Stop Blaming the Innkeeper--the TNIV Gets It Right Again
“and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son.
She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger,
because there was no guest room available for them.”
(Luke 2:7 TNIV)
I can still hear Jim Blevins, one of my old NT profs from way back, lamenting the fact that the Bethlehem innkeeper has gotten a bad rap all these years for supposedly being so heartless toward Mary and Joseph--making them stay in the barn rather than finding a room at the local Motel 6! The Bethlehem innkeeper has been the villain in Christmas pageants down through the centuries--but it was all based on poor translation!
Kατάλυμα/kataluma is better understood as a family guest room rather than an inn (and the first century inn wasn't anything like we think of as an inn anyway, but that's another subject). More than likely because Joseph, as well as many of his extended family, was traveling back to his ancestral village, the extra rooms in his relatives' homes were full. He and Mary may have also arrived late because no doubt traveling during the ninth month of pregnancy would have slowed their journey. One might wonder why one of Joseph's relatives would not have given up his spot in the guest room, especially considering Mary's condition. However, one can speculate that Mary may have been shunned by Joseph's family members who would have probably heard that she was pregnant out of wedlock.
Craig S. Keener notes in the IVP Bible Background Commentary: New Testament (p. 194),
The word traditionally translated "inn" probably means "home" or "guest room"; with all Joseph's scattered family members returning home at once, it is easier for Mary to bear (or care for the child after birth) in the vacant cave outside.
But maybe it wasn't a cave. Ben Witherington III notes in the "Birth of Jesus" entry of the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels the following:
A second crucial point is how one translates kataluma in Luke 2:7. The word can mean guest room, house or inn. It can be doubted whether there would have been an inn in Bethlehem in Jesus’ day since it was not on any major road, and inns normally were to be found only on major roads, especially the Roman ones (but cf. Jer 41:17, which does not refer to a place in Bethlehem). Furthermore, when Luke wants to speak of a commercial inn he uses pandocheion; 10:34 refers to an establishment found on the major road between Jerusalem and Jericho. Also, when Luke uses the word kataluma in his Gospel (22:11 and par.; cf. 1 Kings 1:18), it clearly does not mean an inn but a guest room. It is also worth pointing out that the Arabic and Syriac versions of the NT have never translated kataluma as inn.
It becomes more likely that by kataluma Luke means either house or guest room, and the latter translation must have the edge precisely because in the vast majority of ancient Near-Eastern peasant homes for which we have archaeological and literary evidence, the manger was within the home, not in some separate barn. The animals as well as the family slept within one large enclosed space that was divided so that usually the animals would be on a lower level, and the family would sleep on a raised dais (Bailey). In this particular case, we should probably envision Mary and Joseph staying in the home of relatives or friends, a home which was crowded due to the census being taken, a home where Luke tells us there was no longer any room in “ the guest room” (noting the definite article before the noun). Consequently, Mary gave birth to her child perhaps in the family room and placed the baby in the stone manger. This means that a good deal of the popular conception of this scene has no basis in the text. In particular, the idea of Mary and Joseph being cast out from civilized accommodations and taking up temporary residence in a barn is probably based on a misunderstanding of the text.
Regardless, Luke 2:7 stands as another testimony to the accuracy of the TNIV for translating κατάλυμα correctly in contrast to the mistranslation in almost every other major Bible version (the NLTse gets it right by using the word lodging which could imply either meaning). I'm glad the translators finally caught up with what dear old Dr. Blevins had been saying for decades. And now we can finally give that poor old innkeeper the break he deserves.