Tuesday, December 4, 2007

What Have We Done to Christmas?

Every Christmas I hear a lot of talk (and do my share of talking) about how Christmas isn't what it should be; the business and bustle, the craziness of commercialism, the madness and mayhem of materialism, the glorification of gifts, etc...



That is all true, we really have messed up what celebrating Christmas should be and the "spirit" of Christmas. But we've also messed up the Biblical story. Here's what I mean... and I know that most of this is small picky stuff, but it all adds up to give us an inaccurate picture of Christ's birth:



There was no donkey. We always see pictures or paintings, or movies, or plays with Mary riding a donkey. I've even seen a play where the donkey was the main character. There was no donkey.



Well, I suppose there may have been a donkey but it is just as likely that it could have been a horse or a camel. Or maybe Mary walked or rode on the back of a cart. The fact is that we just don't know. The bible says absolutely nothing about how Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem.



There was no inn. There was no inn and no inn-keeper. I've also seen a number of plays where the inn-keeper was a very main character. Guess what... He didn't exist.


This one needs a little explaining. First of all, there are no historical records indicating that Bethlehem had any sort of inn at this time period. Secondly, Bethlehem wasn't a big enough centre to have an inn, especially due to the fact that it was so close to Jerusalem.



But the the big reason is that there has been a gross translation error in many English Bibles every since the KJV translated the Greek word κατάλυμα (kataluma) as "inn". Kατάλυμα really means "guest room" (the TNIV, NLT, and other newer translations have corrected this error). This makes way more sense due to the fact that this was Joseph's home town. Joseph would have had family to stay with in Bethlehem. The guest room was full, so when Jesus was born they lay him in the manger that was in the entrance of every first century Jewish home. That's why the bible states this all so nonchalantly.



If you care, the real word for "inn" is πανδοχεῖον (pandocheion) as seen in Luke 10:34.



And while we're at it, let's debunk the notion that the magi showed up at the birth scene. They didn't. They came quite a bit later (possibly as much as 2 years later) and they found Mary and Jesus in a "house" (Matt. 2:11) not a barn or a cave or an inn. A house (gr. - οἰκία eng. - "oikia"... yes, this is where "Ikea" gets its name from).


And to shatter any last vestiges of what we may think the original Christmas may have been like... it probably happened in Spring. According to historical records the only time that shepherds spent the full night with their flocks (Luke 2:8) was in Spring during the lambing season. And, to back up this little theory, there was a comet reported during the spring of the year of Jesus birth.

So, somehow over the years of retelling the Christmas story we've changed a lot of things. Time-frames have been changed, characters have come in at the wrong time, some characters that weren't even there have been added, locations are wrong...

Wow, we've really messed things up! Whenever we read the actual accounts in our Bibles we need to make sure that we are seeing only what is actually there and not all of these extra traditions and tales that get added into it.

What do you think?
How different is all of this when compared to your imaginings of Christmas?
Do you know of other mistakes, misinterpretations, or misconceptions?

Here's a little task for you all: below is a Christmas card that I've scanned in. How many things are wrong with this picture?
Enjoy!




8 comments:

Anonymous said...

And here I thought they couldn't get into the Inn because they didn't carry Visa! OK about this picture. It would not seem to me to be a picture of a little town, what with the big buildings and all. And why would there be crosses on the buildings. Did they have those dome thingies on buildings in that time period? Oh and those stars are WAY to big. Anyone else?

Tim S.

Juanita said...

Oh yeah, that's where I've heard Ikea before...from the Greek...duh!

I don't think I am allowed to play this game seeing as I was there at the start of this rant...

Anonymous said...

Love the cool arab/Moslem arcitecture.

Anonymous said...

...yeah,especially the minaret and the crosses on the round domes!
Pastor Tim, please tell us the Bible story of the three 3 wise men or was that astrologers, Caspar, Balthazar and the other guy.

Timothy Braun said...

Oh yeah! I forgot to rant about the magi (μάγος). Magos (the singular of magi) is where we get our word for magic. So the renaming of them as "wise men" or "kings" or "astrologers" is all conjecture.

And apparently 3 gifts = 3 people? For all we know there were only 2 of them... or maybe a dozen... we just don't know.

And the names Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar come from a 6th century manuscript from Alexandria. There's no biblical foundation whatsoever.

Anonymous said...

I saw the perfect manger the other day. Jesus was a carrot and squashes were dressed up as camels. It was soooo funny! I suppose that kind of messes it up too, hey?

Anonymous said...

Why does only the NEB identify it as a house and most of the English translations say it was an Inn? Huh? Huh?

Anonymous said...

Well, that's kind of silly having crosses on the tops of the domes. Nobody would see them from the streets....

I think the biggest problem with that card is that the stars are way too big. The closest start, other than our own sun, is 4 light years away, and still doesn't shine that brightly in the sky. But I could be wrong. 2000 years ago, there was less polution in the air, so the stars may have been bigger.

Rick M