# Why Jesus wasn't a carpenter, and why the truth is more interesting **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [April 9, 2015, 11:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197 "2015-04-09T11:17:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197/41 "2015-04-27T01:11:00Z")
I’ve heard sermons where its pointed out that as a carpenter or laborer Jesus was quite strong. That type of work required a lot of heavy lifting and Jesus had worked for many years. That is reinforced by his surviving in the wilderness 40 days and enduring the beatings and physical exhaustion prior to the crucifixion. \ It is difficult to know for sure. There’s been so many translations and interpretations in the past 2000 years. But I like the image of an imposing and strong Jesus. The guy that overturned tables and chased the sellers from the temple with a whip. John 2:15 So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197/42 "2015-04-27T04:58:33Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > No, it’s not the best way. The best way is to spend your life studying ancient languages and ancient history, and then translate it yourself. > > But most people have neither the time or talent for that, so the second best way is to get translations and commentaries in your native tongue, written by experts who have spent their lives studying ancient languages and ancient history. > > Or, you can do what I guess you propose, and reject all that, and just go with something you read on the internet. Has there really been a lot of talk of Jesus’s carpentry career? If this turn of phrase about carpenters is in the Talmud it seems completely reasonable that was what the original meaning was just like the example given: if I read “who is this rocket scientist?” I would not assume the plain face value Engish. Maybe you would, but please give me the benefit of the doubt that I dont just believe everything I read on the internet. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197/43 "2015-04-27T06:59:05Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Correct. > > Your argument makes no sense. If “carpenter” or “carpenter’s son” is an idiom for a “very smart guy,” then what you have the people saying is, “How can he know all this stuff? Isn’t he supposed to be a really smart guy?” > > Why would they say that? On the other hand, it makes perfect sense in modern English — “How would a manual laborer know all this stuff?” The idiom was “How is X possible? Only a carpenter and the son of a carpenter can explain it?” So it would be “How did Jesus come by this knowledge and talent? only a carpenter, etc.” > [@TonySinclair](#): > > No, it’s not the best way. The best way is to spend your life studying ancient languages and ancient history, and then translate it yourself. > > But most people have neither the time or talent for that, so the second best way is to get translations and commentaries in your native tongue, written by experts who have spent their lives studying ancient languages and ancient history. > > Or, you can do what I guess you propose, and reject all that, and just go with something you read on the internet. My uncle has studied ancient Semitic languages, reads the Talmud and other Aramaic writing, and ancient Hebrew, and writes and speaks modern Hebrew, FWIW. I got this from him, and I’ve seen it in the works of other scholars as well as heard me uncle discuss it. And my uncle et al. are Jewish. It’d be a lot easier for them to say that there’s no evidence for any real antiquity in any of the Jesus stories in the gospels, but there is some for a few of them, and this is one. ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2015, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197/44 "2015-04-27T08:11:28Z")
> [@RivkahChaya](#): > > The idiom was “How is X possible? Only a carpenter and the son of a carpenter can explain it?” And only the son of Mary and the brother of James can explain it? Look, if after 2000 years of scholars analyzing every verse, you find a new meaning for something in the Bible, that’s great. But if you can only do that by ignoring not only what virtually every translation ever made says, but the immediate context that confirms the traditional meaning, then you’re not to be taken seriously. Sorry. > [@](#): > > My uncle has studied ancient Semitic languages, reads the Talmud and other Aramaic writing, and ancient Hebrew, and writes and speaks modern Hebrew, FWIW. I think that’s wonderful, and I’m sure he knows way, way more than I do, but I doubt that he has studied all that as intensively as the people who work on (e.g.) the Oxford Annotated Bible, or the New American Bible (“Released on March 9, 2011, the New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE) is the culmination of nearly 20 years of work by a group of nearly 100 scholars and theologians”). And even if he has, I still very strongly doubt that he understands ancient Aramaic better than Matthew did. I don’t think that Matthew would botch the idiom, and I don’t think that he would attempt to translate it directly into Greek. Even a guy with three years of French knows that idioms don’t usually translate. > [@](#): > > I got this from him, and I’ve seen it in the works of other scholars as well as heard me uncle discuss it. And my uncle et al. are Jewish. It’d be a lot easier for them to say that there’s no evidence for any real antiquity in any of the Jesus stories in the gospels, but there is some for a few of them, and this is one. I don’t understand that at all. Why wouldn’t there be evidence for real antiquity in stories that were undoubtedly written in antiquity? Any novel written today that’s set in the modern US would be a treasure trove for future historians looking for facts about our language and culture, even if the plot is complete fiction. ---
**Author:** ![FriarTed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/friarted/32/1052_2.png) [@FriarTed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FriarTed)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2015, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197/45 "2015-04-28T13:10:34Z")
Re the third day/three days & three nights controversy- It occurred to me that only around the 1800s did anyone question the Friday Crucifixion to Sunday Resurrection chronology, back when British Evangelicals were going through Church Traditions with a fine-tooth comb to weed out any Paganism &/or Romanism. And still, very few groups, usually Armstrongist types, adopt any other view, such as a Wed or Thurs Crucifixion. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, even Seventh-Day Adventists hold to the traditional view. A possible answer is that Jesus really said that as Jonah was in then belly of the whale for 3ds & ins, so He would be in “the heart of the earth”. So, is that heart to be regarded as Sheol/Hades, the tomb, the state of death, or perhaps the place called in the Hebrew Scriptures, the center of the earth, Jerusalem where he began His Passion at the Last Supper & the Agony at Gethsemane. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2015, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197/46 "2015-04-28T13:20:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Quoth **dropzone** : > > John/Mark? Saul/Paul? Abrahm/Abraham? Pretty lame. Didn’t anybody back then have a bitchin’ nickname? “Folks 'round here call me ‘Turbo.’” What, “Rocky” (what Simon was called) isn’t bitchin’ enough for you? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-jesus-wasnt-a-carpenter-and-why-the-truth-is-more-interesting/717197.md?page=2)