Carpenter Jesus

For one of my classes at JUC, Jewish Jesus to Christianity, I wrote a paper on the topic of how Jesus trade as a "carpenter" fit right in with the idea of other rabbi's having trades, why they did, and what this might have looked like for Jesus and his father Joseph while growing up in Nazareth. The following is an abridged and modified version of it...

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The existence of Torah provokes the need for masterful knowledge of it and expertise. At the time of Ezra and for a considerable period afterwards this was the primary concern for priests. Ezra himself was both priest (expert in, and guardian of, Torah) and scribe. Gradually this changed and lay Israelites took over the study of Torah, and along with the priests an independent order of ‘Torah Scholars’ or scribes came into being. These Torah Scholars were held in high esteem; yet all the activities of the sages, educational and judicial, were to be unpaid and were instructed to obtain their income from other sources.

Despite all the traveling and teaching rabbis did, rabbinic literature seems to discourage charging a fee for teaching the Scriptures and therefore almost all rabbis earned their living by some trade or craft of their hands, probably following the trade of his father. For it was a principle, frequently expressed, if possible “not to forsake the trade of the father”—most likely not merely from worldly considerations, but because it might be learned in the house; perhaps even from considerations of respect for parents. During the First Century C.E. there was a vast amount of public building going on (under Herod the Great, Antipas and Philip), which would require and occupy many men.

It seems that Jesus, the Master Himself, was a craftsman and humbled Himself to the trade of His adoptive father. “Isn't this the carpenter? Isn't this Mary's son and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas and Simon?” (Mark 6:3). The Gospel of Matthew states, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” (Matt 13:55). In biblical thinking the assumption behind the word “son” was that descendents would share the characteristics of their forefathers. Usually children took on their family’s profession and worshipped the family’s gods. It was assumed that children would even tend to take on their ancestor’s personalities: If their father was wise, they would be wise; if he was warlike, they would be warlike. Both Mark 6:3 and Matthew 13:55 specify, Joseph and his son, Jesus, were tektons. Although little is mentioned in the Scriptures of Joseph’s life, because of the cultural surroundings, it is likely that Jesus would have learned and mastered this skill from his father. The tekton was a construction craftsman able to work with wood, stone and bricks

Stones and rocks are everywhere in Israel; for millennia they have provided implements and articles used in everyday life. There are innumerable uses of these stones including construction of public buildings, fortifications, roads, and courts. Stones were also used to seal caves, tombs, and wells, and to make slabs for decorations or inscriptions. Long before pottery was invented, stones were shaped into implements of all sorts, such as mills, mangers, anchors, millstones, grinders, mortars and pestles, tools, plummets, loom weights, bowls and cups, knives and other cutting instruments.

Nazareth, a small village in fertile Lower Galilee, could probably not provide enough business or livelihood for a tekton, (builder, carpenter, mason) and his family. The nearby city of Sepphoris had been destroyed by the Romans in 6 C.E., but was now being rebuilt by Herod Antipas (Herod the Great’s Son) to serve as the capital of his kingdom, the areas of Galilee and Perea. (Note, this city is never mentioned in the Gospels). The new capital city was to be Roman in style, with a theater and an aqueduct – these involved masonry, and so did the Roman style of houses; and here was located Antipas’s treasury. It was designed to be one of the finest of modern cities in its time. Nazareth was only 3.5 miles southeast of Sepphoris – a short walk of about one hour for the people of the time. Assuming that Jesus was born approximately 6 B.C.E., He spent His childhood and at least some of His youth near Sepphoris and may have been influenced by its culture and the contacts emerging from connections of His village to the city. As some scholars have suggested, Joseph and Jesus could have worked on the construction projects at Sepphoris. Archeologists estimate the population of Nazareth during the time of Jesus to be 120-150 people, and there couldn’t have been a ton of construction work to do in that small village. It took 14 years to complete the city of Sepphoris, those in need of some more work likely could have found some there. In addition, archeologists have discovered a sizeable ancient quarry between Nazareth and Sepphoris. We walked from Nazareth to Sepphoris and stopped by this quarry along the way. Although there is no hard evidence to prove it, I personally hold to the opinion that it is quite likely that Joseph could have been teaching his son the family trade while cutting stones out of this quarry.

