The first year my husband and I were married I was excited to spend our first Christmas together. I couldn’t wait to decorate our house, especially with the new nativity scene we were given for our wedding. Each fragile figure was carefully taken out of the box and placed in the perfect location. As I was in the process of setting the pieces up, Dan walked in the living room and said, “The wise men have to go somewhere else.” I was thinking, ‘what in the world are you talking about?’ He explained to me that the wise men do not belong in the scene because they were not present at Jesus’ birth. After a moment, I said, “You are correct, but what is wrong with putting them there?” He replied, “It isn’t Biblically accurate.” Besides thinking the wise men belonged at the manger, I had incorrectly learned other details about the Christmas story because of stories I was told, nativity scenes I had seen, and Christmas plays and musicals I participated in. Let’s take a closer look at the details surrounding the Christmas story and some of the inaccuracies found in the retelling.

Did Mary ride on a donkey into Bethlehem?

Nowhere in the Bible does it say Mary rode on a donkey to Bethlehem. We can assume they did not have much money based on the offering Mary and Joseph brought to the temple (see Luke 2:23-24), so most likely they did not own one. Because of the situation they faced with Mary being pregnant before her and Joseph were married, their families mostly likely did not help them out. Can you imagine? She was about ready to give birth and she probably walked a long distance. When I was that pregnant, the last thing I wanted to do was walk far, but they had to travel to Bethlehem because of the census and that was Joseph’s home town. (see Luke 2:1-5 ESV)

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.

Luke 2:7 KJV

Yes, that is a quote from the Bible. But the Greek word here for inn is “kataluma” which when translated, means guest chambers or lodging place (1). In that culture, when you traveled to another town, you usually found relatives to stay with and they would have a room for when guests came to town. It is true that larger towns did have lodging for weary travelers, but Bethlehem was small at the time of Jesus’ birth. There wasn’t any Motel 6 or Holiday Inn for them to lay their weary bodies after traveling so far. The likely scenario would have been that Mary and Joseph showed up at a relative’s house, and they were told there wasn’t room in their guest chambers. However, they could sleep in the place they kept their animals. How would you feel if that happened? Tired, scared with practically nothing and told to stay where animals defecate.

What about the wooden stable and manger filled with straw?

You usually see a manger scene with a nice wooden stable with lots of clean hay and pretty animals surrounding Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, who is wrapped in blankets in a wooden bed. If you study the area of where they stayed, you would find that wood was not in abundance. Instead, people made their homes and stables in the side of a rock face. At the time of year Jesus was born, the shepherds would have had the sheep out in the fields, which is why the angels came to the shepherds in the fields. Think about going to a farm or fair and the smell of where the animals are kept. This would be where animals went to the bathroom and drank. There was no straw to lay on. They took the sheep out to the fields to eat, they didn’t bring them food to eat at the stable. The only place that they could have laid Jesus was in a stone manger that held water. Here is an example of what a stone manger looks like (2).

This bring us back to the wise men.

So when do the wise men appear? The wise men (or magi in the Greek) came to Jerusalem from the east to find where the king of the Jews had been born. King Herod summoned the wise men to determine when the star appeared and from there discerned where Jesus was located from the prophets teaching. Jesus would have been around 2 years old when they arrived, based on when Herod ordered the death of children 2 years old or younger (see Matthew 2:1-18 ESV). I am pretty sure by that time, Mary and Joseph found their own house to stay in, and they wouldn’t have been hanging out at the relatives’ stable all this time.

Why has our culture tried to make the Christmas story less uncomfortable or more convenient to tell? The story of Christ’s birth wasn’t as neat and clean as we like to imagine, it was a messy, humble affair. Mary and Joseph were alone and traveled a long way. They had to be tired and would have loved a bed to sleep in. What they were given instead was a dirty smelly cave that had many years of dung piled on the floor-not the cleanest place to give birth. I am sure it wasn’t calm or quiet as she gave birth to Jesus. A nice wooden bed of straw did not exist. Mary had to lay her newborn in a stone manger that animals drank out of. And there weren’t any wise men kneeling before him. His first visitors were lowly shepherds who God chose to announce His Son’s birth to. Christ could have easily come a different way: as an adult or born into wealth, but He didn’t. Jesus loved us so much He was willing to come as a baby in a dirty, stinky cave, witnessed by those with little importance according to society at the time.

I understand my husband’s response to the nativity now. His reaction to the nativity scene was in response to how culture has changed the Christmas story. We no longer have the fancy nativity figures anymore since some were broken over the years. Now we just have some little figures made from wood. But if you were to walk into our house around Christmas, you would not find the wise men with the rest of the figures-they would be on another shelf making their way to see Jesus.

If you want to learn more about the true Christmas story, Ray Vander Laan, founder of That the World May Know Ministries, studies and teaches Jewish culture using the methods of Jewish education. (3, 4)

1. https://biblehub.com/greek/2646.htm
2. http://www.redeemerofisrael.org/2016/12/what-was-birth-of-jesus-like.html
3. https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/the-true-christmas-story
4. https://www.thattheworldmayknow.com/original-setting-of-the-christmas-story