"This is the place where Jesus Christ was born," whispers a guide in an affected and well practised baritone. Bells jingle and incense fills the church. And thousands queue up for the experience with hushed reverence. Buses from plush Jerusalem hotels make their way through the Israeli checkpoint and disgorge their passengers just a few paces from the narrow entrance to this most holy of Christian shrines.
Crusaders lowered the once grand entrance so as to stop pilgrims entering the church on horseback. Nothing so profane as a horse, and its inevitable waste products, must go anywhere near so sacred a place. Leviticus 10.10 puts it thus: "You are to put a difference between the holy and the unholy, between the clean and the unclean." In other words, the church must be protected from the world.
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