"At that time and place, an Asian inn was not like a modern Holiday or Bethlehem Marriott. A lodging place back then provided accommodations for traveling caravans, including people and their animals. Caravans stayed at what was then known (and is still known) as a caravansary, or a khan. The dictionary defines these terms as an inn surrounding a court in eastern (or Asian) countries where caravans rest at night.
"Such a facility was typically rectangular in shape, composed of a central courtyard for the animals, surrounded by walled cubicles where people rested. These cubicles allowed guests to be elevated slightly above their animals with open doorways so that owners could watch over their animals. The Joseph Smith Translation of Luke 2:7 indicates that there was no room for them in the "inns," suggesting that all of the cubicles of the caravansary were occupied....
"At an Asian caravansary, animals were secured for the night in the corner courtyard. In that courtyard would have been donkeys, dogs, sheep, possibly camels and oxen, along with all the animals' wastes and odors.
"Because the guest chamber surrounding the courtyard were filled, Joseph may have made the decision to care for Mary's delivery in the center courtyard of a caravansary, along with the animals. It is entirely possible that in such a lowly circumstance the Lamb of God was born."
Elder Russell M. Ballard, From a devotional address delivered at Brigham Young University on December 10, 2002.
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