How Poor was Jesus? and Mary's cousin Elizabeth?

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smith500

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Please focus on this one point. Mary’s cousin Elizabeth was married to a temple priest, Zechariah. Does anyone have a source about the status in society of a temple priest? I always assumed he must have been of some means to hold that position.

Does anyone have a source that would show that in reality Zechariah and Elizabeth lived in poverty? Would Elizabeth let her cousin Mary with a child live in desperate straights? Claims now are made that Joseph was just a day laborer and that the Holy Family lived with constant hunger and poverty. I know the Bible records they offered the temple sacrifice for Jesus of turtle doves that would signify a low status.

Regarding the lifestyle of a priest: I found this source that says:

www.thorncrownjournal.com

Who Were the Religious Leaders of Jesus's Day? — The Thorncrown Journal

Jesus's greatest opponent was not the greatest sinners of His day but the religious establishment.
www.thorncrownjournal.com www.thorncrownjournal.com

"The priesthood lived in luxury well beyond that of the average man. They supported their lavish lifestyles with a temple tax which every Jew was required to pay. Richard Horsley in his book “The Message and the Kingdom” describes what archeologists have discovered about the living conditions of the priesthood.
“…impressive archeological remains of their Jerusalem residences show how elegant their life style had become. In spacious structures unhesitantly dubbed ‘mansions” by the archeologists who uncovered them in the 1970’s, we can get a glimpse of a lavish life in mosaic floored reception rooms and dining rooms with elaborate painted and carved stucco wall decorations and with a wealth of fine tableware, glassware, carved stone table tops, and other interior furnishings and elegant peristyles.”"
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I’m sure all of them lives in voluntary poverty, they live simply. The holiest of people live in poverty, and in Our Secular Franciscan Order Rule it states my favorite rule:
  1. Let them also follow the poor and crucified Christ, witness to Him even in difficulties and persecutions.
    Trusting the Father, Christ chose for Himself and His mother a poor and humble life, even though He valued created things attentively and lovingly. Let the Secular Franciscans seek a proper spirit of detachment from temporal goods by simplifying their own material needs. Let them be mindful that according to the gospel they are stewards of the goods received for the benefit of God’s children.
    Thus, in the spirit of the Beatitudes, and as pilgrims and strangers on their way to the home of the Father, they should strive to purify their hearts from every tendency and yearning for possession and power.
 
I know that Jesus lived in poverty, and he warned those wanting to follow Him what would be expected from them.

As they were walking along the road, someone said to Jesus, “I will follow You wherever You go.”
Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay His head.” Luke 9:58

However I am unsure about Zechariah specifically, maybe temple priests at that time lived in luxury, I honestly do not know.
 
Let’s focus on Jesus the child, not Jesus the preacher. The Bible said that there was no room at the inn, not “there was no way they could afford an inn” I suppose it is possible there was an unrecorded event that the Holy Spirt told Joseph and Mary to give way the treasures of gold given to Jesus by the wise men. If I was entrusted to be the guardian of a gift to my children, I would consider it a sin for me to give it away and have my children live in the street unless I was instructed to do so by God.
 
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I’m not buying , “We have no idea” how poor the wife a temple priest was. It strains credibility that historical research has never been done telling us the lifestyle of a temple priest. I suppose Zachariah and Elizabeth voluntarily decided to let both their son John and their cousins Jesus and Mary live in poverty.
 
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I think one needs to understand the culture and the demographics at the time. I’m by no means an expert but my understanding is that there were no middle class in those days. If you’re not rich then you are probably living on subsistence every day. (to make sense of those Gospel stories where people just wait around for work) I’ve also read that there were no carpenters as we think they are back in those days. So Joseph was probably like a handyman/builder/carpenter/architect/stonemason so any building projects would probably require help from someone like him.
I could be wrong on this so please fact-check.

So it depends on what you mean by poverty. Most people were poor by today’s standards but they were the vast majority. I don’t think Jesus belonged to the poorest minority.
 
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Scott Hahn talks about the work of Saint Peter being a fisherman was somewhat middle class. He compared owning a boat capable of fishing and carrying a group of men with a self employed trucker of today.

I’ve also read that near Nazareth was the larger town of Sepphoris that had some magnificent structures. Yes, it is possible Joseph was a day laborer, but it is also possible he had the skills of a craftsman. I know the work tekton, does not specify the level of skill, but other uses of tekton in the Bible refer to people crafting golden objects.

Anyway, I don’t disagree with the point that the middle class would not have been significant.
 
I’ve always understood Jesus & Mary’s poverty to mean he wasn’t living like a king, even though he was a King.

