Andy Unedited

The following is adapted from a December 2014 post in AndyUnedited.

The Christmas story always bothered me.

It never made sense. No, I’m not talking about the virgin birth. Not the angels singing to shepherds. Not the star in the sky. Not the wise men.

No, it was the part about there being no room in the inn. It never made sense. Middle Eastern hospitality is legendary. Strangers, travelers, those in need—you can count on the deeply ingrained culture of showing generosity and graciousness to those who need a meal or a warm bed.

They would never, ever turn away a pregnant woman—especially a woman who was a relative visiting her ancestral home in Bethlehem. Many close and distant relatives would have been living or visiting nearby to care for her. Turn her away? Send her to a barn? Never. It wouldn’t happen.

Then what did happen? In Luke 2:7, the Greek word traditionally translated as “inn” is better rendered as “guest room,” which is how the NIV puts it. Middle Eastern peasant homes were one large room though sometimes a guest room or “mother-in-law room” was attached. But since the guest room was already occupied, the owners of the house did the only sensible thing—they vacated the main house and gave it over to Mary and Joseph’s use.

The couple would not be alone either. When it came time for the baby to be born, Joseph would wait outside while women in the community would come and assist Mary. Luke didn’t mention the community because his readers would have known that without having to be told.

Then what in the world was a manger (a feed box for animals that Luke mentions) doing inside the house?

The single, main room of such a house typically had two parts: a smaller ground floor level and a larger level raised a couple feet for cooking, eating, and sleeping. Peasants would bring their animals into the lower level of the house at night for two reasons—to keep the animals safe from thieves and to provide warmth for the family sleeping on the upper level when it was cold.

Cut into the floor of the upper level where it meets the lower level was (wait for it) a manger. A place for hay to feed the animals.*

Some years ago I was describing this to a friend, and her eyes got huge. “That’s the kind of house I grew up in!” Her family had been missionaries among peasants in Syria. You can still find such homes there today.

Yes, Jesus was not born in a palace, but neither was he born alone in a barn. He was born in a common home of the people, a home that was opened up to him through a delightful demonstration of hospitality. When we welcome into our lives both family and strangers, the needy and the self-assured, we are living the Christmas story.

For the Christmas story is not one of “no room in the inn.” Rather it is one of wondrous welcome and generosity.

—

Image credit: Ambroz from Pixabay.

*See Kenneth E. Bailey, “The Story of Jesus Birth: Luke 2:1-20” in Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2008), pp. 25-37.

I love big, bold books that offer a sweeping view of history. Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel is a stellar example. Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind is not.

Harari does cover (as promised) the last 70,000 years of human history from the first proto-homo sapiens to the possibilities of future human genetic and bionic engineering. Yet his swaggering, blustering style (while entertaining) blocks the light he might otherwise shed on a variety of important topics.

His overall structure has merit. He begins with what he calls the cognitive revolution of perhaps 40,000 years ago. Sapiens expanded their inventions, art, and language far beyond any other animal. This allowed for cooperation that made up for deficiencies in size, strength, and speed.

The next major shift was the agricultural revolution of about 12,000 years ago which allowed sapiens to shift from roving hunter-gatherers to settled farmers. Harari’s controversial view is a thoroughly negative take on what most see as the foundation of cities and civilizations. He claims it was a poor trade in nutrition, safety, happiness, and justice.

The third transformation is the scientific revolution of 500 years ago. While most civilizations were previously based on received knowledge from the past, science celebrated ignorance which could motivate the search for knowledge. Europeans became supremely curious about the world, went exploring, and promptly conquered those who were not interested in new ideas, new tools, new weapons, or new discoveries.

Many reviewers have noted his slapdash treatments. The Guardian points out, for example, that his interpretation of the 1827 battle of Navarino in the war for Greek independence is wildly distorted, as even Wikipedia will attest. Marcus Paul also says, “He gives the (imagined) example of a thirteenth-century peasant asking a priest about spiders and being rebuffed because such knowledge was not in the Bible. It’s hard to know where to begin in saying how wrong a concept this is.” Instead, monks, friars, and abbeys “were central to the learning of the universities.”

The biggest problem in the book is introduced early, in chapter 2. According to Harari, every idea is a fiction, a social construct—nations, corporations, gods, values. None exist except in our imaginations. Ok, but . . .

