The Bible sometimes refers to Jesus as the carpenter. Why did he take up that job? I thought I remember reading somewhere that there was a rule in those times, stating that all firstborn sons had to take up the occupation of his father… but I can’t find a cite. Could someone help me?
I don’t know your answer. I wondered the exact same thing a while back. I checked it out, and I only found one place where someone actually says Jesus is a carpenter, but I could have missed some.
My guess: not a “rule”, but a common custom. Joseph was a carpenter, so it was natural for Jesus to take over the family business.
(Interesting (?) aside: The Greek word translated “carpenter” actually means something more like “builder”, so it’s possible that they worked in stone instead of wood, but the footnote in my Bible says “carpenter” is the most likely interpretation.)
Most references to Jesus being a carpenter are semi-ambigous, such as “that son of the carpenter,” etc. It can be safely assumed he probably studied the trade of carpentry (via the afformentioned customs), but there’s nothing written clearly which defines, “and when Jesus went forth and took up an apprenticeship in carpentry…”
I’ve always wanted to make a bumper sticker that reads:
MY BOSS IS A JEWISH CARPENTER
Goldstein and Friends Fence and Deck
[Phone Number]
Hrm… if it was indeed a custom and not a rule, was there a time in history where the “son takes father’s occupation” was an actual rule?
IIRC, one of the obligations of a father to his son is to teach the son a trade. One would imagine that the father could only teach a trade the father knew.
To add a scholarly note to the discussion, Mark is the gospel which states Jesus is the carpenter, while in Matthew it is Joseph. Biblical studies have been dominated for almost two millennium by the inerrantist, word-of-god camp, which naturally harmonized the two passages by contending that both Jesus and Joseph were carpenters, with the father teaching the son the trade.
Modern scholars note that Matthew borrowed heavily from Mark, and that he appears to have simply altered Mark’s “Is this not the carpenter?” to “Is this not the carpenter’s son?” Matthew was more concerned with Jesus’ divinity than Mark, and thus would have been inclined to make such a change to avoid portraying Jesus as a common working schmo.
Jesus likely was a carpenter (by the criterion of embarrassment), and Joseph very well may have been as well, since trades were passed down patrilinearly in those days, but the Biblical evidence for the latter proposition is weak.
Here’s an excerpt from my econ book, “What is Economics”:
“…Decision makers in a traditional economic system answer these questions by saying, “We will organize our economy in the way we have always organized it,” by following the age-old patterns of a complex culture that has evolved over thousands of years. Tools and houses are constructed as they were always constructed. Junior goes into the same trade as dad, and the daughter’s life will be much like her mother’s. Output is allocated by custom, with few changes over the years and generall small trial and error improvements over longer periods of time.”
I suppose that this could be describing just a custom…
Was there such a thing as a professional rabbi, at the time? Because I had always understood that that was Jesus’ profession. Certainly, it’s the only thing we see him doing.
Darn you hijacker, still hoping for someone that knows a real example of that traditional economic system… 
oh well…
The temples did have priests in them, and the Bible describes them as corrupted officials who valued money over worship… so it sounds feasible that they could have been “professional”. The Gospel talks about Jesus’ birth, and his childhood, but then it goes straight to “When Jesus was 30…”, and he gets baptized by John, and officially starts his work.
PBS’s From Jesus to Christ:
Near the end of the roman empire some claim serfdom was basically created when The one of the late emperors declared that :
1 everyone was frozen in their current profession for life
2 The sons had to be in the same profession as their fathers
Over time the reasons for thre empire doing this were lost and it just became a way of life for most of later history
Libertarian, I would disagree with that quote. People who make things–artisans–are traditionally regarded as being lower class, but a step above ‘unskilled labor’.
No problem, Squish. I’m not married to the idea. It was just a comment made by John Dominic Crossan, Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies at DePaul University.
Professor Crossan is also wrong in stating that there was no middle class. The class structure of Ancient/Classical Rome, simplified, ran:
-Slaves
-Freed slaves
-Plebians
-Patricians
Now the plebian class alone covered everything from porters and laborers to shopkeepers and merchants and doctors.
Status in the patrician area depended upon your bloodlines and your family’s wealth and influence.
In one book on Jesus – I don’t recall whose, unfortunately – it was claimed that there was a proverbial expression at that place and time that went something like “What Carpenter or Son of a Carpenter Could do ______?” He was suggesting that someone reputed to do miraculous things might, by virtue of the proverb, be “assigned” the position of a carpenter and a son of a carpenter. In other words – the legend of Christ accumulated details over the years, and this is how that detail was generated. Interesting theory, but I haven’t heard anyone else corroborate it.
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The reasons are fairly well known - to provide manpower for the army. There was a severe shortage during the Dominate period (Diocletian onwards). Sons of soldiers were forced to be soldiers so that the numbers could be kept up. Other occupations were similarly constrained to ensure taxes were paid. The system was maintained because no emperor could come up with a better alternative but as Rome declined and fell about, the sytem broke down, at least for the army.
Roman units had barbarians to make up the numbers (occurred from the early Principate onwards), then barbarian units commanded by Romans, then barbarian units commanded by barbarians, then barbarian armies commanded by barbarians (e.g. Alaric).
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CalMeacham, that’s particularly interesting because there is in fact such an expression in the Talmud (Avodah Zarah 50b), about a knotty problem of Jewish law: “there is no carpenter nor son of a carpenter that could answer this.” [The Aramaic root for “answer,” parak, literally means “to take apart,” so that may have suggested the image of a carpenter working on it.]
ForestGreen, the roles of a priest and a rabbi are different: a priest’s job was to offer the sacrifices in the Temple, while a rabbi’s job is to teach and interpret Jewish law. [One person can fill both roles - a few of the early Talmudic rabbis were priests (or Levites) who served in the Temple - but a non-priest can be a rabbi, and conversely, a priest can be ignorant of Jewish law.]
Chronos: there was no such thing as a professional rabbi (in the sense of someone who earned a living from the position) in those days, and indeed not until about the 12th century. [The Talmud (Nedarim 37a) forbids taking payment for teaching the orally-transmitted law, which is primarily what a rabbi does.] Until then (and even much later, in some Jewish communities), rabbis supported themselves just like everyone else, unless they were independently wealthy and didn’t have to work for a living. In the period when JC lived, we find, for example, that Hillel (1st century BCE) supported himself as a woodchopper; his colleague Shammai, as a builder; and Rabbi Joshua ben Hananiah (1st century) worked as a blacksmith.
Well, and the plebians actually varied further than that. There were plebian knights, senators, consuls (the famous general and consul Gaius Marius was plebian), and even, I think, some emperors (I think the Flavians were a plebian family).
Because Microsoft wasn’t hiring. 