"I don't know if any of you ever raised sheep. No, I did not either..."
Yes, I can tell. Of course, perhaps the sheep business was different in the Near East than it is out here in the Wild West, with our rather large sheep ranches. :-)
Seriously, I've often wondered just whence the evidence comes for these authoritative treatises on sheep-raising that I've read or heard sermonized by urban clergy over the years...
And don't *even* get me started about the gross inaccuracies of Brokeback Mountain...
Sorry, I was just having an agrarian moment...
I heard it in homilies just like you did. But it sounds plausible, does it not? It is occuring to me that even though Christ has been raised in a carpenter's house, His parables never reflect caprentry. There is a lot of sheep ranching, some plant agriculture (where the size of the mustard tree remains somewhat of a mystery) and some experience with masonry.
One of the weaker parts of the Gibson's Passion, in my opinion, was the wholly extrascriptural scene how Jesus invented a dining table.