was It Really an “Inn”?
06:58 – Kataluma
11:27 – What Was the Kataluma in the Birth Narrative?
14:02 – Closing/Outro
14:57 - End

[joshuacooley]

While I don't know the exact laws in place at the time of Jesus, the idea of Joseph "owning" land or a home in Bethlehem fits very well with how land ownership tended to work under ancient societies and specifically how it worked in Israel in the OT.

Under OT law, the land was divided up amongst the 12 Tribes and could not be permanently sold out of a tribe's "patrimony". The tribe would then divide up the land for use among the households / families of the tribe. Thus land ownership was more tied to the family than to the individual. The individual "owner" would actually have a kind of land tenure, in which they had the right to work, rent, or otherwise make use of the land, but it technically belonged to the family or the tribe.

So it seems very likely that Joseph, as a descendant of David's line, would have some kind of property tenue in or near Bethlehem. It also makes sense that as a carpenter, Joseph may have had to leave his family's ancestral land in order to find work. There are two things that play into this, just at first glance. One is that as a family multiplies over the generations, the land allotment for each individual male of the family line gets smaller. Eventually it would not be enough land to sustain a family, without getting access to more land, or taking up a trade other than farming. In addition, as Joseph was a carpenter by trade, he would not have needed farming land, so his inheritance seems more likely to have been a piece of property in the village.

He would have the right to use that property, but if he left the area on a semi-permanent basis, it doubtless would have been used by the other branches of his family who remained in the area, or Joseph may have even rented it out. That could be possible as well.

[baseball]

Excited to share this with my protestant father-in-law!

[TiberentenTV]

Thank you Jimmy, that passage and its translations have been a pet peeve for me as a classical philologist for quite some time. I would even go further than you and translate Luke 2:7 from the original Greek as follows: "And she gave birth to her first-born son and swaddled him and laid him down in a manger, because they did not have a spot in their accommodation, " i.e.: they didn't (yet) have a PROPER spot for a new-born baby where they stayed, so they took a manger up from the stable into their quarters and put him there as a makeshift cradle.

This is even theologically beautiful, because the bringing upstairs of the wooden manger for Jesus at the beginning of his life on earth corresponds to the erection of the wooden cross for him at the end.

For why the mistranslation came about, that's easy to see if you compare the Greek and Latin languages: Latin does - other than Greek and English - not have articles, so if you translate "ἐν τῷ καταλύματι" from Luke 2:7 from the original Greek into Latin, you get "in diversorio" without any article, and once you don't have the Greek anymore, you cannot possibly know if you should understand "in the accommodation" or "in an accommodation", so people went with the second one.

Oh, and BTW, Joseph wouldn't have been required to travel to Bethlehem to have himself inscribed if he didn't have property there. The Romans had two kinds of taxes in the provinces: One was a property tax on people with real estate, which required a list to assign properties to their owners and to keep track of the respective amount a certain property was due. That's the one Joseph had to pay.

The second one was a poll tax for all those who did not own any land. The poll tax did not require enlisting, because it was the same for everyone: When you paid it, you would be handed a receipt written in a little sealed tablet (a libellus), which you could be asked to produce whenever you had any business with the government. Or with the Temple, which collected its own poll tax - and that's the one Jesus and Peter have to pay in Matthew 17:24-27. In this very passage, Jesus even mentions the two kinds of taxes: the τέλη (poll tax) and the κῆνσος (the census, i.e. the property tax).

[shanehanes]

Definitely give us more of this kind of content.

[jamesorrock]

Merry Christmas to you too, Mr Akin! 😊

[ToddJambon]

He is our Daily Bread. Very symbolic that He would come into the world in a feeding trough.

[Mariusz-fvus]

Perfect and clear explanation. Thank you, God bless
Regards from Poland

[silencedogood]

Great analysis of proper word usage. This is interesting information for prayerful reflection this Christmas. Thank you, Jimmy. Merry Christmas.

[michaelcurry]

Thanks Jimmy. I've often argued that a better translation for "inn" in Luke 2 was "upper room", which parallels Luke 22. I've also argued that Luke 2:2 would be better rendered "This was the enrollment when Quirinius first governed Syria." Merry Christmas.

[BensWorkshop]

No inn? I'll be going out then! Many thanks for the explanation. Also covers how they had to return to Bethlehem. Migrant workers would have to do that. oh and I hope you have a merry and blessed Christmas!

[mariesook]

It's a pleasure to listen to someone who is smart & "down home". I hope you and your people have a very Merry Christmas. Also, so kind of you to do the long show for those who find themselves alone. Season's Greetings from Wisconsin's Green Bay Diocese. Merry Christmas!

[Lighteternity]

Many villages in Asia still follow the same pattern. Thanks

[Might-of-God]

I loved your response to Bart Ehrman on this. It was a cogent answer...

[mementomori]

I had heard that it was possibly family of Joseph, and not Joseph's home, itself. When the Magi arrive (~2 years later) it says they entered the "house." I had heard that this implied Mary and Joseph had remained in Bethlehem for at least two years and were indeed staying at a house. Whose house it was is another question.

[toddgruber]

I think it’s confusing how art work, etc, make “the Inn” seem like a motel…this explanation is so easy to understand. It’s almost too bad how a different picture has been painted over time about the Inn situation…

[danielmalinen]

Indeed. Inn is a historical mistranslation. As you also said, the word "kataluma" is reused from the upper room where Jesus and the disciples celebrated Passover, while the Gospel writer uses a different word for inn in the story of the Good Samaritan. For example, today the new Finnish translation uses the translation "place of resident" instead. I wish you a good Christmas times.

[exCinera]

This one I found particularly interesting

[Hoireabard]

I like these in-depth explanations. I want to hear one about “the love of money”. For example, the Greek uses the adjective “kind” love of money and doesn’t use an article. Since no one understands the ancient use of “kind” in this context it seems to me that no one understands the quote. Please do an analysis.

[cassandraboll]

Thank you! This was a wonderful explanation of how the Infancy Narrative probably worked. God bless you, Jimmy, and have a Merry Christmas!

[opencurtin]

Jimmy the ultimate Scholar and protector of the faith, Jimmy the Lion ..