Jesus was rich?

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What do you expect of the pastor a pop-evangelical church in the middle of a rich suburb?

Have you ever noticed that one never finds rich pop-evangelical mega-churches preaching holy prosperity in the poor areas of town?
 
One thing that I did have a question about was the soldiers casting lots for Jesus’s clothes. Would that have been done because they were nice clothes or because that is what soldiers did with everyone who was crucified? I don’t know enough about the Roman empire at the time to know.
 
regression said:
One thing that I did have a question about was the soldiers casting lots for Jesus’s clothes. Would that have been done because they were nice clothes or because that is what soldiers did with everyone who was crucified? I don’t know enough about the Roman empire at the time to know.
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Remember that casting lots can be like rolling dice, picking the short stick, and even rock,paper, scissors in our day.

I would interpret it to mean that the soldiers were mocking. They probably casted lots to see who would be “stuck” with the “dirtied” clothes previously belonging to who they thought was the “so-called King of the Jews”. I believe it was a form of mockery, similarly to that which was done during the crowning of thorns.
 
Would that have been done because they were nice clothes or because that is what soldiers did with everyone who was crucified?
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Probably the latter.
 
The Gospel of St. John tells us that the soldiers divided his garments but did not divide the cloth of his coat because it was a seamless garment. Seamless garments take a lot more work to produce, thus the idea was launched somewhere that because this one garment would have been more expensive than an ordinary seamed garment, Jesus must have been rich.

But we don’t know that. We don’t know where he got the coat. He certainly encountered many people in His ministry, some wealthy. Any one of them could have given Jesus the coat as a gift. Think about all those people he healed; you don’t think that somewhere in amongst all of them was ONE grateful mother or father, brother or sister who saw Jesus without a coat and might have given Him one as a small token of thanks for curing their leper/deaf/blind/deformed relative? We know one woman was willing to pour a bottle of expensive perfume on Him, so why not someone else gifting him a coat?

The point is we don’t know where the coat came from, only that to the soldiers it was of a high enough value that it made more sense to them to hold a raffle for it than cut it into 4 parts. A fancy coat doesn’t necessarily make one wealthy.
 
ultimate_ed said:
Jesus was rich?
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The “evidence” that Jesus was “rich” is, as we have seen, pretty thin.

There is only one Biblical account I know of that might disclose the combined wealth of Jesus and the Apostles. In two Gospel accounts of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:37 and John 6:7), Jesus tests the Apostles by suggesting they provide food for the multitude. In both of these Gospels, the Apostles complain that 200 days’ wages (ie, 200 Roman denarii) would be insufficient. This strongly suggests that the treasury of Jesus and the Apostles was 200 denarii (why else would they come up with this particular number?)

So, in modern US dollars, how much would 200 days of manual labor be worth?

At modern US Federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr), this would give Jesus and the Apostles a combined wealth of $11,600, assuming an 8-hour day. OK, they worked more like 14-hour days back then, so figure (at straight-time) a total treasury of $20,300, in modern US dollars (at a rather generous minimum wage that I doubt was the case in ancient times).

That’s an average net-worth of about $1,500 per person, in modern US dollars.

I’m no rich guy, but I’m worth a whole lot more than $1,500.

As for his seamless garmet - his Mama made that for him!
 
DavidFilmer said:
The “evidence” that Jesus was “rich” is, as we have seen, pretty thin.

There is only one Biblical account I know of that might disclose the combined wealth of Jesus and the Apostles. In two Gospel accounts of the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:37 and John 6:7), Jesus tests the Apostles by suggesting they provide food for the multitude. In both of these Gospels, the Apostles complain that 200 days’ wages (ie, 200 Roman denarii) would be insufficient. This strongly suggests that the treasury of Jesus and the Apostles was 200 denarii (why else would they come up with this particular number?)

So, in modern US dollars, how much would 200 days of manual labor be worth?

At modern US Federal minimum wage ($7.25/hr), this would give Jesus and the Apostles a combined wealth of $11,600, assuming an 8-hour day. OK, they worked more like 14-hour days back then, so figure (at straight-time) a total treasury of $20,300, in modern US dollars (at a rather generous minimum wage that I doubt was the case in ancient times).

That’s an average net-worth of about $1,500 per person, in modern US dollars.

I’m no rich guy, but I’m worth a whole lot more than $1,500.

As for his seamless garmet - his Mama made that for him!
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I agree that His Mum made his garment…although I have no support for that. It’s just common sense, she of all, would have devoted the effort to make such a garment for her son.

As for richness…If they were rich, He would not have been ‘sold’ for 30pieces of silver! …common sense again.

:cool:
 
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DOShea:
The Gospel of St. John tells us that the soldiers divided his garments but did not divide the cloth of his coat because it was a seamless garment. Seamless garments take a lot more work to produce, thus the idea was launched somewhere that because this one garment would have been more expensive than an ordinary seamed garment, Jesus must have been rich.

But we don’t know that. We don’t know where he got the coat.
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There are some traditions that say the garment was made for him by His mother when he was yet a child, and that it miraculously grew with him. 🙂
 
These televangelists target old people in nursing homes who aren’t as cautious as they once were, who often spend their days watching religious programming that has been designed to comfort people who are lonely, afraid, and who may be spending more time than normal thinking about their regrets and their mortality. They may not have a good sense of reason any more, and may be too trusting- especially those they perceive to be religious leaders. It is a very grave sin to take advantage of those whose minds are no longer clear- especially when it pushes them, or their families, into poverty (which I imagine happens a lot, unless someone else takes control over how their money is spent). It is even more serious when people use God’s name to trick them.

The Holy Family probably wasn’t the poorest family around, but nothing in scripture can really back up the fact that he was rich. Even if he was, I certainly can’t use this televangelist’s reasoning behind it.
 
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