Why was Jesus a carpenter versus a pharisee or doctor?

[CB_Catholic]

Good point! He also chose Luke to be his disciple and Luke was a doctor. So the professions of lawyer/doctor were overrepresented in his disciples. But the disciple whom he loved, was John, who was neither. It could have been a Martha/Mary issue, where Pharisees/doctors are Martha and John, close to Mary and at the Cross, was Mary. Jesus, by becoming a carpenter, chose to emphasize the superiority of genuine humility?

You might be right that the cultures are different enough that physicians aren’t as highly regarded then as now. But do you think overrepresentation in the # of Jesus’ disciples (Luke) and the high level of education point to high regard?

What do you mean “overrepresented”? If anything, fishermen were “overrepresented”.

 

[CB_Catholic]

Also, Paul was a tentmaker, and perhaps also a leatherworker. Pharisee is not an occupation, it is a religious sect and a political title. The Sadducees were actually the elite ones. Also, fishermen were not looked down upon. It was a very respectable occupation, and many had some degree of wealth. These men were businessmen. Matthew was in an occupation that was looked down upon–he was a tax collector for the Romans, and though wealthy, was on the fringes of society.

You simply cannot put the 21st century mentality on first century societies.

Anytime you want to think of fishermen as lowly, think of “Bubba Gump”.

 

[faustinamary]

What do you mean “overrepresented”? If anything, fishermen were “overrepresented”.

One doctor out of 12, when an expected number would be one out of 300 or so. Pharisees were also relatively rare.

 

[GEddie]

Also, Paul was a tentmaker, and perhaps also a leatherworker. Pharisee is not an occupation, it is a religious sect and a political title. The Sadducees were actually the elite ones. Also, fishermen were not looked down upon. It was a very respectable occupation, and many had some degree of wealth. These men were businessmen. Matthew was in an occupation that was looked down upon–he was a tax collector for the Romans, and though wealthy, was on the fringes of society.

You simply cannot put the 21st century mentality on first century societies.

Anytime you want to think of fishermen as lowly, think of “Bubba Gump”.

Fishermen were actually more prosperous than the norm, as they owned boats.

The vast majority of the people were farmers, hence all our LORD’s parables about seeds, flocks, harvests etc.

The Sadduccees were the elite in Jerusalem, but elsewhere the Pharisees, who controlled the synagogue, held sway.

ICXC NIKA

 

[patrick457]

Fishermen were actually more prosperous than the norm, as they owned boats.

The vast majority of the people were farmers, hence all our LORD’s parables about seeds, flocks, harvests etc.

The Sadduccees were the elite in Jerusalem, but elsewhere the Pharisees, who controlled the synagogue, held sway.

ICXC NIKA

We know the Pharisees were popular and respected (at least that’s what Josephus claimed), but they really had no political power. Rome preferred ruling indirectly: y’know, letting the locals run things for them. So in Jerusalem, the high priest and his advisory council (synedrion, from where we get ‘Sanhedrin’ - to be fair, it’s doubtful whether the later Rabbinic idea of ‘the Sanhedrin’ really existed historically) ran daily affairs; in the towns and the villages, local elders were responsible. As has been the case for generations.

Back in the 19th-early 20th century, it was popular among scholars to imagine that the Pharisees really ran everything in the Galilee. But this view is actually unsupportable: for one, note the relationship between Antipas and the Pharisees. While Antipas generally observed the Jewish law, he was rather sneaky about it. At the time of Jesus, Jews had a very strict interpretation of the commandment against graven images: the devout held that it meant that there could be no figural depiction whatsoever (although depictions of plants or abstract designs were okay). Antipas generally kept the law in public matters, but he considered things like the decoration of his palace in Tiberias (which was decorated with images of animals) to be his own business. In short, Antipas doesn’t look like the type who was under the thumb of the Pharisees: he broke two of the ten commandments in his personal life (graven images, adultery) and executed a man who many people held to be a prophet.

