"She gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger" (v. 7).
We love the manger scene as we gather on Christmas Eve. But if you think about it, a stable is not exactly the kind of place you'd want to have a baby and not the kind of crib you'd choose. We would much prefer the hospital to a cave (which it probably was). We'd rather hear the controlled voice of a doctor and a labor coach than a cacophony of cows mooing, sheep baaing and goats grunting. We'd much prefer a climate-controlled room with a sanitized bassinet than a cattle trough that was likely made of stone, chiseled in the floor and filled with hay.
Having babies has always been a risky business, and often the places where people have laid babies after birth have been a bit dodgy. The crib as we know it, for example, wasn't invented until the 1800s. Before then, infants generally slept with their mothers, which we now know can be dangerous.
The baby crib was invented and raised...
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