Bethlehem in the Time of Jesus (Jesus of Nazareth Seminar 3c)

[Music] so let's turn for a while to the events at the birth of jesus in bethlehem christmas is one of the most popular christian holidays around the world because of this we've built up many traditions about it over the years but when you visit bethlehem you find out that many of these traditions are not true for example every year i'm sure to get a christmas card that shows the shepherds and their beautiful white sheep up on a green hill looking out over bethlehem in the valley below have you ever got a card like this what's wrong with this picture first of all the sheep in israel are not white but a sort of tan color with brown markings on their legs and on their faces and the hills are not green they're brown bethlehem is at the edge of the judean desert and bethlehem is not down in a valley but up on top of a hill so as you can see when it comes to the birth of jesus we have to be ready to correct a lot of our traditional ideas one thing that most people know correctly about bethlehem is that mary and joseph came here because of a roman census that was being taken but perhaps you didn't know that a roman census was an offense to the jews a census was used to determine the taxes for the province every time there was a census the taxes went up again the next census after this one when jesus was 10 years old led to the revolt of judas the galilean thousands were killed in the fighting mary and joseph had to come to bethlehem for the census because they were descendants of the family of king david which was originally from bethlehem this means they had many relatives in bethlehem so why were they looking for a room in an inn if this was their ancestral home why didn't they stay with their family didn't their families like them in those days an inn meant a caravan series a place for caravans to spend the night this was a large open courtyard open to the sky with broad arches all around in the center of the courtyard was a pile of hay for the camels and donkeys to eat each of the surrounding arches opened onto a small room where the travelers would sleep with one eye open to make sure nobody walked off with any of their camels there were no doors and no privacy do you think mary would want to give birth out there in the center of the courtyard with all the animals where everyone could see her of course not and if she did she would make everyone staying there unclean because of the shedding of blood which was not the proper thing to do besides bethlehem was much too small to have a care of ansari only about 200 to 300 people live there so what are the gospels talking about the problem is not with the bible but with our translation because the word used here to describe the place where there was no room for them in greek is catalima this is not the usual word for an in the usual word for in appears in the parable of the good samaritan when the samaritan took the injured man to an inn in jericho pando keon in greek that's the word for in so what is the meaning of catalina archaeological work in the north in galilee has helped us understand the meaning of this word because here archaeologists have discovered that homes in jewish villages in the time of jesus were multi-family compounds built around a central courtyard with an outer perimeter wall they call them an insula that is to say an island because they're separated from the other insulas around them here an extended family lived including the grandpa grandma the uncles and aunties cousins and grandchildren and in an insula there was always one extra room where guests could eat and sleep the guest chamber this is the correct meaning of katalima it's the guest chamber when mary and joseph went to tiny bethlehem of course they would stay with their relatives but because of the census all the other relatives were there too at the same time so of course when they arrived there wasn't any more room in the guest chamber why did mary and joseph arrive later than everyone else well do you remember mary's condition at the time she was nine months pregnant riding on a donkey all the way from galilee over all that rocky ground that must have been pretty uncomfortable oh joseph can't we stop here for the night i can't go any further so when they finally arrived in bethlehem there was no place left for them to stay but in the stable where the animals were kept and i'm sure mary was relieved to be in a place where she could at least have some privacy and don't worry there were lots of women relatives around to help the men were not allowed to help with the delivery the stable in many homes in the time of jesus was a cave basement cut under the house by hand and sure enough the traditional place of jesus birth is one of these old rock cut basements over which a church stands today why did she lay him in a feeding trough or manger here's another place where we have to confront our traditions i'm sure you get several christmas cards every year that show jesus lying in a wooden manger like they used to use in europe many years ago but in israel wood was hard to come by it's a desert country so they made their feeding troughs out of stone these stone mangers have been found everywhere by archaeologists they were used both in the old testament and new testament times whenever the archaeologists find one it's usually flanked by two large stones as you can see here with a hole drilled through each of the stones this was to tie up the animals while they were eating but why was this a sign do you remember what the angels told the shepherds and this will be the sign to you you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a feeding trough a manger well why was this a sign a baby wrapped in cloths was nothing unusual but to find a baby in a stone feeding trough that was unusual but why was this a sign what did it point to according to the rabbis stone was always ritually clean there was nothing you could do to make it ritually unclean if a pottery vessel became unclean let's say the zaba woman touched it or a worm died on it or something like that you had to smash it it couldn't be used anymore if a metal pot became unclean you had to heat it and scrub it but stone could never become richly unclean stone was also a symbol of god as david liked to say in the psalms my god my rock in whom i will trust so this tiny baby lying in something made of stone was pointing to what to his divinity that this child was more than just an ordinary human being here's another question why were the shepherds outdoors at night most of us are so used to this idea from the christmas story we think shepherds were always outdoors at night but in israel it gets cold in the winter time sometimes it's below freezing especially at night sometimes it snows nobody stays outside at night in weather like that the shepherds and the sheep are all safely indoors remember those cave basements i talked about they put the sheep in the basement and then their body heat rises up through the floor and keeps the people upstairs a little warmer the only time the shepherds stay outside at night with their flocks is in the warm months of the year remember our chart of the jewish year the cold rainy weather lasts until april or may when the rains stop and the weather gets warm again the shepherds take their flocks out into the desert here there's a little bit of grass to eat for a while unless someone else gets there first searching for that grass can take them many miles from home and as a result they must stay out with the sheep at night so what they do is build a sheepfold out of stones it's just a circular wall of stones or use one of the old ones that are already there and