In addition, Galileans were generally loyal to the Jerusalem Temple, but they were not particularly loyal to the Pharisees and their descendants the Rabbis. We know from 1st century texts (and we can imply from archaeology) that Galileans were fairly observant Jews who followed the Law and were loyal to the temple and the priesthood. In later Rabbinic sources, Galileans were accused of not being loyal to the Law enough, but that’s probably because Galileans were not as totally compliant to them as they would have liked. (Jesus’ objections toward the Pharisees would thus not have been as unique as some of us think it is. He just happened to become one of their more famous critics.) That this accusation is made doesn’t literally mean that the Galileans were literally non-observant or heterodox; it’s just that the source is biased against them.

P.S. Not all synagogues were controlled by Pharisees, contrary to a once-popular idea. In fact, it’s kind of questionable whether there were that many Pharisee-controlled synagogues at all. (Some synagogues, like the Theodotus synagogue of Jerusalem, were controlled not by Pharisees but by priests. The office of archisynagogeus ‘ruler of the synagogue’ is well attested, but we have no surviving evidence of a Pharisee or a Rabbi becoming an archisynagogeus.) You really have to take the gospels’ sometimes implication of Pharisees running the synagogue with a grain of salt, because they’re probably writing at a time when the Pharisees/Rabbis have become a more dominant force in Judaism. In other words, this picture is likely true for the time the evangelists have begun writing the gospels, but not exactly for the time of Jesus forty to sixty years ago.

 

[faustinamary]

Thank you so much for posting on the Galileans!

 

[Bob_Crowley]

I went to my wife’s Baptist church this morning, as I usually try to go about once a month.

The sermon was based on John 12 when Jesus was in Bethany about six days before the Passover, at the meal when Mary broke the jar of nard and poured it over his feet and wiped them with her hair.

He then moved on to Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey.

He made the point it was possible or probable that Pontius Pilate was also entering Jerusalem at around the same time, but with a great deal of pomp and ceremony. He wouldn’t have been riding a donkey.

jezuiti.sk/blog/kamnatftu/files/palm-sunday-procession-with-palms-gospel.pdf

“Two processions entered Jerusalem on a spring day in the year 30 … One was a peasant procession, the other an imperial procession. From the east, Jesus rode a donkey down the Mount of Olives, cheered by his followers. Jesus was from the peasant village of Nazareth, his message was about the kingdom of God, and his followers came from the peasant class …On the opposite side of the city, from the west, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Idumea, Judea and Samaria, entered Jerusalem at the head of a
column of imperial cavalry and soldiers. Jesus’s procession proclaimed the kingdom of God; Pilate’s proclaimed the power of empire. The two processions embody the central conflict of the week that led to Jesus’s crucifixion.

If you read more of the above post, the author makes the point the Romans had a habit of being in Jerusalem during the Jewish festivals, in order to make sure they didn’t get out of hand. Obviously Pilate was there during the Passover, as the subsequent trial and crucifixion made clear.

The capital of the Roman province of Iudeia (which included Judea) was at Caesaria as far as I know, so Pilate would have made an extracurricular trip to Jerusalem to be present at the time of the Passover, in order to quell any religious fanaticism that might arise as a result.

So he’d have ridden into Jerusalem in regal style, complete with cavalry and a squadron of soldiers for personal protection.

No so with Christ - He was, as the pastor put it, sending a very visual image of the fact he was not a political saviour, and was being true to His mission as being with the ordinary people.

He rode in on a donkey.

 

[GEddie]

The capital of Roman Judaea was indeed at Caesarea, hence the name, “Caesar City.”

This town had the running water and other appurtenances demanded by Romans, as well as an artificial harbor to dock the Roman triremes (now submerged, but accessible by scuba).

It is about fifty miles from Jerusalem.

Herod, as ruler of Galilee, also did not live in Jerusalem, IMS. So the trial of our LORD was made possible by both rulers being in Jerusalem at the same time.

ICXC NIKA

 

[Charlemagne_III]

Jesus built a Church, he was the cornerstone. Carpenters build.

Jesus was of the Pharisee sect.

He was also a physician for our souls.

There is a famous painting of him sitting in a modern doctor’s office and consulting with him.

If Jesus was a modern physician, he might have been a psychiatrist, since he came to heal our spiritual wounds.

