I toyed with the idea of putting this post up on Christmas Day but I doubted anyone was really going to be surfing much, so it’s just going to be my regular weekly post.
Censuses
The second chapter of Luke is the most common Christmas story in the Bible. In it, we read that Joseph and Mary had to travel to Bethlehem because of a Roman census. Everyone had to travel “to their own town to register.”
There are problems with that whole concept.
Aside from anything else, can you imagine the havoc such a census would wreak on the economy? Everyone’s got to go to this other town to register, no matter what you might be in the middle of doing. Businesses would have to close. Who’s going to take care of the farm animals while you’re gone? The crops? The harvest?
And what defines “their own town?”
Joseph was “of the house and line of David.” David was originally from that area, so that’s where Joseph had to go for this census, to the city of David: Bethlehem.
Where would I have to go?
There are about 27 generations from King David to Joseph. I don’t even have eight generations for the Mueller line. The farthest back I can go is my 5th great-grandfather, Johann Peter Mueller, from Engelstadt, Germany. So would I have to go to Germany? Or could I stop in Austin, where my Dad was born? Would my kids have to Sherman? Would I?
That could get messy quickly.
Architecture
Christians, especially evangelicals, commonly portray Mary and Joseph sitting in a stable, all alone for the birth.
But what did a carpenter know about delivering babies?
And would a man sitting in his ancestral hometown with his pregnant bride really be relegated to a stable or cave? Sure, Bethlehem likely didn’t have a real inn or hotel-like place. But Joseph was a hometown boy back visiting family. Surely someone would have shown mercy to Mary if not to Joseph.
1st-century Hebrew architecture tended to have two-story homes. The upper level was for sleeping and living. The lower level was for cooking, and if the family had animals, part of the lower level sheltered them. There was usually a wall separating the two sections, but there would have been enough space for a married (or betrothed) couple to settle in after delivering a baby. The older ladies of the home would have been able to help Mary through her labor while Joseph hung out with the men of the house. Remember, despite what the song asks, Mary (and Joseph) both knew exactly who she was carrying.
Doesn’t this drastically change the whole setting of the Christmas story? Instead of the lonely, isolated birth we see in so many Christmas pageants, biblical Jesus was probably born surrounded by family. That seems to align a lot more with the whole “God is love” thing the Bible is supposedly about (though I’ve got issues with that).
Here are a couple of older articles that talk in more detail about 1st-century architecture.
Bible Study Magazine – Away in a Manger, But Not in a Barn
Bible Archeology – The Manger and The Inn
Christmas Goodies
Among other cool things, I got a pool thermometer that connects to my Ambient Weather Dashboard. So if you want to see the water temperature here at Wayfarer’s Refuge, check this out.
powered by Ambient Weather
Michigan Football. Again.
Sorry. Really. Well, sort of. I promise I won’t talk about Michigan Football for the rest of the year.
Wolverine faithful mostly breathed a sigh of relief at Friday’s announcement of Kyle Whittingham being hired as the 22nd head football coach for Michigan.
It’s been quite the rollercoaster since Moore was fired on 10 December. First, we were going for Kalen DeBoer at Alabama, then we were trying for Kenny Dillingham at ASU. Along the way, we were supposedly talking to Jedd Frisch, Jesse Minter, and even interim head coach Biff Poggi.
I like this hire a lot.
Minter and Frisch, I think, had too much Harbaugh baggage to be effective. Minter is still under a show-cause order until spring, anyway, so that would have been problematic at best. But both of them would have invited extra scrutiny of the program from the NCAA, and I think we’ve had quite enough of that in the last few years.
I don’t think DeBoer and Dillingham were ever real candidates for the job. They’re both in their dream jobs and apparently very happy there.
Poggi has been great for how he’s been used. He might be a good athletic director in the likely event that Warde Manuel leaves that position soon. I think the investigation of the athletic department is going to determine how Manuel leaves (with or without cause), but I feel like he’s going to be gone very shortly after the new UM president is hired. Manuel hasn’t been horrible, but all of the recent shenanigans have been on his watch, so even if the investigation doesn’t give the school cause to fire him, I think he’s going to be encouraged to step down.
I’ve heard John Belein’s name tossed around as AD, and while he was a great basketball coach, and probably would have been a good AD, he’s 72. That’s not that old, but would he really want to step into a high-stress position like that?
Poggi is “only” 65, but as a former hedge fund manager, he’s certainly got the connections to high-value donors that an AD needs.
I’m looking forward to a good season of football next fall. Tulane and Michigan have new coaches, the Saints are starting to come around with a decent quarterback and a good draft position, and even NSU looks pretty good. Fingers crossed all the way around.
Top Ten
Since this is my last post of the year, here are the top ten posts for 2025.
- In Review: 5.11 Tactical Rush Delivery Lima Messenger Bag
- Thirty Years On, The Ghosts of Fort McClellan Still Beckon
- Cover Songs – The Phil Collins Edition
- Patriotism: Love for Country or Blind Loyalty to Government?
- Genealogy Profile: Johann Carl Müller, My Great-Grandfather
- Hobbies That Shaped Me: A Journey Through Passion and Time
- Down the Rabbit Hole of War Stories
- Easter Sunday with Judas And The Walking Dead
- Reflections In The Snow: A Journey Down Winter’s Memory Lane
- The Ghosts of West Virginia
I’m amused that a nine-year-old product review is still my top-performing post, especially when I don’t think 5.11 even makes the bag any longer.
Two of the top ten posts are from the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, which I’ve only done seven posts for in about a year—and none since February. We’ll see how I do next year. And now that I look back at 2025’s post topics, I wonder why I didn’t write more WWBC posts. Hmph. I suppose I can still use last year’s prompts for a post or two. I just can’t link them back to the WWBC weekly topic.
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