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Bible chapter guide
Luke 2
A census brings Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born and laid in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn. Angels announce him to shepherds; Simeon and Anna welcome him in the temple; and at twelve he stays behind in his Father's house.
Summary written for the Labs; read the chapter itself for the full text.
What happens in this chapter
Luke ties the birth to an enrolment ordered by Caesar Augustus, which takes Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem, the town of David, with Mary, who is pregnant. While they are there she gives birth, wraps the baby herself and lays him in a manger, and that night an angel and a great company of the heavenly army appear to shepherds in the fields nearby. On the eighth day the child is named Jesus, and after the days of purification he is presented in the temple with the offering of two birds, where the old man Simeon and the prophetess Anna speak about him. The chapter ends twelve years on: at Passover the boy stays behind in Jerusalem, and after three days his parents find him in the temple among the teachers, listening and asking questions.
What the lab shows, and where to look
The Bethlehem scene of Places of Jesus follows this chapter stop by stop. 'Journey' puts Mary and Joseph on the road from Jerusalem at evening; the donkey is tradition, and you can switch it off. At 'Family house' the roof lifts away to show a village house with the guest room full and the manger at the animals' end of the room; switch to 'Cave' for the oldest tradition, a cave behind the house. In the fields, step to 'The heavenly host', drawn as light rather than winged figures, since Luke does not describe them. 'Temple' moves forty days on to the Court of Women, with Simeon holding the child. The boy at twelve has no stop of his own. The Luke 2:7 page follows that verse across the labs.
- Journey · Bethlehem and the Birth of Jesus
- Family house · Bethlehem and the Birth of Jesus
- Cave · Bethlehem and the Birth of Jesus
- The heavenly host · Bethlehem and the Birth of Jesus
- Temple · Bethlehem and the Birth of Jesus
- Luke 2:7
Questions people ask
What was the 'inn' in Luke 2?
Luke's word is kataluma, a place to lodge. He uses it again for the 'guestchamber' where Jesus ate the Passover (22:11), but a different word, pandocheion, for the inn in the parable of the Good Samaritan (10:34). So many scholars, Kenneth Bailey among them, read 2:7 as a family house whose guest room was already full; older commentators such as Ellicott keep 'inn', the KJV word, a lodging for travellers. Either way, Luke has no innkeeper and no one turning the couple away.
Was Jesus born in a cave?
Luke mentions only a manger. The oldest tradition outside the Gospels, in Justin Martyr around AD 155, says Joseph found no lodging in the village and took shelter in a cave near it, and the Church of the Nativity was later built over such a cave. Many houses in the Bethlehem hills were built against caves used for animals and storage, so a cave at the back of a house fits both readings of the 'inn'.
How does Luke's census fit with Quirinius?
Josephus dates the census held when Quirinius governed Syria to AD 6, about ten years after Herod the Great died, yet Matthew and Luke both place the birth in Herod's reign. Proposed answers include reading 2:2 as a census held before Quirinius governed, an earlier post held by Quirinius in the region, or a registration begun years before it was finished. Each is possible; none is proven.
Was Jesus born in December?
Luke gives no date and no season. Flocks could be kept out at night near Bethlehem in many months of the year, so the shepherds neither prove nor rule out winter. The 25th of December is first recorded as the feast of the birth in Rome in 336, and other early writers proposed other dates.
See it in the Labs
- Places of JesusPlaces of JesusOpen
- adventAdvent week 2: Journey · The road to BethlehemOpen
- verse/luke-2-7Luke 2:7Open
- adventAdvent week 3: Shepherds · The road to BethlehemOpen
- NazarethNazarethOpen
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusBethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusThe watch · Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusThe angel · Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
- Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusThe heavenly host · Bethlehem and the Birth of JesusOpen
People in this chapter
Places
Also in this chapter
How sure can we be?
- Textually stated
Mary wrapped the baby in swaddling clothes herself and laid him in a manger (a feeding trough) because there was no place for them in the kataluma.
- Textually stated
No innkeeper appears in Luke's account, and no one turns the couple away.
- Textually stated
Luke has no innkeeper and no refusal. There was “no room in the kataluma”, a word Luke uses for a guest room (22:11), not for the inn of the Good Samaritan (10:34).
The common picture: Mary and Joseph were turned away by an innkeeper and sent out to a stable.
- Textually stated
Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem with Mary because of an enrolment ordered by Caesar Augustus, since he was of the house and family of David.
- Textually stated
Luke does not say the birth happened on the night they arrived: “while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered”.
- Textually stated
“While they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered” (2:6). They may have been in Bethlehem for days or weeks.
The common picture: Jesus was born on the night they arrived.