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Standing on the Nazareth Ridge looking NW towards Sepphoris

The ancient quarry discovered between Nazareth and Sepphoris

A large theater in the city of Sepphoris

Avad

In one of the apostle Paul’s letters, as a tent maker, he writes: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving” (Col 3:23-24). We can gain many fascinating insights by looking at the Hebrew word avad. I won’t go in to a thorough study here, but in short, the term avad means “to work,” as well as “to serve” and even “to worship!” For to the spiritual, nothing is secular; and to the secular, nothing is spiritual. For the apostle Paul it was work night and day, and then as his rest, joy, and reward, to preach in public and in private, the unsearchable riches of Christ, Who had redeemed him with His precious blood (1Thes 2:9). Therefore it should be considered for our work to be equivalent with our study of, or service to God, which is the way we worship Him. I think Jesus did the same.

Jumbo Shrimp

In August there was a 3-on-3 basketball tournament going on in the great city of downtown Zeeland, MI. It was sponsored by The Bridge Youth Ministries and I thought it would be fun to put a team together and try to be in and meet some people in our new community. So my brother Corey, two of his friends (Ben and Dan) and I decided to play.

Dan is about 5'10", Corey 6'3", I'm 6'5" and Ben is 6'7". We pulled down a few boards.

Team name?
Jumbo Shrimp. (Yup, t-shirts too).


Did we have fun?
Of course.

Did we win any games?
All of them.

Beit Chadash Shelanu (Our New Home)

In the August of 2007 Stacie and I found ourselves back in W. Michigan again to participate in a few weddings of some great friends of mine. While we were here, we had a conversation about where we think we should live when we move back to the States in a year. We were both thinking the W. Michigan area, but where specifically? Stacie was having thoughts about living in Zeeland, a small quiet town (tired of the big city), close to church (Hudsonville), and close to Lake Michigan. (It's never a bad thing to live close to that piece of real estate). So one evening we decided to take a quick drive through the town and she pointed out a few houses of people she knows and the many great front porches that can be found in this town. The last house we drove past were friends of hers from church and she said, "I love their house, and their front porch, with the swing..."

The next day we went to church and after the service two people sitting directly behind us asked us if we were still in need of a vehicle to use for the last two weeks we were going to be in the States. We were borrowing a vehicle at the time, but needed to return it in a couple days. They said we could borrow their van as long as we could bring them to the airport in Chicago and then pick them up again in a couple weeks. Sure. It just so happens that we needed to fly OUT of Chicago the day after they needed to be picked up in Chicago, and we still weren't sure how we were getting to the airport!

Then they said, "hey do you guys know where you are going to live when you move back?"

"Not yet."

"Well we don't know this for sure, but we are thinking about moving to Hungary for two years, would you be interested in renting our house?"

Our mouths dropped. This is the VERY SAME house we had just driven by the night before that Stacie really loved, the one with the great front porch and swing.

End result? They are now in Hungary for two years teaching English as a Second Language through the ministry Teach Overseas. And Stacie and I are living in their house, with all their furniture, appliances, lawn mower, bikes, etc...including the van!

So we live here because God made it so clear.

Once we flew back to the States in June, we had about 5 weeks before we could move in to our new place. 5 weeks and about 10 beds later, we moved in. Although we are extremely grateful to those who were so hospitable to us while we were homeless, it was good to finally put the suitcases away and get settled in a little.

Here's just a few pictures of move in day...

TV

Stacie and I didn't have a TV in Israel during our two years there. For some that might be hard to fathom, for me it was really no problem at all.

Since we've been back we still haven't watched any TV. However, we had a coupon for $40 off the digital TV box thing we'll need by 2009 and the coupon was to expire in a couple days, so last night we thought we should go pick one up...somewhat reluctantly.

On the way there I saw a guy wearing a bright yellow t-shirt that read

Life is short.
Watch TV.

I'm not kidding.
That might be the biggest oxymoron I have ever heard. I really wanted to roll down my window and ask the guy what the heck he was doing outside wasting his life away.

But at the same time, deep inside me the haunting question - "Yeah but you're going to buy this stupid thing so you can watch TV, then you would be wasting your life away..."