 

[JimG]

Jesus was often referred to as “Rabbi” or “Teacher,” which means he was recognized as having teaching authority himself. He spoke in his own home synagogue, as well as in the temple and elsewhere. If he was recognized as a teacher, as he was, he might have been associated with one of the chief Jewish sects himself. His theology was perhaps closest to the Pharisees, though he often excoriated them for their legalism. It’s doubtful he was associated with the Sadducees or Essenes.

He preached fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets. He preached to Jews, his Apostles were Jews, and after the resurrection, the early Christian community apparently often still attended synagogue prayers while celebrating the Eucharist in their homes. It was only after the Jewish leadership formally rejected and expelled them that their was a definitive break, but in the meantime they had gone out to teach the Gentiles as well.

 

[patrick457]

Jesus built a Church, he was the cornerstone. Carpenters build.

Jesus was of the Pharisee sect.

Actually, not exactly. Jesus did have some similarities with Pharisees (in fact, many of His disagreements with “the Pharisees” are really on matters that Pharisees themselves would disagree each other on - they’re not very substantial), and some of His followers were Pharisees. But that’s not the same thing as saying that Jesus was Himself one. The surviving data just don’t allow us to give an answer to that question.

 

[patrick457]

Jesus was often referred to as “Rabbi” or “Teacher,” which means he was recognized as having teaching authority himself. He spoke in his own home synagogue, as well as in the temple and elsewhere. If he was recognized as a teacher, as he was, he might have been associated with one of the chief Jewish sects himself. His theology was perhaps closest to the Pharisees, though he often excoriated them for their legalism. It’s doubtful he was associated with the Sadducees or Essenes.

I should just note: ‘rabbi’ at the time of Jesus is merely a generic courtesy title. ‘Rabbi’ (“My great (one)”) is really just a honorific you give to someone perceived to be in a position of (teaching) authority: it’s how students call their teacher. It’s not like today, where “Rabbi” is pretty much a sort of official credential: only people who have been formally ‘ordained’/licensed can be called Rabbi.

To sum things up: ‘rabbi’ in Jesus’ day is pretty much just like “Mr.” or “Sir” in English or in Japanesesensei (a general, generic honorific), whereas today it’s pretty much functionally similar to “Ph.D.”

 

[steve53]

If one assumes an early birthday around 11 BC, and assumes a late crucifixion date of AD 36 then we have a very reasonable explanation for why Jesus was not a Pharisee or someone more educated.

Jesus would have spent his early years in semi seclusion in Egypt out of fear of Herod the Great, and later he moved with his family from their intended target home near Jerusalem up to Nazareth out of fear of the son of Herod the Great who was called Archelaus.

So Jesus in Nazareth was a newcomer and probably eight or nine years of age when he entered the Jewish social realities of that time. Jesus was essentially out of the loop for a formal religious vocation, or any sort of healing field. Also, there were questions about his birth, with Joseph apparently acknowledging publicly that he was not Jesus’ actual biological father.

So Jesus grew up as sort of an outcast in the Jewish community and worked in his stepfather’s carpentry shop.

At least that’s one way to look at it.

 

[GEddie]

If one assumes an early birthday around 11 BC, and assumes a late crucifixion date of AD 36 then we have a very reasonable explanation for why Jesus was not a Pharisee or someone more educated.

Jesus would have spent his early years in semi seclusion in Egypt out of fear of Herod the Great, and later he moved with his family from their intended target home near Jerusalem up to Nazareth out of fear of the son of Herod the Great who was called Archelaus.

So Jesus in Nazareth was a newcomer and probably eight or nine years of age when he entered the Jewish social realities of that time. Jesus was essentially out of the loop for a formal religious vocation, or any sort of healing field. Also, there were questions about his birth, with Joseph apparently acknowledging publicly that he was not Jesus’ actual biological father.

So Jesus grew up as sort of an outcast in the Jewish community and worked in his stepfather’s carpentry shop.

At least that’s one way to look at it.

And that Nazareth was at the toetip of an already toetip province. Nothing there resembling the then version of a medical school, or rabbinical school.

After Joseph’s death (AD1? by your estimation), HE would not have had the leisure to pursue such a career.

ICXC NIKA