cienfuegos wrote:
We start at Mark referring to Jesus as a tekton.
Why a carpenter? Why not a butcher, a baker or a candlestick maker.......
Building comes to the fore. In both the building of David's palace and the building of Solomon’s temple, carpenters were involved. The King of Tyre sending Cedar logs and carpenters, along with the stonemasons, for work on the palace. Carpenters again coming from Tyre, with Cedar logs from Lebanon, for the re-building of the Temple - as authorized by Cyrus.
Like the literal, man-made, earthly temple, the new spiritual temple, likewise, required ‘carpenters’.........the chief cornerstone, the masonry, being the risen Christ.......no kitchen table in mind here for the gospel carpenter....
gMark is using wordplay in his storyline. A wordplay that could denote an intellectual, metaphorical, context to his Jesus storyline. gMatthew decided to downplay this carpenter aspect by giving this role to his father Joseph – thus making the storyline more literal sounding – son learns trade from his father sort of thing.
The carpenter identification of the gospel Jesus has no historical plausibility. Why would anyone back then consider a carpenter to be a messianic figure? It also has no possibility for a historical search. It does indicate that the carpenter identification was the result of intellectual, or theological, deliberations by the gospel writers - they were not recording a history of an itinerant carpenter preacher figure.
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
W.B. Yeats
Picture this;
A young apprentice tekton at his father's side. 'The task at hand my son, is to construct a sturdy tool chest. One that will well stand to the test of time, and be passed on to generations yet to come.'
'How father, shall I go about the constructing of this chest?'
'My son, Select the finest and hardest of wood to make boards, for the bottom, the top, and for the four sides, cut and finish these boards two and one half finger breadths thick, taking all care to cut all parts square, and according to one measure.'
'And to what measure shall I build my tekton chest father? What size must it be to suffice to all that it must contain ?'
'See here, this is _the pattern_ my son, with which to build such an enduring chest. Thus measure it, and mark it, and cut it;
Make the length of it two cubits and a half, and the breadth of it a cubit and a half, and the height of the four sides all around, a cubit and a half.
When you have completed it, all fitly and squarely framed together, then shall it be seen what it will contain.
Go now, out onto the open plain, set a stake and stretch forth a builders line from the East to due West, mark off five hundred measuring reeds according to the first measure, mind to the fingerbreadths therein.
From the second stake which you shall set there, stretch forth the building line and measure due South five hundred measuring reeds according to the first measure. Set the third stake.
Stretch forth the building line and measure due East five hundred measuring reeds according to the first measure. Set the fourth stake.
From the stake which you there set, stretch forth the building line and measure due North five hundred measuring reeds according to the first measure, back to the first stake which you set at the North East corner.
Now measure off from a stake, three hundred measuring reeds along the North line, Set a stake to the line, and four hundred measuring reeds along a south line, and set a stake to that line.
If you have measured North, South, East, and West square and equal, a line of exactly five hundred measuring reeds will be the diagonal.
My son, This is 'The Builders Law', see that you remember it always; Three and Four (which is Seven) and Five the diagonal, makes Twelve, all in measure that is equal. Thirty, Sixty, Ninety degrees.'
Ninety degrees are in each of the four corners so laid out, the sum thereof being three hundred sixty degrees, or twenty one thousand six hundred minutes, or one million two hundred ninety six thousand seconds. Not one more, not one less.
Ninety days has six equal divisions of three hundred sixty hours (or three hundred sixty divisions of six hours (being three hundred sixty minutes each) twenty one hundred sixty hours, the exact same number of degrees in the twenty four perfect ninety degree angles in any perfect rectilinear figure.
How many such rectilinear figure descriptions can you locate within the Tanakh ?
Three hundred sixty weeks contains twenty eight divisions of twenty one hundred and sixty hours. And twenty four divisions of twenty five hundred twenty hours. (one hundred five days, or fifteen full weeks)
The Tanaka is much about observing and building to time and to measure. Foursquare and equal.
'Small things' which are equal set the 'standards', and take the measure of the great things, and of all things which are not equal.
'a wise man's heart discerns both time and judgment.'
A child of four thousand years ago could understand these things and perform such math upon his ten fingers. How about you?
cienfuegos wrote:outhouse, the problem here is that you are drawing historical inferences from a source that you cannot establish as reliable. At the same time we find that, at every turn, we can find allegorical and theological meaning behind these supposedly historical accounts.
We start at Mark referring to Jesus as a tekton. At this point, what evidence do we have, other than this one claim that Jesus was a tekton? You seem to think that because later authors downplayed this reference that it somehow substantiates Mark's initial claim as a historical fact. It does not though.
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My statements are not dealing with a historical or mythical man.
It is dealing in context, with how tekton translates as a displaced renter living life below a common agrarian peasant, doing hand work of which we don't nor will ever know.
We are also dealing with a later author who changed it on purpose from Jesus as a tekton, to only his father.
Then a later author who makes no mention of either, who knew marks version and what it stated, and decided not to mention it at all.
So I ask all of you, not if it applies to a historical character.
But why did the author of Matthews book, change Jesus to just Joseph as a tekton?
And why did Lukes author not mention it at all?
If tekton was theological in nature, why did it get changed dramatically in one book, and dropped altogether in another?
outhouse wrote:It is dealing in context, with how tekton translates as a displaced renter living life below a common agrarian peasant, doing hand work
Except it doesn't, in dealing with the provided context of the NT, absent your chosen and unsupported spin.
Show one verse of the NT where your 'Jesus' ever picks up any kind of tool, or ever performs any manner of menial labor or hand work.
I suggest you drop the 'poor carpenter' part. Not really the role he is portrayed as, historical or mythical.
The only 'hand work' that the NT ever presents Jesus as doing, is laying on his hands to heal the sick, and in the performing of other such miracles. Not one to raise a sweat or ever get his holy hands smudged doing low manual labor of any kind.
outhouse wrote:If tekton was theological in nature, why did it get changed dramatically in one book, and dropped altogether in another?
Because the other authors chose to make different theological points?
Also, I have trouble with these types of 'embarrassment' arguments in general. This is the same Jesus who is proclaimed to be hanging around with average joes, preaching to the unwashed masses, healing lepers, viewed as a rabble-rouser by the authorities and culminativly executed as a common criminal, who said "the first shall be last.." and "the meed shall inherit" etc., and yet would be ashamed by being a carpenter? Isn't that like the whole point of who Jesus is here?
cienfuegos wrote:I did (in Iowa, no less), you wear the baggies inside the boot to keep your feet dry and to help you slip your foot in and out of the sometimes too small boot)[/i]
Unrelated. But does this mean there's really another Iowan frequenting these forums?? (Des Moines! Woot....and for the record I've never worn bread bags on my feet, in case anyone was wondering. )
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