1.2.4 Joseph's occupation and social status:
His father was a carpenter, according to Mt13:55. The Greek word for 'carpenter' is 'tekton' and can have three different main meanings, according to Strong:
- A worker in wood, a carpenter, joiner, builder
- Any craftsman, or workman
- A planner, contriver, plotter
Justin Martyr, a 2nd century Christian, wrote:
Trypho LXXXVIII "And when Jesus came to the Jordan, He was considered to be the son of Joseph the carpenter; ... making ploughs and yokes ...)"
Could Joseph have been a well-off master builder?
That would be denied by him & his family living in a small hilly village, and not in the nearby city of Sepphoris or even, less than two miles down the road, the walled town of Japha (mentioned in Josephus' Life, 45 & Wars, III, VII, 31).
"Luke" must have known Joseph & Mary were poor. In Lk2:24, the normal offering, a lamb, is not mentioned, just "a pair of doves or two young pigeons", according to:
Lev12:8 "... If she cannot afford a lamb, she is to bring two doves or two young pigeons ..."
"Next came the Artisans, about 5 percent of the population [in the Roman empire], below the Peasants in social class because they were usually recruited and replenished from its dispossessed members.
Beneath them were the Degraded and Expendable classes - the former with origins, occupations, or conditions rendering them outcasts; the latter, maybe as much as 10 percent of the population, ranging from beggars and outlaws to hustlers, day laborers, and slaves.
If Jesus was a carpenter [according to Mk6:3], therefore, he belonged to the Artisan class, that group pushed into the dangerous space between Peasants and Degradeds or Expendables."
John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (1994)
Agree with Peter here.
This is outdated crap. Its now a worthless piece, less someone who knowns nothing on the topic is looking for an old opinion to see how scholars have changed views with more recent study. Crossan has altered his views since then, with Johnathon Reeds work.
First the quotes are coming from scholars that assume their position and definition is correct, when the socioeconomic studies are NOT settled and debated heavily.
Its most plausible that these were very poor people that populated Nazareth with others that amounted to a work camp for rebuilding Sepphoris. They would have lived on a subsistence basis. This is based on the village not being large or even known, and satellite agrarian villages and labor forces should have popped up exactly during this period. By biblical passages describing the population ibn a negative light, it reminds me of a hobo shanty.
The fact is, with the unknown authors being so far removed from any event, by time and distance, no scholars should place any certainty beyond archeology and anthropology. And that is what I'm trying to follow.
As scholars have recently noted, the word usually translated “carpenter” (tekton) can also mean someone who worked with his hands, or a stone worker. As Joseph may have done stonework and manual labor rather than being a craftsman with wood, this would have put him in the lowest of the lower class. Therefore, the family Jesus grew up in would not have owned land, but they would have been subsistence farmers accustomed to menial labor. According to Stephen Patterson, the family of Jesus was a step below the normal peasant. This being the case, neither Joseph nor Jesus was a carpenter; they were more likely workers with stone and general manual labor.
