22/12/2024
A biblically-accurate belen? ๐ ๐ค
๐ต๐ ๐ท๐๐๐๐ ๐๐ ๐๐๐ ๐ฐ๐๐: ๐จ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐
๐ต๐๐๐๐๐๐๐
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A wonderful exhibit graced the Beato Gallery this December, Elliot Eustacioโs "Panunuluyan: Nativity Scene Interpretations from Around the World through the Lens of Architecture."
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Out of the curatorโs collection came droves of birth-of-Christ depictions, from large crรจches to miniature glassworks, from the hardness of metal to the delicate weave. The unifying theme was how the scene is imagined.
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Designing the nativity allows us to project architecture onto it. To those who visited, you may have noticed one item having Greco-Roman capitals and entablature. In another, Islamic arches and stained glass. Another still, the Filipino bahay kubo. Others ditch structures altogether and opt for a cave, a symbol of God placing Himself into the depths of the world.
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Both individual imagination and collective heritage is potent. But how accurate are we?
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๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ป๐ป
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Our New Testament of the 21st-century is a far cry from its 3rd-century fragments. Its history is dotted with compilation and translation, omission and addition. And so we ask: Prior to that, what was the architecture in the whens and wheres of Jesusโ birth?
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Luke 1โ2, the Infancy Narrative, gives us katalyma, or ฮบฮฑฯฮฌฮปฯ
ฮผฮฑ. We know this as the โinn.โ For the longest time, this translation has informed the popular interpretation of Joseph and Mary rushing to find accommodation, only to be rejected at the inn and thus leading to the manger birth. But some scholars have a new translation. Not an inn, noโa guest room in the upper floors of a private home.
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Archeological evidence suggests Palestinian homes of this era had multiple stories, with upper floors or attics for guests. Frequently, it was a marital chamber for newlyweds. Given Mary and Joseph were together, they may have stayed there, but not for the birth. Itโs possible they varied in size, and a small one may not have had the space needed for the midwives to deliver Jesus nor for the manger in which He lay.
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But that hasnโt changed anything, right? The typology of the stable is still intact, no? Wellโฆ
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๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐ฆ๐๐ฎ๐ฏ๐น๐ฒ
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No stable is ever mentioned. Only a manger. Evidence also suggests many people during this time kept animals inside their home. The interior ground floor was a large space where the main family lived and slept. A portion of this area was depressed to contain animals at night, with mangers between it and the elevated living area.
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It could have been more likely (or practical) for Mary and Joseph to move to this interior โbarnโ than to find an exterior stable.
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๐ง๐ต๐ฒ ๐๐ฎ๐๐ฒ
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Letโs revisit the cave. A cave-as-stable may be more than just symbolism. Some Bethlehemian houses of that era were built against a rock wall, with โcaverns hollowed out โฆ for barn and storage.โ The stable may not have been a free-standing structure, but an integrated cavity behind the house.
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Regardless if the birth was in a living room hole or a carving in the back wall, the humility of the nativity remains. Not anymore because it took place outside in isolation, but because it was below or behind. In the retreats of a home.
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๐ ๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ณ๐น๐ฒ๐ฐ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐ผ๐ณ ๐จ๐
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One last interpretation is that the space is non-specific. Luke, compared to his vivid accounts of Jesusโ life, was rather lacking for its infancy. Was Luke avoiding its emphasis? While katalyma could be interpreted as โguest roomโ under many contexts, others simply meant a โspace for dwelling.โ
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If true, then the decades of us looking for the physical and spatial nativity reveal a subconscious way we project ourselves onto Scripture. Interpretation doesnโt merely reflect the text, but also those who read it. We view life through a lens limited by the spaces we move through and the conceptions about space that we learn.
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We adapt aesthetics to what we deem important. During the pandemic, the nativity scene at a Croatian church placed Jesus not in a stable, but in a miniature of the Dubrava University Hospital in Zagreb, with a bright blue faรงade that welcomed over 8,500 COVID patients. The 2017 Belenismo contest of Tarlac saw a crรจche set against ruins of the Battle of Marawi in tribute to the lives involved. It goes beyond crรจches. In 2013, Pope Francis held a mass at the port city of Lampedusa for migrants who drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean. The furniture was a lectern made of shipwrecked wood and an altar built of a small boat.
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When many of us read the nativity, rarely did we realize a lower-class 1st-century Palestinian home.
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Insteadโitโs a stable, a cave, a home. Whatever we need it to be.
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๐ฅ๐ฒ๐ณ๐ฒ๐ฟ๐ฒ๐ป๐ฐ๐ฒ๐
Prฤiฤ, A. (2023). Christmas Nativity Scenes of the Diocese of Subotica in the Light of Traditional Piety of Catholic Believers. Etnoloลกka istraลพivanja (Ethnological Research), 28, 222โ240. DOI:10.32458/ei.28.11.
Carlson, S.C. (2010). The Accommodations of Joseph and Mary in Bethlehem: ฮฮฑฯแฝฑฮปฯ
ฮผฮฑ in Luke 2.7. New Test. Stud., 56(3), 326โ342.
Mickelson, A. (2015). An Improbable Inn: Texts and Tradition Surrounding Luke 2:7. Studia Antiqua, 14(1).
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โ๐จ: Lorenzo Viray