We bought it anyway.
Grrrrrrrrrr.

SHOCK!

We have been back from Jerusalem for about a month and a half. Much has happened, much has changed, and almost everything is different. Many people have asked us if we are experiencing any culture shock. The answer to the question is most definitely. Now six weeks later we are slowly starting to adjust, but there have been, and will continue to be a number of things that are quite different that we are sorting through. What’s different you ask? What is the same is more like it.


BIG
The land of Israel is only about the size of New Jersey. They have packed a lot into that small piece of land. Almost everything seemed quite small.

America is bigger. Bigger in land size, car size, house size, store size, road sign size, shoe size, everything size. Now instead of grocery shopping at Super Deal, a 6-aisle (and they were short aisles) grocery store in Jerusalem, we can choose from Family Fare, Meijer or Wal-Mart, which is great because now we can choose from 32 different types of plastic cups – including size, shape and color! (sarcasm) Why do we have to make so many decisions? I just need some plastic cups and I don’t care what color they are! Clear is fine. Always has been. Always will be. Moving on.


WEATHER
In Israel they are experiencing a drought this summer. It hasn’t rained since March, nor will it until October. This is normal, no rain all summer long. But this past winter they didn’t get much rain and by the time we left in mid-June the Sea of Galilee was already at a critically low level, and the long dry summer was just beginning. It’s the largest body of fresh water in the Middle East and the source of drinking water for the Israelis. A small island was beginning to form on the south side of the lake when we left.

We flew in to Chicago on June 14th and the morning of the 15th there was a huge thunderstorm, destroying the neighbors’ carport they used for a graduation party. Then it rained and stormed really hard about every other day for a month. When we were on a short road trip down to St. Louis we encountered another vicious thunderstorm (two within 10 minutes actually) and we were literally driving 20mph on the highway because it was raining so hard, cars were driving with their emergency flashers on, farmers’ fields were flooded and we saw lightning strike a field twice. Welcome to the U.S.


THINGS
Israel is not only deserts and caves and camels. Israel is not a third world country. In fact it is a quite well-developed country. (Example, I have already dropped more cell phone calls in two weeks than I did in two years there…including remote places in the Negev).

Moving back to MI I have heard many people talking about how terrible the economy is here. This economy has affected a lot of people and I am not trying to minimize this hardship for so many, but…my eyes see everyone living in a nice big house with a 2 or 3 stall garage, driving new SUV’s (or at least a newer car) and an extremely important thing seems to be lawn care. By the way it is also noticeably very green here. Green trees, green grass, green plants. It’s beautiful. But I overheard one neighboring telling another, “stop cutting your grass so short, you’re making mine look bad.” Not wrong, just different values, or priorities than where we had been living the past couple years. So I’m still trying to sort through how to view all this stuff, how to live simple and content lives, and not judge other people in the process. God help me.


CULTURE
Jerusalem was/is one of the most diverse places on the planet. There’s the local population of Arabs, Jews (from all over, including Russia, Spain, Ethiopia, America, etc.) plus 2 million tourists visit Israel each year. The bustling Holy City was always packed with pedestrians, car-honking taxis, and tour buses with tourists representing every possible nation, people group, culture and language. Stacie and I enjoyed approaching a group of tourists with their bright colored hats, or scarves, or stickers or whatever group “uniform” they had on, and trying to figure out where they were from – Germany, Switzerland, Nigeria, Russia, France, India, U.S.

Now we live in Zeeland, MI. We don’t see a lot of people. We often say to each other – we see all the houses, but where are all the people? Sometimes we see some tall Dutch folks. Lots of blue eyes and blonde hair ‘round here. I am still looking for that first tour bus to pull down our street with a group of people from Madagascar or something.


