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RAMBLINGS OF AN OLD MAN
Every time I read this, I cannot do it without getting chills or tears in my eyes. Did you know the following about the manger that Jesus was laid in? Of course, mangers are animal feeding troughs but in ancient Israel, they were made of stone - not what you would see in a modern-day nativity scene. Not comfortable, but great for protection. That’s why those who were experts in this matter, the priests, would put their newborn lambs in them for protection. But not just any lamb, the unblemished perfect lambs that were used in the sacrifice for sins. And Bethlehem, where Jesus was born was FAMOUS for their UNBLEMISHED LAMBS used for the sacrifice. These lambs had to be perfect so they would wrap them tightly in cloth and lie them in the manger to keep them safe. This is exactly why the only time mangers are mentioned in Jesus’ birth story is being told to shepherds. In Luke 2 it says “This will be a sign for you, you will find a baby wrapped in cloth and lying in a manger.” The shepherds would have understood this powerful parallel! THEY KNEW what the cloth and the manger meant! This baby would be THE PERFECT LAMB OF GOD! The Messiah who would sacrifice His life for the sins of the whole world. He wasn’t just a baby wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger, He was GOD: perfect, sinless, and Holy, humbling Himself to become the perfect sacrifice to reconcile us back to Himself!! THAT my friend, that Perfect Lamb, is WHY we celebrate Christmas!!
Stone Manger: The Untold Story of the First Christmas
This is the first installment of a serialization from Jeffrey R. Chadwick’s book The Stone Manger: The Untold Story of the First Christmas
If you love Christmas, I think you are going to like this book. And it is just possible that you will love Christmas even more after discovering the untold story of the birth of Jesus.
I call it the untold story of Christmas. Let me explain why: the traditional story of Christmas is not the way the birth of Jesus really happened! That story we all grew up with and have heard so many times – well, the events didn’t actually take place the way we’ve always been told. Not at all.
Now, please don’t misunderstand. Our Christmas holiday traditions are a wonderful heritage, and I love them myself. As a boy, growing up many years ago in a typical American town, I used to look forward each November to the Friday morning after Thanksgiving, which in those days marked the beginning of the holiday season. I couldn’t wait for our town’s annual Christmas parade that Friday morning after Thanksgiving.
I loved our grand old “downtown” area, where we shopped for Christmas gifts in tall, handsome brick buildings like J.C. Penney and F.W. Woolworth. The entire downtown area was decorated for the Christmas season like a scene from a classic movie. Each light post and semaphore along the street was festively adorned with giant red and white electric light candy canes, forest green garlands, and large silver bells with red ribbon bows. I loved those snowy nights each December, walking through our town park, where a hundred large trees were decorated with thousands of colorful lights. Santa’s village notwithstanding, the park’s life-size manger scene was always the main attraction in our municipal park. Night after night each December parents would stand around that crèche in the falling snow and tell their bundled-up children the story of the Christmas Nativity.
And I loved that Christmas story most of all – a poor carpenter from Galilee and his new wife; their long and arduous journey to pay the Roman tax; that first Christmas eve in a stable; and Mary’s newborn asleep on the hay. The shepherds, the herald angels singing, the three kings, and even a drummer boy – all these are the traditional story of Christmas we have come to cherish. We tell it again and again, in books, on video, and on stages where children dressed in bathrobes and towels magically become shepherds and wise men.
But the real first Christmas just didn’t happen that way. The setting we portray with carved wood and ceramic figurines on our fireplace mantles is not anything like the real-life circumstances which surrounded the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem more than two thousand years ago.
Because, in reality, Joseph was not a carpenter. He and Mary did not have to travel to Bethlehem to pay taxes. There were not any Roman soldiers there to harass them. Nor were there any traveling kings bearing gifts. Of course, there wasn’t any drummer boy. But there also wasn’t any hay on which the baby was laid. And, most surprisingly, there wasn’t even a stable!
There was, however, a manger. That part of the story is absolutely authentic – that manger in which the newborn Jesus was laid. The New Testament specifically mentions that manger three different times in telling the story of Jesus’ birth. It even served as a sign from heaven.
But that manger in Bethlehem was not the wooden feed box we have come to imagine. It was not used for hay. And it was not made of poles or planks, lashed together with cords, as so often portrayed in Christmas art. The temporary cradle in which the newborn Jesus was laid was actually a manger cut from stone!
How could we know all this, you may rightly ask? For over thirty years now I have worked in Israel as a researcher and field archaeologist, specializing in the material and cultural backgrounds of the biblical narratives. During all those years I have also taught New Testament courses at seminaries and for university religious studies programs. I’ve taught thousands of university students in Jerusalem and in the Galilee, and taken them over a hundred times for field study in every location from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Because I personally regard the New Testament gospel accounts as authentic and reliable, in my teaching I combine the biblical texts with critically valuable information provided by historical geography and contemporary archaeological research. The result is a realistic and more authentic understanding of scripture that goes beyond mere textual studies. It is a fusion that may properly be referred to as “contextual studies.”
