ChristmythsSample

You’ve heard the story: Mary and Joseph show up to Bethlehem, go to a hotel, are turned away because there wasn’t any room, so they go to a nearby barn filled with animals and Jesus was born.

This may be what you’ve seen in Christmas movies and nativity sets, but is this an accurate picture of Jesus’ birth? 

Not exactly.

You see, when we read or hear the word ‘inn’, we think of a hotel. Get that image out of your head. The word ‘inn’ didn’t mean a hotel, but the guest room in someone’s house. 

In Jesus’ time, most people lived in a single room house that had a lower level where animals could be brought in at night to protect them from the weather and either a separate room for guests (the inn) or a space on the roof for visitors to stay.

There was no room left in the guest room because all of Joseph’s family was in town for the census and the room was already taken by other relatives who got into. Instead of staying in the guest house, they are sent to the “stable”. Not a barn, but that lower level of the house where animals could stay. 

It was here that Jesus was born - in a family member’s house, not a barn.