Leiv B Olsen wrote:

Your arguments are built on dubious sources. Can we trust the story Matthew tells about the birth of Christ? No. Can we trust the story Luke tells about the birth of Christ? No. Both stories are made up at a rather late stage, they are telling two very different and contradicting stories. According to Matthew, Joseph and Maria had to hurry away to Egypt, according to Luke, they did not, but went from Bethlehem striaght away to Jerusalem very quick after the birth of Jesus, and from Jerusalem they went back to Bethlehem. Everything told by Matthew, is not told by Luke, and vice versa. Both stories are probably made up with stories about other figures (Krishna? Augustus?) as models. The genealogies told by Matthew and told by Luke differs in everything, except that they both claim that Jesus, through his father Joseph, was of the house of David. Probably both genealogies are made up. We should admit that it is difficult to sort out the facts about Jesus. He surely lived and was cruzified by Pontius Pilatus, but to sort out the details of his life isn't easy.

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Adrian C Grant wrote:

Hello Leiv,

You are entirely correct that the sources are not to be trusted and every time translation occurs it gets worse! My philosophy has been try to see what is rescuable (which does not make it right, merely not necessarily wrong). But the fact is that the sums for Luke's genealogy of Jesus DOES work (and see the sense I have tried to make in my paper on Jesus the pre-teen years).
So yes, you are right, but I thought i would have a go anyway!!

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Peter van 't Riet wrote:

Leiv is right that the birth stories of Matthew’s and Luke’s are historically unreliable. As I’ve explained elsewhere in this discussion they aren’t historical reports but midrash-like stories. Leiv is close to the truth that they are made up with stories about other figures. But his choice of figures he could have made more close to the religious environment of the evangelists. The birth story of Matthew’s is made up with the birth and youth stories of Moses in Exodus. The birth story of Luke’s is less evident, but his birth story of John the Baptist is made up with the birth story of the prophet Samuel. This is exactly how the midrash character of the gospels works. See my publications on Academia.edu and Amazon.com.

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Adrian C Grant wrote:

Thanks for this Peter. The problem is that there are many perspectives and it is hard to prove some of them wrong. I think I understand where you are coming from on this and it is certainly worth adding into the mix.

From what I can see
(a) you may be wholly right
(b) you may be wholly wrong
(c) the references you make are indeed relevant, but there is a real story lying behind what we see - and this real story has been twisted to conform in the way you suggest.

I recall from many years ago the general proposition that the NT has been constructed in such a way as to ensure conformity with eg OT prophecy - and I don't doubt that there is at least an element of that. However see "Pre-Teen Years" for a possible reconstruction of the original.

So I think that your insight is very important to the understanding of the original form. I understand the argument that it could have been constructed out of nothing - but I think we should not fall back on this line without exhausting the other possibilities.

In this context there remains the issue of the "carpenter". If the best explanation for this lies purely in midrash then the case needs to be made. Otherwise why pick on this particular occupation? Or is it - as I am postulating here -  that there is a rational basis for the selection?

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Adrian C Grant wrote:

In Summary, Peter, even if your analysis were 100% correct as far as it goes, we are still left with these questions:

(i) Why "carpenter" RATHER THAN say shepherd, fisherman, brickmaker, cowherd - any number of jobs.
(ii) Why would "carpenter" be considered appropriate to convey disdain.

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Leiv B Olsen wrote:

Maybe Joseph was called carpenter because he was a carpenter?

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Peter van 't Riet wrote:

Why do you focus so heavily on disdain? So many other explanations of the reaction of the people in the synagogue are possible. Carpenter or builder was a respected profession. Many learned men among them. The people knew Joseph and his level of scholarship. Jesus came from outside back to his native town, obviously more educated - in the eyes of the people - than his father had been. Where had he become a so much more educated scholar than his father was? Many common people don’t appreciate great scholarship, do they?

And why a carpenter? Well, maybe Joseph and Jesus really were. Midrash is - as I have explained elsewhere in this discussion - transformation of history into a narrative with a moral or religious message. The Old Testament/Tanakh knows many carpenters and builders. Only if there is no midrash explanation of this profession in the discussed gospel story possible then the chance is greater that we have to do with a historical fact.

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Leiv B Olsen wrote:

The question is: why not a carpenter?

I think that if we don't have good reasons to doubt that Joseph and Jesus were carpenters, we should not base theories on that they were not. As Peter van't Riet have stated, being a carpenter was a respected profession.

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Adrian C Grant wrote:

Well I thank you both for your several comments.

The whole point of the passage was to note that Jesus and his father were treated with disdain by the Nazareth locals.

Clearly the crowd would not and COULD NOT do this if they were respected and generally known scholars. So this must be set aside even though in fact they were very erudite.

Why then do the passages mention "carpenter"? Surely it was to heap on the disdain - yet as you say this was a respected profession (and I accept this). So there is a discontinuity here - which is why I offer the alternative ie Phoenician.