In my previous post I tried to show why the evidence that Jesus was a carpenter before beginning his public ministry is thin at best. It is found only in Mark 6:3 (“isn’t this the carpenter?”), which is changed in Matthew (to “son of the carpenter”) and Luke (to “son of Joseph”). John doesn’t have the passage and doesn’t say anything about Jesus being a carpenter, nor do any of the other books of the New Testament, nor any other early Christian writing at all, apart from those that are getting it from Mark.
This raises three questions that may seem different (since they are) but are actually related: (1) Why did Matthew and Luke, and then later scribes of Mark, change it? (2) Is it true historically? (3) If not, can we think of a reason Mark may have invented it? I’ll take them in order. This will take three posts.
Why Did Matthew, Luke, and Later Scribes Change It?
With the change, Jesus is no longer said to be a carpenter. Later scribes may have
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Thank you Dr Ehrman. Fascinating. I think some other religious leaders have come from humble origins but later tradition has tried to improve their pedigree. In more recent times, the Madhi in the Sudan (1880s – General Gordon, Khartoum etc), was a manual worker from a poor family but was still regarded as an accomplished religious scholar. And moving away from the religious sphere, I am reminded of the Shakespeare authorship controversy. Because people did not believe a lightly educated country boy could have written such marvellous plays, theories abound that aristocrats such as the Earl of Oxford actually wrote them.
Bart, I’ve been thinking about the meaning of Luke 14:28-33. It seems that Jesus only wanted very dedicated people to follow him. Yet it also seems that much of modern evangelical Christianity tries to convert as many people as possible, without having the would-be converts think too much about it. Which brings me to my question: Would Jesus have thought that being his disciple is necessary for salvation?
Definitely not, in my judgment. The parable of the Sheep and the Goats, I think, does go back to him, and the huge majority of the “sheep” don’t even seem to know who he is, and come from other nations that he never visited.
The Gospels take the status symbols of the “world” and turn them upside down. They do this with Jesus’s birthplace, Nazareth. They do it with his occupation, carpenter. They do it with money: “blessed are the poor”. They do it by giving Jesus the most humiliating and reviled of all deaths, crucifixion. I’m sure they do it in other ways as well.
Could all this be a way of taking the priorities of the “world” and showing where they are mistaken and misguided?
Yup! Paul continues to carry the flag, e.g. in 1 Cor. 1
Wasn’t Sepphoris being built at this time?
Might Jesus and his father have worked there?
It’s possible, but there is no evidence of it. And as “carpenters” they would not necessarily have been trained in construction.
As a non-Christian, what’s particularly amusing about this is that the heart of the Christian message (or at least the dominant version of it) is supposed to be all about the lowly being exalted. The last shall be first, the first shall be last, the meek shall inherit the earth, and all that. And so for Jesus–born in a manger of all places–to come from a lowly background seems to fit perfectly with this theology, and yet so many Christians seem to have stampeded away from the idea. There’s a book by D. Jason Slone called Theological Incorrectness: Why Religious People Believe What They Shouldn’t, which looks at the ways believers fail to draw reasonable implications from their own core positions. This looks like perfect case of it to me.
Dear Bart,
As you point out, TEKTŌN encompasses three trades: carpentry, stonemasonry, and metalsmithing. Would it therefore be accurate to describe a TEKTŌN as a construction worker?
If so, perhaps Jesus (and maybe his father and brothers) found gainful employment at Sepphoris, a nearby town that was being rebuilt after 4 B.C.E, as Evans suggests (2014:37, 296)?
Under this scenario, the Jesus family may have split their time between subsistence farming and occasional construction projects in Sepphoris.
It would also explain why Jesus did not tell parables about carpentry, but did teach parables on the theme of construction: the Wise and Foolish Builders (Matthew 7:24–27; Luke 6:46–49), and the Tower Builder / Counting the Cost (Luke 14:28–30). In the Parable of the Tenants (Mark 12), Jesus begins by describing what was constructed (a wall, a pit, and a watchtower), somewhat unnecessary details unless he had an interest in construction.
He also discusses the collapse of the Tower of Siloam (Luke 13:4–5); perhaps he took note of this due to his trade background?
It’s possible, but unfortunately there’s no evidence for it, and my view is that a historical claim needs to be supported somehow (otherwise it’s a hypothesis — and we certainly need hypotheses! But to make a claim is something different). The bigger problem is that in a village like Nazareth, a carpenter would not have been involved with building (but principally with yokes, plows, other tool handles; possibly gates?). Nor would a metal worker. Possibly a stone mason, since the houses were made of field stones, but I’m not sure if they were hewed or simply stacked.
I think you misunderstood my post, as I was advancing a hypothesis: “perhaps”, “scenario”, rather than making a historical claim.
I’m no expert on ancient construction, but I would imagine constructing a vineyard would involve both carpentry and stonemasonry, as you would use both wood and stone.
As Mark’s Jesus added the detail of what was built in his parable, this may indicate his familiarity with the construction process.
If it’s established that Jesus was a rabbi, would there be any reason he be disassociated from being a carpenter? (admittedly a naive question)
It’s a good question! The issue (that is not widely known) is that there were no “rabbis” at the time, in the sense of a professional group with established credentials. The term “rabbi” just meant “my teacher,” so any teacher would count. It’s like today when there are lots of teachers but only some of them are Professors. Rabbi was “teacher” not “professor”
Thank you for considering the alternate scenario. The more I explore the Dead Sea Scrolls, the more I’m convinced that Jesus was a trained Holy Man of some sort…Rabbi, Zadokite Priest, Magi, or just itinerant Jewish Apocalyptic Prophet. I believe isolated, anomalous details such as the Home Alone story and the Magi are deliberate “Easter Eggs” inplanted in the narrative to incite further research into scenarios that were politically incorrect. If we look at Simon Magus, we see the vehemence of the attacks on him as evidence that this is where we should look: perhaps Jesus was a Gnostic Magi?
One problem would be that we don’t have evidence of “Gnosticism” at that point, if that’s what you mean. He couldn’t be a Zaddokite priest because he was (allegedly) from the line of Judah, not Levi. We don’t know of “magi” per se in Israel at the time. But he certainly could have been a teacher or self-understood prophet.
I apologize for hijacking this thread to say it’s exactly interchanges that has held my interest on this website for years, Respectfully.
Could the carpenter issue have been made up post Origen and that this claim was not in the Gospel of Mark as read by Origen?
Don’t think so. It looks like it was found in the oldest forms of the Gospel of Mark.
“Maybe he knew it really was a problem that Jesus was called a TEKTŌN. He would have been too low even on the merely human status pole to be the glorious Son of God.”
If Matthew thought being a carpenter was too low a status for a son of god wouldn’t making him the “son of a carpenter” have placed him even lower?
Probalby not: there were lots of rags to riches stories in the ancient world as well. Lowly beginning but remarkable outcome; normally those like now involve difficult circumstances because of family/social situations that are over come.