here the sheep will be kept safe at night and then one of the shepherds will lay down in the little gate or entry to the sheepfold and sleep there this way none of the sheep can get in or out that night without him knowing about it in this way he becomes literally the door of the sheep this is what jesus was referring to in john chapter 10 when he said i am the door of the sheep but since they're far from home you never know who or what is in the area maybe a thief or a fox so they take turns staying awake to watch the sheep at night does that sound familiar well that's exactly what it says in luke chapter 2 verse 8 that they were taking turns keeping watch over their flock by night or literally that they were guarding by watches of the night the night was divided into three or four watches and each one would take a turn staying awake for one of those watches but i'm sure as soon as the angel appeared that whoever was taking his turn quickly woke up the others but if the shepherds are only outdoors at night in the warm months of the year why do we celebrate christmas in the winter in fact the bible never says when jesus was born why not it seems that celebrating birthdays was considered a pagan practice at the time perhaps because it was connected with astrology only people like pharaoh and herod celebrated their birthdays the date of december 25th was only decided on for jesus birthday hundreds of years later the bible only tells us that the shepherds were staying outside at night which means it was during the warmer months of the year not the winter time but there's another clue the census itself the emperor would never call for a census in the wintertime it was too difficult for people to move around including his own officials who preferred to stay in front of a nice warm fireplace besides in israel winter is the time for sewing the emperor would never interfere with the sowing why because he got 10 percent of the harvest nor would he interfere with reaping in the springtime so what's left late summer and fall july to october because of this many scholars put jesus birth sometime in september or early october around the time of the feast of tabernacles as it says in john chapter 1 verse 14 and the word became flesh and tabernacled among us maybe john is hinting to the time of jesus birth if so if you count back nine months it means that december was the time not of jesus birth but of his conception right at the time of the feast of hanukkah the dedication of the temple also called the feast of lights how appropriate if this is the time when jesus the light of the world began his life in the womb so if christmas time isn't the time of his birth perhaps it's the time of his conception the true beginning of his life on earth it would have been a bit of a shock for mary and joseph when a group of strange-looking men showed up at their door the meiji sometimes pronounced magi these were not kings as they have often been pictured by tradition we three kings of orient are nor does the bible say how many there were the number three comes from the three different kinds of gifts they brought not the number of people there could have been many more of them christians from the area that the magi came from say there were 12 of them so who were these meiji they were a priestly cast of the parthian empire the eastern rival of rome parthia was the other big superpower of the time in the general area of modern iraq and iran the religion of the meiji was zoroastrianism they wore long white robes and carried bundles of sticks wrapped around their waist yes they were pagan priests they practiced astrology and other occult practices forbidden by god so what are pagan priests doing in the story of the birth of the messiah they're a beautiful foreshadowing of jesus acceptance of the gentiles yes these men were pagans astrologers and diviners among other things but if god was going to save gentiles there was only one kind available at the time idol worshipping pagans yes there were a few gentiles attracted to judaism some even converted to judaism but overall the gentile world was a pagan world and it was to this world just as much as to the jewish world that jesus came if god was going to save pagans he had to start somewhere and he decided to start with the meiji but what were these pagan priests doing here hundreds of miles from home looking for a jewish messiah the answer goes all the way back to the time of daniel when the jews were taken into exile by king nebuchadnezzar of babylon do you remember the reward given to daniel when he interpreted the king's dream correctly he was made the robb mag the chief of the magi and soon after this it was daniel himself that delivered one of the most important messianic prophecies in the bible the vision of one like a son of man coming on the clouds the meiji would have been some of the first in the world to hear these prophecies and over the years they too came to expect a jewish messiah so when they saw a strange sign in the stars of the night sky they started out across the desert to find him and what better place to start their search than in jerusalem and so the magi came more than 600 miles through the desert to jerusalem where they were asking around the city where is the one who was born king of the jews when herod heard this the bible says he was troubled and all jerusalem with him well why was he troubled was he born king of the jews no he paid a lot of money for that title to ask for the one born king of the jews is to ask for the rightful ruler that was a good way to stir up trouble besides herod served the romans but these meiji were parthians the enemies of rome maybe that's why they came to stir up trouble against rome herod could have imprisoned or killed the meiji but that would have created an international incident instead he chose a more diplomatic way to get them off the streets he invited them to the palace and after learning of their mission quickly sent them on their way though he first asked them a favor to let him know when they found the child so he could come and worship him too this was just the kind of situation that stirred up king herod's paranoia and led him to strike out with murder in his eyes in his later years he had most of his sons killed for fear they were trying to steal his kingdom from him as well as his favorite wife mary omni just before his own death he ordered the jewish leadership to be brought to jericho where they were to be killed on word of his own death so there would be suitable mourning in israel so it should come as no surprise that he had all the baby boys in bethlehem killed to destroy any possible rival for his throne miriam and josef mary and joseph needed the gifts from the wise men to finance their escape to egypt they had border crossing taxes to pay bridge crossing taxes customs taxes they had to pay for their food and for their lodging in egypt they probably went to the large jewish community in alexandria perhaps they had a relative there when herod was dead they came back but after they heard that his eldest surviving son archelaus was ruling in judea they were led by god to stay a safe distance away they went instead to nazareth in galilee i hope you've enjoyed this quick introduction to bethlehem and the birth of jesus in the next section of this seminar section 3d we'll take a closer look at the early life of jesus in nazareth and the ministry of john the baptist until then [Music] you

Channel: To The Ends Of The Earth

Views: 30,582

Keywords: Bethlehem, Jesus, Christ, Messiah, Magi, Insula, Shepherds, Census, Herod the Great

Id: UAI5D_kZV78

Length: 19min 27sec (1167 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 02 2017