c. 1996 Religion News Service

“Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; … and (Mary) brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.” (The Gospel of Luke)

UNDATED _ Bethlehem lies in the West Bank, five miles south of Jerusalem. The city, which Israel handed over to the Palestinian Authority one year ago, has long been one of the most revered places in the Middle East because of its role as the home of King David and the birthplace of Jesus.

In the Western, romanticized interpretation of the Christmas story, Jesus was born in Bethlehem in an isolated wooden stable where Mary and Joseph found refuge after being refused lodging in the local motel.

Archaeologists, historians and theologians say this picture is largely inaccurate _ although they cannot agree about the actual circumstances.

Today in Bethlehem, the Church of the Nativity dominates Manager Square, one of the most-visited sites of the Holy Land. The church, where Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic and Armenian Orthodox groups all have altars, is built over a system of interlocking caves. Since the earliest days of Christianity, local Christians have designated one of the caves as the actual birthplace of Jesus.

St. Jerome, who died in Bethlehem in 420 A.D., lived in another of the caves and there worked on the”Vulgate Bible,”his translation of the Scriptures into Latin. He was also buried in a cave on the site, until his body was later moved to Rome.

The site was first officially proclaimed the birthplace of Jesus in about 325 A.D., when the Emperor Constantine and his mother, Helena, built a basilica over the Cave of the Nativity. The current structure was built in the sixth century during the time of Emperor Justinian.

Visitors enter the church through a low doorway, which local Christians cut down in the 18th century to prevent Muslims from riding into the church on horseback.

Inside the Nativity grotto, visitors look through an opening surrounded by a star to see the spot where many Christians believe Mary gave birth to her son.

Many scholars believe the inn mentioned in Scripture actually referred to a family compound or a home, and not what people today would consider a hotel.”Based on the Greek words and what we know about archaeology, the manger was part of a family house compound and the inn was the guest room of a house, not a hotel and a separate barn,”said archaeologist Gary Byers, executive director of the Ephrata, Pa.-based Associates for Biblical Research.

Byers said he believes the word more likely refers to special rooms built for entertaining or lodging guests.

During that time, Byers said, it was common for houses to have an unroofed courtyard surrounded by a wall. Several structures would have been part of the compound.”Regularly, animals were kept on the ground floor, while the family and guests slept on the second floor,”he said.

Carl Schultz, a Bible professor at Houghton College, a Wesleyan institution in Western New York, said it is possible that Mary and Joseph were the last family members to arrive at Joseph’s ancestoral home and were therefore”assigned to a lower level of the house with the animals.” Some scholars have expressed doubts about the location of the Nativity site. Little can be verified archaeologically, because religious groups have not allowed excavation in the Cave of the Nativity itself. “What we have is a very early tradition, and you don’t take that lightly, but there is no other evidence,”said Byers.

Archaeologist Randy Smith, director of Christian Travel Study Programs in Jerusalem, believes this is not the authentic location because the site was traditionally a burial ground. “What is the likelihood that the religious Jewish family is living on a burial ground?”he asked.”We do not know the birth spot of Abraham, Joseph, Jacob and Jesus because it is unimportant in the religious Jewish mind to retain the memory of the birth,”Smith said.

Still, Schultz and others assert that Bethlehem and the Church of the Nativity hold deep meaning for Christians. “It’s a very moving experience for people to visit there,”he said.

MJP END LAWTON