by Grania

Most people who grew up with a Christian background are somewhat familiar with the Nativity story. It is one of the more famous bits thanks in no small part to the runaway commercial success of the Solstice festival it attached itself to, and the rest, so to say, is history. Most people find it somewhat charming: it has plenty of drama, it has gift-giving ceremonies, it has visits from supernatural entities, it has long journeys, and there is even a murderous king.

Most of us are also aware that the four Gospels are very inconsistent in their telling of the Nativity, in fact, only Matthew and Luke even mention it, and they don’t appear to be able to even agree on the year. Moreover, Augustus Caesar did not order a census and even if he had, they certainly didn’t expect people to travel back to their ancestral homes for the sake of being counted.

So it’s not a huge surprise that theologian Rev Ian Paul is reported in The Guardian to be arguing that the well-loved stable scene may in fact not be real either. (TL;DR it was the living area of a normal house, he claims.)

Was it more like this:

Or more like this:

The stable scene is a staple part of a thousand school nativity plays, as is the preceding”no room at the Inn” setup. It is also a fundamental part of a thousand Christmas Day sermons that have put much stock in being able to show the holy family to be humble and poor, and therefore somehow a lesson in the virtue of poverty and humility. For these reasons, I don’t expect that what Sophisticated Theologians ™ have to say on the subject is going to make a blind bit of difference to the faithful. Let’s face it, the donkey is probably the highlight of any nativity play, and there is not a lot of mileage to be had from a sermon about a baby being born in the comfort of home (not that there’s anything comfortable about having a baby).

Theologians. Next they’ll be telling us that the angels didn’t have tinsel halos either.

h/t: Ant