It seems to be virtually impossible for modern people to imagine what it was like for someone to live in radically different contexts – say, Jesus, in rural Galilee 2000 years ago. It’s very difficult even for scholars who know a bit about his world.
Lots of things never occur to us though. At least to me. Since I was roughly nine years old I “knew” that Jesus was a carpenter. It never occurred to me until roughly three months ago to ask what that actually may have entailed. And I’ve been reading scholarship on Jesus for over fifty years! My reflections will take two posts. This one focuses on the key passage, Mark 6:3.
Mark 6 indicates that after engaging in his public ministry for a while, Jesus returns to Nazareth and
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Excellent once again, Professor. I guess I can call you Professor even though you are retired. I really appreciate the effort you put into these. I have learned a lot over the past 14y.
“Hey You” would be just fine.
Haha. I was a professor for about 25 years or so and someone called me “Mom” one time. “Hey you” would have worked for me too.
Hi Bart. Off topic question about Matthew’s genealogy. When I put the names of the generations into three columns I come up with 14 names in each. Starting each column with Abraham, David and Jeconiah and ending each with David, Jeconiah and Jesus. Also, the New English Translation notes make no mention of any discrepancy in the number of generations. What am I missing?
Not sure what you’re asking? The main problem with Matthew’s enumeratoin is that the third column contains only 13 generations.
Bible translations never provide notes (to my knowledge) that point out discrepancies. They are meant simply to render the ancient language into the modern, and to allow readers to draw their own conclusions.
Isn’t there a variant of Mark 6:3 that reads “the son of the carpenter and Mary”? Perhaps Matthew didn’t change it but is using the older Markan reading? This variant, which Origen seems to have known, would be the lectio difficilior since it makes Joseph sound like Jesus’ father, right?
It’s theoretically possible but the manuscript evidence suggests that “son of the carpenter” is a later (not an earlier) form of Mark’s text, so that it’s more commonly thought among textual scholars that scribes were harmonizing the text to Matthew (which was the more often read and more familiar Gospel)
But why would they have harmonized the text to give a more difficult reading? And “son of the carpenter” would more closely align with Mark’s general adoptionist bent. I’m assuming by your reference to “manuscript evidence” that there are other factors to consider. I guess I need to dig out my commentaries!
It’s not necessarily more difficult. I’d say it’s difficult in a different way. When scribes made the change was when pagans were accusing Jesus of having a low-level education reserved for the illiterate. With the change, he was just born into a family like that — he wasn’t necessarily himself a tekton.
This sent me to the Internet to see the difference between carpenter and joiner – I always thought these were the same thing.
Turns out that carpenters work on site, making the structure for buildings, and joiners work in shops, doing more detailed work. Since my grandfather was a cabinet maker, you would think I would know the difference.
Were these crafts distinguished in ancient Judea? BTW, I don’t know if the average peasant would think a craftsman was so low. The people might just be remarking that never thought this guy they knew in the village would turn out to be a religious leader.
They were definitely differentiated in urban areas where there was more work and many more people to do them. In rural areas/towns/villages the same person would typically do the whole sh’bang.
And right, the carpenter would not have been lower than anyone else. In that kind of setting most everyone was in the same boat. Not a LOT of wealth/status differentiation (except possibly in terms of education status)
Could tekton also mean butcher? I hope not. I want my Jesus to be a lifelong pacifist vegan.
Nope. So rest assured.
Professor Ehrman,
I’m new to studying the early Jesus movement but finding it absolutely fascinating. My question here is Why are you not reading Mark 6:3 in what looks to be a more obvious (and common?) way? That is, it seems like Jesus’ audience is saying, “We know you from down the road. Where do you get off spouting all this wisdom and going around (supposedly) performing miracles [which I’m assuming they would have heard of but not believed]? Now pull the other one.”
If the above is how the passage was intended, is it significant, I wonder, that Jesus next sends out the apostles? Maybe they will fare better. That they should shake dirt off their sandals if a household isn’t receptive seems to indicate that Jesus is as disgusted with his community of origin as they are with him.
