Earlier this month, New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary (NOBTS) celebrated the 10th anniversary of its Museum of the Bible and Archaeology. NOBTS President Jamie Dew rightly told Baptist Press that the museum and its resources “strengthen the Christian witness in the world that we live in.”
I’m thankful that NOBTS is striving to strengthen Christian witness through archaeology. As mentioned in a previous editorial, I’ve had a longtime fascination with biblical archaeology, handed down to me from my father. And in recent days I’ve had the opportunity to hand this interest down to my own children as they’ve asked questions about the historical realities undergirding Scripture. Together, we watched a video series for youth, “Bible Unearthed” (it’s an enjoyable series for adults, too), and my children were excited to hear how archeological evidence has confirmed biblical history again and again.
Writing last year on breakpoint.org, John Stonestreet and Kasey Leander emphasized this truth: “Archaeological work is complicated and often incomplete. Still, it is remarkable how often the evidence, even as it piles up, confirms biblical accounts of history.” They wrote, adding, “The reason archeological confirmation matters is because Christianity is uniquely grounded in history as it actually happened.”
Benjamin Hawkins, editor of The Pathway
The Christian message is a message about history. This statement especially rings true at Christmas, as we celebrate the Incarnation of Christ Jesus – when the eternal God, unbounded by space and time, took on human nature to dwell with men and women in history.
Speaking of Christmas, biblical archeology may actually shed light on the story of Christ’s birth. Traditional Nativity scenes depict Jesus lying in a manger, in a stable, surrounded by father, mother, shepherds, donkeys, sheep, cattle – and, interestingly, wise men. Of course, they were in a stable because, as many English translations of Luke’s Gospel read, “there was no room” for Mary and Joseph “in the inn” (vs. 2:7). According to the Gospel of Matthew, however, the wise men found the infant Jesus not in a stable, but in a “house” (vs. 2:11).
How do we explain this discrepancy? Many have suggested that, perhaps, the wise men arrived sometime after Jesus’s birth, when Jesus and his family had settled into a home.
But biblical archeology provides another possible answer to this question, as described by David Croteau in his book, Urban Legends of the New Testament (B&H, 2015).
According to Croteau, archeologists have excavated the remains of many houses from ancient Judea. As such, we have a fair idea about the floor plan for the “house” where the wise men first met the infant Jesus. In such houses, there may have been three separate sections: First, there would be a small room down a set of stairs, where small animals would be housed. Second, there was a large family room, which would contain a feeding trough for larger animals – that is, a “manger,” like the one where Jesus would have been laid after his birth.
Third, there would be a guest room. Croteau explains that Mark 14:14 and Luke 22:11 refer to this guest room with the Greek term, kataluma. He adds that this is the same word traditionally translated into English, in the Nativity story of Luke 2:7, as “inn.” As it turns out, perhaps the “guest room” in the house was full, not Bethlehem’s local hotel.
With these insights about first century architecture, provided by biblical archeology, we begin to get a different impression about what happened on the day of Christ’s birth. Croteau summarizes this view of the Nativity story:
“Joseph took Mary to Bethlehem for the census ordered by Caesar Augustus. … When he arrived, the guest room was already full, so he and Mary had to stay in the family room with everyone else. When it came time for Mary to give birth, she did so in the family room. They placed the baby Jesus into the feeding trough for animals located in the floor of the family room. There was no cave, no stable, and probably no wooden trough.”
Yet, on that very first Christmas, maybe the wisemen crowded together into the family room of a first-century home, where they saw the infant Jesus lying in a manger. As the Gospel of Matthew reports, “Entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and falling to their knees, they worshiped him” (vs. 2:11).
You may or may not be persuaded by this archeological interpretation of the biblical Christmas story. In any case, I hope that, as you crowd into your own homes this Christmas, you follow the Magi’s example by worshipping the One who entered history as an infant to offer us true hope and life.