Jesus was son of an architect, book claims

Telegraph ^ | 02 April 2010 | Telegraph

[Palter]

Jesus was the son of a middle-class, highly educated architect, according to a new book, which claims the previous belief that Joseph worked as a carpenter has distorted the Bible's meaning.

The book- The Jesus Discovery- claims that Jesus rose to become the most senior Rabbi of his time, thus explaining how he was able to exert such influence and why his teachings became such a concern to the authorities.

Author Dr Adam Bradford, who works as a GP, drew his conclusions after studying and comparing the original Greek and Hebrew scriptures, as well as using human psychology to analyse the behaviour towards Jesus as depicted in the Bible.

Biblical scholar Dr Bradford said: "Jesus's high ranking position as a Jew seems to have been written out of history but in fact it makes more sense of the Bible.

'If Jesus was the son of a poor itinerant carpenter with some radical ideas nobody would have been that concerned about what he said.

'But, because Jesus was trained up to become the most educated Jew of his time it gave him the chance to exert extraordinary influence and let him get away with acts that normal Jews would have been imprisoned or chastised for.

'For example, when Jesus turned the money changers out of the temple there is no mention in the Bible of the police guards getting involved or there being a backlash. The money changers were an essential part of gaining revenue for the Temple so if Jesus was an ordinary Jew he would have been arrested or physically attacked.

'Christ enjoyed social privileges that would not have been available to an uneducated itinerant carpenter.

[LadyDoc]

carpenter would be better translated as a construction worker (i.e. doing everything from brick laying to wood work and tiling).

Except in the US, where working with one’s hands is honored, that would mean working poor....there was no way for him to change his status from plebian to patrician.

as for the nonsense that he got away with stopping the fraud and kickbacks in the Temple: I suspect that this was one of the real reasons he was crucified....

[uglybiker]

If he was a builder then his material was probably stone as wood was in short supply in the middle east. Carpenters would have been building doors and windows, and furnishings.

Which might imply that one who worked in stone might also work in wood.

Also, a stonemason, even at that time, was a craft which required a lenghty appreticeship.

[JLLH]

Exactly, Jedidiah! He purposely did not come as the son of a wealthy earthly king or merchant.

[streetpreacher]

“as well as using human psychology”

Must have missed that particular hermeneutic.

[Timotheous]

Given that much of the gospel narrative is human dialogue, eg Pharisees, Sadducees, even Herod + Pilate; there are other academic disciplines that can be brought to bear as being potentially illuminative. As Dylan said - don’t criticise what you can’t understand. Drivers of human behaviour havn’t changed much over the years - power, greed etc.

[Timotheous]

I think the point the article is making is that Joesphus records King Herod the Great recruiting 10,000 skilled craftsmen to build the Temple, and to train 1000 Jewish priests to do the work of tektons - usually translated as carpenters, but on a large scale.
I found an mp3 at www.templehouse-publishing.com that explains in more depth. Joseph would have been alive then (18BC) + as a devout tekton seems well placed to have been involved, thus explaining who might have cared for Jesus aged 12 when he was lost in Jerusalem - priests on duty had living accommodation in the Temple. That would place Jesus there. This has repercussions for Christ’s poition in their society.

[streetpreacher]

Psycho-analyzing the Bible or history 2000 years ago may be good for speculation but it’s too subjective to build doctrine on.

[eleni121]

Thank you for your source...I will look at that.

Is not this the carpenter’s son? is not his mother called
Mary? - Matthew 13:55
this is the exact translation from Greek.

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary... Mark 6:3
this is the exact translation from Greek.

We see a difference.

Now tradition says that the Apostle Saint Mark heard much of what he wrote in his gospel from Saint Peter.

Saint Matthew wrote what he knew, first hand.

I do not see a problem here, maybe one of emphasis...after all sons regularly took their occupations from their fathers.

[Timotheous]

Hi
The exact definition of tekton, though intersting for sure, does not seem to be the root issue of this thesis; rather that Josephus says that Herod had 1000 Jewish priests trained as tektons so that they could go into the holy place + re-build it. So that would place Jesus at the heart of the Temple, which was the place of learning. It explains why Jesus went there when lost age 12, + who looked after him (the priests Joseph had trained), and how he was so comfortable around the Doctors of the Law. Seems that 30 is the age Rabbis are given the all-clear to go public.
This is a brand new discovery as far as I can tell...
Regards, Tim

[eleni121]

Discovery? I don’t know. Many have tried to explain and research and pick apart aspects of the Lord...and this is the latest foray into a scientific “rational” explanation.

There are those who seek to explain the minutiae of the Lord’s life as a man. I prefer to enrich my knowledge - as limited as it is - through her mysteries.