This has been somewhat alluded to in previous posts, but IIRC both in Matt and in Mark the Greek word is probably more closer translated to “worker” rather than carpenter. We have a millenia or so of redaction since, so it’s sort of tradition that he (and his pop) was a carpenter. However, it could just as easily have been some other type of manual laborer; the language isn’t altogether clear.
slight hijack…
The writer Daniel Easterman often writes religios thrillers with a conspiratory bent. In one of them (can’t be arsed to check which right now, they are all kind of samey), he claims that the words for carpenter and rabii were very similar way back when, and that the “jesus was a carpenter” thang is actually a mistranslation. I don’t know if he has any basis for this comment or if it is just a good twist for his book, but in my mind it makes some sense.
“Jesus must not have been a very good carpenter. Otherwise he wouldn’t have gone into the less lucrative savior business!”
Bosda may have something. (Then again, maybe not, as at least one Internet post suggests Bill Gates ia the Anti-Christ.)
Seriously though, what other jobs might Jesus have gone into? Technology was different in that it was much more limited, so there wee only so many things a guy could do in those days.
It would be intersting to try to determine what proportion of the population was in which trade. Because of the nature of carpentry in those times, I imagine it was a very common occupation. One potter (family) might be able to serve the pottery needs of hundreds of people, but one carpenter (family “company”) might only be able to take on the work required to serve one or two other families at a time (perhaps building a structure in the daytime and squeezing out some bits of furniture and so on in the off moments).