He had a home. Joseph put food on the table. They had clothes to wear. They didn’t have to beg.

Their income was modest I’m sure but they always had enough to help someone in need.
 
Zacharias was not a full-time Temple priest living in Jerusalem. He was a priest in the division or “course” of Abijah (Luke 1:5), which was one of the twenty-four “courses” (1 Chron 24:10), each going up to Jerusalem twice a year* to serve in the Temple for a week at a time – actually eight days at a time, starting on a Friday evening (the beginning of the Sabbath) and ending on a Saturday evening eight days later (Josephus, Antiquities, 7:365). For the remaining fifty weeks of the year the priests lived in their home towns or villages like anyone else, earning their living in whatever way they could. Some were rich, some were poor. We are not told what Zacharias did for a living when he was not on duty in the Temple.

*Strictly speaking, one week in every twenty-four. This ensured that the priests were obliged to take a week off from their work at slightly different dates each year, so that at critical periods – at harvest time, for example – it was not always the same households that suffered hardship by the priests’ enforced absence in Jerusalem.

Please note, I am not a historian. This outline is simply assembled from snippets I have garnered, over the years, from other comments threads here at CAF. If @billsherman sees this, I hope he will be kind enough to correct any errors and to provide fuller information.
 
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There is something of a clue when Jesus was presented at the Temple.

Leviticus specifies that a lamb and a turtle-dove were to be offered on such occasions, but that if one was too poor to be able to afford the lamb, two turtle-doves were to be offered instead.

We know from the Gospel of Luke that Mary and Joseph took the less expensive option, offering two turtle-doves, indicating that they were relatively poor.
 
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smith500 said:
Claims now are made that Joseph was just a day laborer and that the Holy Family lived with constant hunger and poverty. I know the Bible records they offered the temple sacrifice for Jesus of turtle doves that would signify a low status.
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who is making these claims.

The Holy Family did not live in Jerusalem, nor did Elizabeth and her husband.
 
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Normally, priests would be quite well-to-do, but in the days of Caiaphas, pious priests like Zachariah were cheated and persecuted by the corrupt high-ranking priests. For more information about a priest’s support, look up “24 priestly gifts.”
 
Priests generally didn’t have farms. Besides which, all priests served during the festival weeks (Passover, Pentecost, and Sukkot). When not serving in the Temple, priests would work as teachers, judges, butchers, and preside over certain rituals which did not require appearing in the Temple. Priests received the bulk of their income from the tithe of tithes they received from the Levites, and the first-fruits offerings from the laity (1/50 of the harvest, the first sheering of the sheep, and the redemption prices of firstborn donkeys and sons). They were also entitled to a portion of any mammal they butchered on behalf of the owner, and while serving in the Temple, they could partake of the sacred offerings, except those designated as holocausts.
 
Who is making these claims?

Father James Martin implies it, among others. Frankly, it doesn’t matter much to me at what level of humility Jesus lived It’s all humble compared to the majesty of Heaven. Most of the time, these claims are made in a political context and that bothers me. I just want the facts
 
@BartholomewB is on the money, as usual.

As other posters have noted, when it comes down to details about the wealth of Jesus and his family, we don’t have terribly much to go on. It’s fairly clear that Nazareth was a poor town, and Jesus’ family was certainly not wealthy. They were likely better of than the lowest of the poor, but still in a lowly economic situation.

Jesus and his family likely had access to some limited education (which would have been religious in nature), and historians generally agree that he was literate, although the evidence is iffy at best. Both of those are suggestive that his family had more than the lowest of economic means. The wealth was likely due to Joseph’s status as a skilled craftsman (he was of higher skill than a carpenter. English translations generally mistranslate the Greek on that point).

It is also very important to remember that the ancient world was vastly different economically than our modern world. There was no middle class, and there was little or no social mobility. You were either wealthy, or some version of poor. One historian remarked that Jesus came from a world that knew the difference between poor and dirt poor. I’ve always thought that understanding was central to his message.
 
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smith500 said:
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LilyM:
doves
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Thanks for nice intentions. I covered the turtle doves in my original post.
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My apologies, I’ve only just seen that you did indeed 🙂
 
There is a difference between directly making a claim and implying it. If you want the facts of 4BCE - 10AD research the archaeology and what is being found. Remember that Jesus and His Family did not live in Jerusalem. They lived in Nazareth. There was a lot of building going on at the time, the Romans were building their sea side resort, towns and villages and Roman Mansions throughout the region. Nazareth and other smaller towns would have been supplying goods and labour to these works.
 
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