Journey to Bethlehem

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Posted on November 23, 2011 – 1:10 pmOne Comment

Adam Hamilton travels to the Holy Land in search of new insights on the Christmas story

While researching my latest book, The Journey, I recently spent some time walking through the Holy Land to retrace the steps of Mary and Joseph. As I walked, I was drawing on insights gained from historians, archaeologists, biblical scholars and theologians, all in an effort to discover more about the real meaning of Christmas.

Of course, all of us know the Christmas story, even if we didn’t go to church growing up. But the story’s very familiarity may keep us from fully grasping its riches.
There are details we may have missed entirely. And there are a few places where the picture we have in our mind’s eye may be wrong.

We could start with Nazareth, a humble community in biblical times, that wasn’t included in the 63 villages of Galilee listed in the Talmud. It was small and insignifi cant. As I discovered, many of its residents worked in the villas of the wealthy residents of nearby Sepphoris – a very large and affl uent town with all the benefi ts of wealth. Archeologists have uncovered beautiful villas with mosaic floors in Sepphoris, while in nearby Nazareth some residents lived in caves built into the soft limestone there. What does it tell us about God that he chose this simple village of working-class people as the place to accomplish his greatest purpose?

This is an extract from the December 2011 issue of Reform.

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