Christmas Reality

To be sure I have no problem with people who have faith in their own belief systems and for especially for practicing Christians, it takes a LOT of faith if the Christmas story occurred as was depicted in the Gospels of Matthew (Chapter 2) and Luke (Chapter 2).

The premise being that a carpenter and his fiancé needed to travel to their ancestral home - Beyt Leḥem (Bethlehem) from Natz'rat  (Nathereth) to partake in a census ordered by Caesar. Along the way, the young woman was impregnated without losing her virginity, and had a dream instructing her how to name the boy. When they got home, she gave birth in an animal shed because there was no room anywhere else. A star hung over the place where she gave birth, providing directions for the shepherds and Magi to show up shortly thereafter.  The local Roman Governor (Herod) heard that a prince had been born, and ordered all baby boys under two to be slaughtered, so the young Mom fled to Egypt only to return later and raise her son.

Sound about right?

I know, I missed the part about the Angels signing and the Little Drummer Boy, but the essence of the story is there.

It takes LOTS of faith to take that story at face value, and if you have that faith that this is the way things happened as first recorded some 50 years after the boy’s death, then good for you!  Enjoy your fantasy and read no further.

However, there are some historical truths that have come to light over the last century or so that may give you pause to question the reality of the story. These truths come from historians who recorded events much closer to the time of the event, with both Jewish and Roman records agreeing with each other and decrying the stories written two to three generations after his death.

Where to start?

The Census

The Romans kept impeccable records, even if they were often skewed in their favour, but there is no record of a census being conducted outside of Rome itself decades before or after the time of the birth. Even if a census did occur at the time of Yeshua ben Yusef’s (AKA:  Jesus) birth, the people would not have been required to return to their ancestral home. That would be a totally impractical arrangement. If it happened this way, all work throughout the Roman Empire would stop. Some people would have had to travel for months to return to their ancestral home. The transportation infrastructure could not possibly have handled the flood of travelers.
Further, Yusef ben Ya'akov (AKA: Joseph) would not have taken Miriam, daughter of Joachim (AKA: Mary) with him, even if he had to go to Bethlehem to register. Only men were enumerated or taxed, so there was no necessity for her to accompany Joseph. Mary's pregnancy was in its ninth month at the time. She would not have been in a condition to travel.

No Room at the Inn

So why did they even need an inn to begin with? They were going to Joseph’s home, and in the Bible, there is no innkeeper - and probably no inn. That's because inns were only found on major roads, and Bethlehem was the equivalent of a truck stop outside of a rural town in Saskatchewan.

Much of our picture of the story is based on the mis-translation of a single word: the Greek "kataluma" which was translated as "inn," when a far more accurate translation would have been "the guest bedroom." We actually have a pretty good sense of just what a kataluma is, because the only other time the word is used in the New Testament is to describe the room where the Last Supper takes place, which Mark describes as "a large upper room furnished and prepared."

So that's a great description of where they didn't get to stay, but we all know where they did end up, based on the supposition that Jesus was laid in a manger -- i.e., a feeding trough for animals.
However, just because there was a manger doesn't mean they were in a stable.
In the first century BCE and CE the first floor of homes were akin to large kitchens, where animals would be brought inside at night for heat and protection. Consequently, the lower floor of the house would have had a manger -- the Bible isn't saying that innkeepers are jerks and Jesus was born in a barn. It's saying that they stayed with the in-laws and had to crash on the downstairs couch with the pets -- a time-honored Christmas tradition most of us practice to this day.

Timelines
The Bible doesn't provide a precise timeline for all these events, but the gospels make it pretty clear that Mary didn't give birth the night they arrived in Bethlehem. They say "while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered," which strongly implies that the birth takes place days, if not weeks, after their arrival.

Jesus didn't hit the ground running, either. He was circumcised (eight days after he was born) and presented at the Temple, which could only happen after Mary's period of purification was completed -- because according to the laws of Leviticus, a woman was considered ritually impure for 40 days after giving birth to a boy (80 days for a girl).

There are some hints that it's much longer -- perhaps up to two years -- before the wise men even show up: by the time they get there, the family is living in a house, not a stable, and Jesus is referred to as a "young child," not a baby. This makes sense, since the reason Herod kills all the children up to 2 years old is because the wise men specifically told him that was Jesus' age. Now, admittedly, Herod wasn't exactly known for his restraint, so he might have started by killing the infants and then momentum just took over.

Three Wise Men

The gospels don't mention kings visiting young Jesus, only a group of magi from the east. Magi weren't royalty, but rather priests or wise men versed in astrology and magic.
Now, hopefully these were at least royal court magi, because your run-of-the-mill magi were a pretty sketchy bunch -- they're described throughout the Bible as frauds, snake oil salesmen, and swindlers. It's assumed that these weren't lowly street magi based on the luxury gifts they came packing, though one Old Testament verse suggests that they were just as likely to be traveling salesmen as they were wandering nobility -- an interpretation shunned by church authorities, but that was understandably popular with Renaissance businessmen.

The magi's choice of gifts would have raised some eyebrows, too, given how frequently the Bible mentions both frankincense and myrrh as aphrodisiacs. It wasn't until the Middle Ages that the magi began to be described as kings, largely to make the New Testament story better match the Old Testament messiah prophecies, and probably because "kings" sounded better than "magical spice perverts."

The story of the Magi coming to Palestine to give homage to the King of the Jews appears to have been freely adapted from the story of Mithra's birth. He was mythical Persian savior, also allegedly born of a virgin in a cave on DEC-25, who was worshiped many centuries before Jesus' birth.

Herod

According to Matthew (2:7), Herod inquired as to the exact time that the star appeared. This was to learn exactly when Jesus was born, so that he could have all of the male children close to that age in the Bethlehem area murdered. Since he later ordered all of the children less than 2 years of age slaughtered, Jesus must have been living with his parents in Bethlehem for many months by the time that the Magi arrived - perhaps at least a year. If Jesus had been just born, then Herod would have ordered only newborn infants killed. This conflicts with Luke (2:39), which states that when Mary was ritually purified 40 days after the birth, that the family returned to Natz'rat immediately afterwards. It also conflicts with the archaeological record which conclusively shows that Beyt Leḥem was deserted during the 1st century BCE and 1st century CE.