This book is the result of all those years of teaching, research, and excavation, and uses the “contextual studies” approach in telling the real story of the first Christmas. We will explain the actual events surrounding the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem of Judea in the context of their original time and setting. This account is not at all like the traditional holiday stories. It’s better! It’s the authentic story of a young married couple’s love and faith, strength and humility, self reliance and hard work, and their determination to bring about the purposes of God. It’s the account one can find digging deep into the gospels of the New Testament, told in the way you would have seen it had you been there yourself. So sit back now, [and in the next few days on Meridian} and read the real story of the birth of Jesus – the untold story of the first Christmas.
A Stone Manger
Before beginning the untold story of the first Christmas, let’s take a moment to consider the only documented artifact connected with that now famous event – a stone manger.
The Gospel of Luke, which records events of Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem, never once mentions a stable, cattle, or even any hay or straw. But Luke did mention, three separate times, that manger in which the newborn baby boy was laid. The first reference was a simple statement in Luke 2:7 about Mary and her newborn child.
She brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in blankets, and laid him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
The next reference occurs five verses later, in Luke 2:12, as a clue for Jewish shepherds who would come looking for the child.
And this shall be a sign unto you: You shall find the baby wrapped in blankets, lying in a manger.
Four verses further on, in Luke 2:16, those shepherds arrived at Bethlehem to conduct their midnight search.
And they came with haste, and found Mary and Joseph and the baby lying in a manger.
Anyone who has ever read the Christmas story in the Bible has pictured these events in their mind. But it comes as a big surprise to most people when they learn that the makeshift cradle in which the newborn Jesus was laid was not a feeding trough fashioned out of wood, as usually portrayed in modern paintings.
The manger was really a water trough carved from stone.
In modern times, most people have become used to picturing biblical events in terms of the society and material culture they know from North America Europe, or even elsewhere. To a certain extent, they create the Bible stories in their own image in their mind, in their art, in their drama, in their music, and even in their literature. The result of that imaginative license is, in the case of the Christmas story, the familiar image of a wooden manger.
In the ancient Land of Israel, however, animal troughs were not made of wooden planks or poles lashed together. Limestone was much more plentiful in ancient Israel than lumber (as it also is today in modern Israel). Everything that could be made of that limestone was made of it. Buildings, from the private house to the king’s palace, were built of white stone. Most furniture was fashioned, in whole or part, of such stone. As far as archaeological research has been able to determine, animal troughs were almost exclusively carved out of Israel’s abundant white limestone.
Quite a few limestone animal troughs have been found by archaeologists excavating in Israel. The stone manger pictured in photograph #1 above is typical of the average design and dimensions. They were usually block-like in shape, standing between twelve and thirty inches high. The shallow basin at the top of the trough was only about six to eight inches deep, generally carved as a neat rectangular depression with a flat or slightly concave bottom. These troughs were used for watering animals.
The manger in which Jesus was laid, and which served as a sign for the shepherds to find him, was almost surely such a trough for water. This is because in ancient Israel there was no need for a feed box filled with hay. Domestic animals were able to feed on the plentiful grass that grew in the rocky hills of Judea. Grass was available all year long.
From January to April the natural grasses were green and lush. The grass became a golden color after it dried in the late spring heat, but was just as nutritious and available all summer and fall. When winter rains began in November and December, new green grasses were again generated. It snowed only rarely in most of ancient Israel, and snow generally melted within a day of falling, so the grass was never covered for long. It was not necessary to grow fields of hay or straw to be stored for animals to feed on. Whether people owned donkeys, sheep, goats, or milk cows, all year long they simply grazed their animals on the plentiful grass around their towns and villages.
If a limestone water trough was meant for use by sheep, it was short, around twelve to fifteen inches high. This allowed sheep and goats to drink without straining their necks too far up or down. A donkey could also reach down to drink from such a trough. But if a man owned no sheep or goats, the trough for his donkey might be taller, as much as twenty-four to thirty inches high, providing an easier drink for the animal.
So the basin in which the newborn Jesus was laid, and which served as a sign for the shepherds to find him, was a water trough carved from limestone, like the one pictured in photograph #1. There would not have been any hay or straw in it, nor strewn round about it, for animals were not fed in that manner. In fact, other than a donkey, and perhaps a single goat, there were probably no animals present at all when Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
Another thing about that manger which may come as a surprise is that it was a new trough, one that Joseph made himself. He cut and shaped the manger out of a large piece of Judean limestone right after he and Mary arrived at Bethlehem so that his donkey could have water to drink. Contrary to popular tradition, Joseph was not a wood carpenter. He was a stone mason.
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