Thank you to anyone who reads this.
Yes, that does seem to be what they’re saying. But I don’t think Mark is suggesting that Jesus thinks the disciples will have better luck. The main point seems to be that Jesus is rejected by those who know him — which is one of the major themes of Mark: no one “gets it,” not his family, his townspeople, the Jewish leaders, his own disciples. Just the reader.
“Isn’t he “the tektōn” and aren’t his mother and brothers and sisters here with us?” strikes me as a rhetorical question. They know who he is, but this is a way of expressing their bafflement at what he has become.
Yup!
Considering Joseph as Jesus´s father in the eyes of the villagers make sense if it is right that the birth narrative in Matthew was added later. Matthew did not know of any other father than Joseph.
Yup!
Thanks
Could it be that Matthew thought he was being clever in calling him the son of a tekton when Yahweh is the ultimate craftsman of creation? A little joke to his audience of early Christians?
Ah, interesting question. I need to look to see if the term is ever applied ot YHWH in Jewish texts.
Professor,
If “From early on Christians had to defend Jesus against charges of being a rural nobody. “
Doesn’t that pretty well support the conclusion he was a “rural nobody”. Is there such a critical criteria as a reverse criteria of dissimilarity? …. “The (appologist) doth protest too much, methinks”
Yes, I think it does. Some writers denied it (e.g. the author of the Proto-Gospel of James), but most turned it around into a powerful counterargument (it showed that God MUST have been working in him, given his unassuming background).
I heard Helen Bond mention on her podcast that Jesus may even have been involved in building or repairing boats. Would *tekton* therefore be better understood not simply as “carpenter,” but as something closer to a general craftsman or handyman who might take on different kinds of manual work as opportunities arose?
I also wonder whether some of the imagery attributed to Jesus could reflect familiarity with this kind of work—for example, the “speck and beam” in Matthew 7:3–5, the reference to a “yoke” in Matthew 11:29–30, and the house-building imagery in Matthew 7:24–27. Do historians think such sayings have any evidentiary value for reconstructing Jesus’ occupation, or are they simply common images from everyday life?
Finally, if *tekton* described someone who made a living through fairly flexible manual work, is it also historically plausible that Jesus may at times have taken whatever work was available, including agricultural day labor? In other words, could a *tekton* in first-century Galilee have functioned economically as something of a handyman who moved between different kinds of work depending on local demand?
Yes, tekton’s could have dealt with boats, since htey were made out of wood. And yes, most likely he would have spent most of his working hours farming. I’ts tricky to try to establish an author’s occupatoin based on what he / she often refers to. The most common kind of parable of Jesus involves money (40% or so), but I wouldn’t argue that he was likely a banker or tax collector, e.g., For a long while scholars argued that the author of Luke-Acts must have been “Luke the physician” because there was so much medical terminology there. Then (a century ago!) someone actually analyzed the claim and realized that the medical terminology in Luke-Acts was about like what you would find in other Greek writers.hh
Bart, thank you so much for always taking the time to respond to my simple questions! This answer was also extremely clear and really helped me sort things out in my mind. Your blog has become one of my greatest intellectual pleasures these days.
My impression about Yeshua as carpenter is that, in present day terms, he would be a combination of a structural engineer, contractor and construction worker. He did not simply work with wood but with stone and possibly other materials. He was very good at his trade. He was not poor, as many have suggested or even taught, but rather well off, as was Joseph, his adoptive father. Similarly, some of the disciples were well off.
Studies of the demographics of ancient Galilean villages suggest otherwise. Archaeologists have dug up Nazareth and could find no indications of wealth there, unlike lots of other places in ancient Israel.
Since I am not Catholic, I think the references to younger siblings of Jesus are correct. I also think Jesus ran away from a very hectic, unhappy home, since it had to be a small, crowded, primitive building with noisy young ones running around. I have read the book about Jesus living in India, having joined a caravan. This would explain how he was educated by other Jews who had escaped from living under Roman rule, and later returned to preach to the populace “back home.” It also explains why he felt no affection for his mother, as the Bible indicates.
