Shawn Ryan

There's no innkeeper.

It's the guest room.

I think that's what really happened.

So it kind of messes a little bit with our image of Christmas.

But that's probably a more accurate translation of what's going on.

So it does kind of change things a bit.

But I think linguistically, it makes more sense.

And the scholars who I talk to think, no, that's probably the better translation of that word.

And it's really just one word.

There was no room for them at the Catalima.

How do you, oh, guest room.

Oh, now it just changes everything.

And I think with an understanding of what a house looked like back then, it makes even more sense than that.

By the way, we don't know that there were any inns in Bethlehem.

As we said, it was a small town, 500 people.

It was not on major highways.

There may or may not have been an inn there, but here's the other thing.

In first century Jewish culture, it would have been unthinkable for an innkeeper to turn away a pregnant Jewish woman.

You could not do that.

You would be ostracized by the community because hospitality was a huge value in those days.