On what basis, then, does he later claim that the slaughter of billions of domesticated animals since the advent of industrial agriculture may be the greatest crime in history? According to his own way of thinking, crimes (notions of justice) must also be fictions. After all, we (including Harari) only make up such rules. They don’t actually exist. But we use them to punish people, justify conquest, or write books claiming we are the ones who can offer an objective, dispassionate view when everyone else is wallowing in subjectivity.

Harari’s problem is that by his reckoning neither the subjective (which he denigrates) nor the objective (a perspective he subjectively values) exist since both are ideas. His own assumptions undo his many, overconfident historical, scientific, and moral judgments. All his self-assured pronouncements about religion, politics, and ethics must themselves be fictions. They become just as imaginary as his own supposed objectivity.

Sapiens has value. But it is so difficult separating the wheat from the chaff that it’s probably not worth the time.

I almost never read a book more than once. Yet I thoroughly enjoyed my fifth journey through Watership Down with my neighborhood book club. As I mentioned earlier, this classic adventure tale of friendship, loyalty, perseverance, and courage is so compelling you forget it is a 400-page book about rabbits!

Some of my favorite aspects of the book include:

♦ The wonderful cast of diverse characters we grow to love—the big, gruff, good-hearted Bigwig; the often-misunderstood Fiver; the raucous and faithful Kehar; the encouraging storyteller Dandelion; the clever Blackberry; the “court jester” Bluebell; the young and earnest Pipkin; and more—all of whose gifts are bound together by the wounded leader Hazel.

♦ Hazel’s courage and generosity of spirit seen especially when he goes alone to their archenemy Woundwort, not just to offer a truce but a visionary, constructive way forward that would benefit all.

♦ The beautiful arc of the plot from early crisis to major climax to final resolution. (Even the very first and the last sentences are parallel!)

♦ How the main storyline is paralleled throughout by stories of rabbit lore and mythology—with the two finally intersecting so touchingly on the last page.

♦ Favorite Moment: Bigwig’s dramatic announcement to his enemies that he is not his warren’s chief rabbit, leading them to imagine that some other larger, even more fearsome leader must be nearby.

♦ Favorite Line: When Woundwort fails to defeat Bigwig and then tries to bribe him, Bigwig tells him, “Silflay hraka”! (p. 448)

What did you love about the book?

It’s my turn to choose the next book for our book club. Here are the options I came up with. What suggestions do you have?

Fiction
Watership Down by Richard Adams. A classic adventure tale of friendship, loyalty, perseverance, and courage. So compelling you’ll forget that it is a 300-page book about rabbits!

I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Engers. Perhaps the most endearing post-apocalyptic novel you will ever read, set on the shores and the waters of Lake Superior.

Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (the author of The Martian). Interstellar kidnapping, crossing alien cultures, a protagonist with attitude, saving the galaxy. What more could you want?

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A very human sci-fi thriller set in Chicago that makes you care about the characters.

History
Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand (author of Unbroken). A broken horse, a broken jockey, a broken owner, a broken trainer—who somehow all heal each other in the underdog story of the century.

April 1865 by Jay Winik. An historian and diplomat who saw first-hand how civil wars around the world often ended badly—either in the genocide of the losing side or in an interminable guerrilla insurgency—tells why neither happened in the United States.

Shantung Compound by Langdon Gilkey. In this minor classic, Gilkey offers remarkably astute observations about human nature under pressure as he and hundreds of Westerners endured a Japanese prisoner of war camp in China during World War II—a camp that included my 96-year-old friend Ruth!

Symphony for the City of the Dead by M. T. Anderson. The dramatic story of how Shostakovich wrote a symphony during the siege of Leningrad and smuggled it out to be played around the world when the Nazi’s seemed invincible. Even more amazingly, the symphony was performed in Leningrad itself in August 1942, with the city surrounded.

Non-Fiction
How to Know a Person by David Brooks. In a day of hyper reactions and extreme tribalism, a book of stories and practical wisdom on reviving the lost art of conversation and making friends.

Educated by Tara Westover. The astounding memoir of how the daughter of a mega-dysfunctional, survivalist family in Idaho, lacking any formal education, ended up at Cambridge.

Factfulness by Hans Rosling. The subtitle says it all—Ten Reasons We’re Wrong About the World – and Why Things Are Better Than You Think, from a Swedish researcher and advisor to the UN. Mind blown.