Bill Steigelmann
The case for Jesus as a tekton is weak. His “Home Alone” visit to the Temple (Luke 2:41–52) seems to hint that he had an exceptional religious training. Why not project a scenario of him as justification for being a רב (rav) until such time that he become a prophet א (nābîʾ) Luke (7:16; 24:19). Either profession is a guess. Why not go with the more sensible one.
Tektons could be prpohets or teachers, as anyone else. I can’t think of a good reason to suppose the home alone story is historical. Even if it was, I supose it wouldn’t show what he did for a living years later. We don’t know of professional prophets or rabbis at tthe time. The latter was a later institution and the former wasn’t a job (esp. in rural galilee) disabledupes{e267a1a7232bd5ef40c64845e292a3c4}disabledupes
Josephus indicates that “tekton” referred to some of the specially trained priests that built Herod’s Jerusalem temple.
Therefore, could it be that the Gospel references to tekton indicated that Jesus and his father were both priests?
Priests had to be used to construct parts of the temple, and if they could do constructoin, they were trained as tektons. Being a priest was not a full time occupation. Priests had other day jobs. (esp. since even when the temple was built, priests took up priestly duties only on a rotating basis, often coming from far away to do so) That is to say, being a tekton did not make someone a priest. (The word is commonly used in Greek)
Priests had to be used to construct parts of the temple, and if they could do constructoin, they were trained as tektons. Being a priest was not a full time occupation. Priests had other day jobs. (esp. since even when the temple was built, priests took up priestly duties only on a rotating basis, often coming from far away to do so) That is to say, being a tekton did not make someone a priest. (The word is commonly used in Greek)
At this point of time I don’t even know if the real Bart is writing is articles or he just sold his website to a kvetching organization that writes in his name pushing an atheistic propaganda of defaming Jesus.
1. The gospels are not historical; we have nothing, zero historical facts about Jesus. We just don’t know. As you correctly stated in the 1st paragraph. Why would Jesus be poor? Jesus could’ve been rich, his parents afforded to travel a lot and to educated him.
2. Craftsmanship, be it carpentry or masonry, is not a lowly job. It is definitely not a day-labor job. It’s a specialized and skilled job, passed generationally.
3. Speaking of that, “son of the carpenter” isn’t trying to hide any humble jobs, but precisely it shows, as this being the rule, that a son of a carpenter would be carpenter himself.
4. Cicero never says this job is “despised”; this is a lie and a mistranslation. Cicero says that this job is humble and not worthy for an aristocrat.
5. Jesus is called “teacher” multiple times in the gospels; this seems to be a worthy profession by Cicero, but this is what you INTENTIONALLY ignore.
Not sure what you mean by your opening comments. I do write my articles and I have never sold my website and it does not push an atheistic agenda or defame Jesus. As to your other points, you’re certainly welcome to your opinions. I’m not sure where you are getting your informatoin from though.
Unscholarly comment here: doesn’t the film ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ open with Jesus (the carpenter) making a cross for a crucifixion and being berated by Judas that he is helping the Romans crucify a Jew? It’s always been an image that stayed with me.
Yup. And that sets the tone for the whole film. Harvey Keitel was not my favorite Judas, I must say.
Unfortunately, that does not answer the initial question which was:
“Therefore, could it be that the Gospel references to tekton indicated that Jesus and his father were both priests?”
And the answer, to my mind, is “Yes.” It is quite possible that the Gospels were implying that Jesus and his father were priests who worked on the Temple.
Given Jesus’ early comment when left behind in Jerusalem was; where else would he be found but at his father’s (not God’s) house (the Temple), and his knowledge of the Torah and his ability to move easily about the Temple grounds, it makes reasonable sense that he and his father were priests.
Being called a tekton does not automatically make one a priest but it does allow for that possibility. Consequently, that is a position that scholars should explore.
The word “tekton” does not have any relatoin to the questoin of whether the tekton was or was not a priest, any more than that he was a rabbi, an apostate, a heretic, or any other thing. It simply refers to someone (whatever his religious beliefs, practices, position, or office) who worked with his hands for a living.