Why was newborn Yeshua laid in a manger?

[8thdaypriest]

The Roman command specified that every man return to "the city of his birth."  Joseph traveled to Bethlehem.  If Bethlehem was "his own city," that means he had family there - lots of relatives, who would gladly provide lodging for himself and his wife.  Except there was a problem.  Mary was in labor.  The relatives had not prepared a separate space for a woman about to give birth. 

The Torah specified that a woman was "unclean" for 7 days plus 33 days, following the birth of a male (Lev 12).   Whoever touched her would be "unclean until evening." (Lev 15).   Everything she touched or sat on, would become "unclean."   It was an "issue of blood" thing.    The longer period of separation required for birth of a female, fits with the greater hormonal changes, following delivery of a female.  Sometimes the female infant will have some vaginal bleeding (also due to hormonal changes).   

It was common among the poor, to make a separate space ("room") for a birth, in the stable, with lots of clean straw.   Mary would have to remain there for 40 days.  Then she would take the required sacrifice to the Temple.  (See Luke 2:22-24.)  

The whole story of no room at the local "inn," just doesn't fit the cultural context of the story.   

[Kevin H]

People lived in about 20 to 40 or so rooms houses called "insula". Some of these rooms has specific purposes such as storage rooms, open court yards for cooking and children playing, and rooms where a nuclear families would live, and an insula tended to house an extended family.  

The way we got the idea of an "inn" is that the translators came across a Greek word, "kataluma" while they knew that it meant "guest chamber" they could not go any further. They figured that Mary and Joseph was traveling. They knew that there is a regular word for "inn" that we find in the story of the good Samaritan. But they wondered if "kataluma" might be another word for "inn" so we got this tradition.  But these family 'insulas" had one room called: you guessed it, the "kataluma." This was a room where out of town family can stay in when they are in town. As 8thdaypriest pointed out, it was Joseph's family.

Apparently, it was common for births to occur in caves because the temperatures remain uniform and temperate. But after the birth they stayed in the cave, and Jesus was placed in the manger. This would have been used by the family to house their animals. Normally after the birth they would have come into the kataluma. But as 8thdaypriest pointed out, there were the purity issues. Also, were there relatives who was upset at the situation about Mary and Joseph not yet married? Or maybe they were welcome, but with all the relatives crowed into the kataluma, it was too much hustle and bustle, that the cave would meet all these situations. We find in this story that the original Christmas tradition is reunions of dysfunctional families. 

Bethlehem may have been too small for a public inn. 

By the way, the story of the fool who wanted to tear down his barns and build bigger ones... This was not someone in his house with a white picket fence and a red barn across the street that he wanted to replace with a bigger barn. He lived in an insula. He wanted to make all the other rooms in his insula to be storage rooms, thus kicking out his aunts, uncles and cousins. This selfish unkindness to his family is why he was a fool. 

Also, in the story of Jesus visiting with Mary and Martha, it would not be just the three of them. They would also have whoever else in the family wanting to listen to Jesus.  

[Kevin H]

Merry Christmas and enjoy this song:

https://video.search.yahoo.com/search/video?fr=mcafee&p=He+was+born+in+a+barn+song+with+puppet&type=E211US714G0#id=3&vid=d5963f39e3b2fbc49a803239a93ff54b&action=view