Your answers
What animals should be included in the nativity scene
[Answers, 16 January]?
It depends on your intention. Is it to be geographically and
historically correct? (See Dave Walker's helpful cartoon "The Nativity Play",
Comment, 12 December 2014, for the "pedantic/scholarly"
version).
The traditional "stable" should be "dressed" according to St
Luke's nativity story (so no "Magi" as in St Matthew's
version).
If you are displaying a Christmas crib, why not make it
something different, and reinterpret Luke's account, making it
relevant to the 21st century?
On the basis of the beautiful poetry of Isaiah 11.6-9, why not
include wolves as well as lambs, leopards as well as goats, and
cows, lions, and bears, as well as oxen . . . and even snakes.
After all, the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was the prologue to the
in-breaking of "The Peaceful Kingdom" of God, at the culmination of
which we, who are "east of Eden", will return to a world where all
Creation will live together without the need to kill for food
(Genesis 1.30).
I see no reason why the children should not be invited to place
their toy farm and zoo animals in the church or school crib.
All this might give food for thought, a new look at a familiar
scene, and perhaps suggest ideas for a talk.
Margaret A. Turner (member of the Anglican
Society for the Welfare of Animals, and the
Christian Vegetarian Association UK)
Chesham, Buckinghamshire
Your questions
It is usually interpreted that "no room at the inn" in
Bethlehem was a result of typical bureaucratic bungling of census
arrangements. I wonder whether there is an alternative explanation.
The term translated "inn" is kataluma, the same word as is
used for the "large upper chamber" of the Last Supper. "Inn" would
be pandokheion (a place that receives all). Ouk en
topos gives "there was no room". But could the meaning be
simply "the guest room was no place for giving
birth"? K. D.
Why are so many almshouses dedicated to St John the
Baptist? J. S.
In Choral Evensong on Radio 3 on 31 December,
the officiant said the General Thanksgiving from the Prayer Book.
This was probably the first time I had heard that prayer for more
than 40 years, after joining in with it regularly at evensong, to
summarise the intercessions, or as a procession re-entered the
quire, between 1957 and 1972. Is it still used regularly
anywhere? R. W. C.
Out of the Question, Church Times, 3rd floor, Invicta
House, 108-114 Golden Lane, London EC1Y 0TG.
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