Christmas Story Fabulous Fact-3 Could There Have Been CHILDREN of Shepherds Abiding in the Fields!

Lu 2:8 And there were in the same country SHEPHERDS ABIDING in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night.

The male Shepherds were ABIDING in the fields with their flocks as Nomadic Bedouins - living there completely, and traveling with their flocks from pasture to pasture, just as we read throughout the Old Bible from Abraham, Isaac & Jacob to Moses, David, and many of the Prophets.

HOWEVER, they were not living alone: They lived in the fields with their wives and their children!

This researcher has personally been to the Middle East and walked among the Bedouin Shepherds. I have personally visited them and ‘entered their homes’. Some have tents to live in, but some only have “walls” made of cardboard or “cloth or canvas material” for a bit of privacy with NOTHING overhead for shelter.

It’s not that big of a deal as it doesn’t rain real often in the desert [that’s why it’s desert!] but when it does rain, it is terribly distressing for them. Often there are little children, some times newborn babies, and quite often very elderly parents: all getting drenched in the rain - morning, noon, evening and all night - sometimes for a few days - with no way to get out of the storms!

CHILDREN of the Shepherds were great “COLLECTORS”, the middle-aged children walking far-&-wide most days collecting everything they can find, from plastic milk jugs & jars with lids to cardboard boxes & wooden-skids.

The custom was for Bedouins to have as large a families as possible, as each of the children could shepherd their own flock by age 10-12.

Their can be no doubt there were children with the Shepherds abiding in the fields the day Jesus was born!