Heli Davidson Written December 4, 2025   Welcome back to IT'S IN THE BIBLE.  I'm Brother Billy. My next guest comes to us from the ancient town of Bethlehem, in Judea.  And he brings with him an interesting account of a famous event that took place there more than 2,000 years ago.  May I introduce Mr. Eli Davidson. Thank you, Brother Billy.  I'm glad to be here.  But to be perfectly correct, my name isn't really Eli.  It's true that they call me Eli up north in Galilee, where my son's family lives.  But my name is Heli, with an H. Yes, I see that now.  IT'S IN THE BIBLE, the genealogy verses.  Luke 3:23  Those Galileans drop their H's.  They slur their speech all the time.  But my son Joseph decided to relocate up there, and he fell in love with a local girl. Why did he move to Galilee? Well, Joe had always wanted to be a carpenter, and he heard there was an apprenticeship available in a little town called Nazareth.  So he went there.  He's so impetuous.  He wasn't in Galilee even a year until he proposed marriage to the young woman. I've heard that her name is Mary. That's right.  But before the wedding could take place, Mary discovered that she was two months pregnant. Joe was the father? No, he wasn't.  I asked him about it and he swore they hadn't moved in together yet.  In fact, Mary claimed that she was still a virgin! Those lying Galileans! My son is a man of principle.  His first impulse was to have the marriage contract quietly set aside and to have nothing further to do with the immoral young woman.  But he dreamed about an angel who told him that if he loved her, he ought to protect her reputation.  He needed to go ahead and marry her and claim the baby as his own.  So that's what he did.  Matthew 1:18-25    IT'S IN THE BIBLE.  So did you ever meet this Mary? Yes, the very next month.  The emperor Augustus had issued an executive order:  there was to be a worldwide census.  You see, the Romans wanted to list all the people for taxation purposes.  So Joe decided he should take some time off from work and come down here to register with his real family.  Luke 2:1-5   Here in Bethlehem?  Not in Nazareth? He had been away from home for only a year, and he still proudly identified himself as a Davidson. Yes, your family name indicates that you folks are descended from the first David, the ancient King of Israel. That's right.  King David grew up right here in Bethlehem, you know.  I Samuel 17:12-15   How far away from Nazareth are you? About 80 miles, or four days by donkey.  Four and a half days if you count all the interrogation delays at the Customs and Border Protection checkpoint between Galilee and Judea. That took a little longer because Joe wasn't traveling alone.  He wanted Mary to meet all his relatives, so he brought her with him.  After all, by marrying him she was becoming a Davidson herself. But four days on a donkey?  Wasn't that dangerous for her, in her condition? No, she was young and vigorous and only three months pregnant.  And it was summertime, so the weather would be good.  They knew she could handle it. So when they arrived, did Mary and Joseph stay at your house? Yes.  Hospitality is a key element of our culture.  There's no hotel in town, but my house has a small guest room that we jokingly call our “inn.”  We invited Joe and Mary to share a bed in that room.  But they promised to behave themselves. Odd, I'd always imagined the travelers arriving on Christmas Eve and the hotel desk clerk telling them he had no vacancies.  After all, it was a holiday.  But the Bible doesn't actually say that. I'm told that the word they use can mean either “inn” or “guest room.”  It denotes a temporary accommodation for travelers. So how long did Mary and Joseph stay in your guest room?  A week? That was the plan.  However, Governor Quirinius had hired his friends and supporters to manage the census, and they were woefully unqualified.  Registration Day had to be postponed until January.  So Joe and Mary were still living with us on December 25 when the time came for Mary to have her baby. There must have been great excitement. Yes, our guest room was getting crowded.  We brought in a midwife to help with the delivery, and the whole family was curious, so there was no room in the “inn” for a cradle.  When the baby arrived, Mary called him Yeshu, which is the Galilean way of saying Yeshua.  She swaddled him in strips of cloth, took him to the downstairs room where we keep the animals, and laid him in the manger — the feed trough built into the floor.  Luke 2:6-7    How plain!  How unseemly! Well, Joseph and Mary didn't seem to mind the indignity.  Nor did Yeshua.  I guess you can call them our “country cousins” now.  Anyway, it was a week later when the new parents took the infant to the Temple in Jerusalem to be formally presented to the Lord.  Luke 2:22-24    Then after the census, they went back north.  Luke 2:39    But I've heard there was talk about what had happened. It all started at our house.  Some shepherds heard a rumor that we had a newborn who was going to grow up to be the King of the Jews, and they came to see him.  Luke 2:8-18  Later, at the Temple, there were devout elderly people who were inspired to predict great things for the boy.  When Mary and Joseph heard what Simeon and Anna were saying about their baby, they were full of wonder.  Luke 2:23-38    IT'S IN THE BIBLE. Then my sister Davia began to get fantastical ideas.  The Greek pagans claim that their god Zeus impregnated Danae while she remained a virgin.  Likewise couldn't it have been our Jewish god Yahweh who impregnated the virgin Mary?  Then the boy would not merely be your grandson. He would truly be the Son of God!  Luke 1:26 -38  And didn't the scriptures prophesy that from our little insignificant town of Bethlehem, there would come a king over Israel?  Micah 5:2   That actually did come true a thousand years earlier with your ancestor. And if the boy was going to be a king, there should be a sign in the heavens to herald his royal birth.  Matthew 2:1-7  And wise men from other lands should come here to honor him with expensive gifts.  It was only right.  Matthew 2:11  And the real king of the Jews, Herod, should get jealous of the usurper and try to eliminate him by killing all the local children!  That's just like Pharoah, when he tried to drown all the Hebrew boys including baby Moses.  Matthew 2:13-18, Exodus 1:8-2:19  And hadn't Yeshua been born on December 25, when the sun begins to return from its winter imprisonment?  How appropriate, because that's the day when the pagans in Iran and India say Mithra was born. That sun god supposedly performed many miracles, including dying and coming back to life three days later.  And they worship him on Sun Day.  December 25 is “the birthday of the unconquered sun.” What does that Mithra myth have to do with anything? If we tell the superstitious pagans that our new Jewish king was also born on the same auspicious date, maybe they will accept him as their lord too.  And who knows where that could lead?  It could change the world.   Click here for the list of IT'S IN THE BIBLE interviews.