RELIGION
Islam, Judaism, Christianity – all packed into the “Holy City” of Jerusalem. A place utterly dominated by the Muslims and the Jews. Only 2 percent of the population are Christians. We lived in a land that was completely littered with synagogues, and mosques. And reminded of it every day when the call to prayer would scream out of those little minarets five times a day, or on Shabbat when all the Jewish people would flock to the local synagogue in their Shabbat attire. There were, however also a number of old churches scattered about the land – but many of them were old church buildings built to commemorate or remember a certain Biblical story or event that took place in that particular area. Many of these churches are simply historical and are not used to serve and/or encourage a particular body of believers (although there are some of those churches too, don’t get me wrong). My observation? As a Christian, I always felt out of place. I mean, I was surrounded by amazing Christian friends at JUC, but overall I felt severely outnumbered by the others. However, this feeling of outnumberedness seemed to strengthen the bond and the love and the passion between the believers living in Jerusalem. The need for Jesus was an obvious, compelling, in-your-face every single day of the week feeling. These people need Jesus.

I have been in the United States now for 52 days. I have not yet seen a synagogue, or a mosque. Churches? Got plenty of them. Driving home from work one day I counted 15 church buildings on the same street covering about 5 miles. In Zeeland there is First Reformed and Second Reformed Church right across the street (Church Street) from each other, not to mention Third Reformed, First and Second CRC, First Baptist and many, many more. There are a plethora of church buildings here, and it seems as though most Zeelanders are church-going people. It is truly an amazing thing after living in the “desert” for a couple years.

HOWEVER, here is some of what I have seen, heard and/or experienced that really makes my blood boil…
One church talking bad about other churches.
Minor topics becoming the major topics.
The domination of one denomination over the all others.
The superiority of one set of theological ideas and interpretations over all the others…
and everyone else who doesn’t agree on these things we want nothing to do with!
So we throw them out and are sure to keep them away from our kids.

THIS has been the hardest thing for me to “adjust” to. But I won’t. I won’t adjust. I won’t participate. I won’t settle for meddling in nonsense. I will love my brothers. I will major on the majors. I will be a part of God’s desire and purpose in changing people’s lives. After living in Israel these past two years, the lens through which I view the world is clearer than ever. People in this world desperately need Jesus.

I wish we’d care less about things like the perfection of our lawn.

Some Acknowledgments

Well it has been quite a journey. One we can hardly believe. We are so thankful and feel quite blessed that the Most High God chose us to live, study, explore and love on the people in Jerusalem. Two years passed by very quickly, yet it is hard for us to even remember what life was like before we got on the first plane June 14, 2006. We have learned lots and we have many stories and experiences and memories we will be excited to share with the people God puts in our path. There were many times over the past couple years when we would begin to worry about something – school, or money, or housing, or… - but then God would show up and demonstrate His continued faithfulness, love and care for us.

We took this calling to study in Israel seriously and tried to give it everything we had. Prior to moving to Israel we sold and gave away most of our stuff, emptied out our bank accounts and even tapped in to some of our retirement to keep us going year two. We left great jobs, communities, friends, and family we love. But this is NOT something we did, nor could have been done, without great support from SO many people. Many, many thanks to you all who prayed often for us - for our school-work, for our marriage, for our finances, for our safety, for our future (keep praying about that one ☺). Many thanks also to those of you who gave of your finances, sent us mail, shared encouraging heart-felt words, etc. Again, we did not, nor could have done this without you. There are so many people of which we could not count or list – but regardless, here’s a few people (in no particular order, and far from complete) we want to say thank you to:

The Swan Family (Mom, Dad and Chris)
The Post Family (Mom, Dad, Corey and Sara)
The Zwyghuizen Family (Chad, Kim, Dallas, Justin, Mikayla and Sawyer)
Paul and Diane Wright
Cyndi Parker
Mike and Sue Shirkey
Jason and Lisa Schrader
Mark and Amanda Brown
Brian and Katie Hamm
James and Laura Granger
Marc and Shelby Andreas
Con and Judy VanderWerf
Jack and Cindy Ippel
Larry and Linda Doornbos
Tom and Carolyn Kragt
Bill and Sandy Cooper
Ray VanderLaan and That The World May Know Ministries
Amy, Marty, Tom and Dot at GTI Travel
Kent Dobson
Boaz Shalgi
Allen Levi
Heidi Walberg
Dave and Jan Stravers
Randy and Gretchen VanHeukelum
Wayne and Debbie Wolfe
Joel and Lisa Meyers
Kenny and Leanne Grimes
Ryan and Amy Blackburn
Mike and Amy Krick
Acey and Sarae Martin
Enoch and Joan Olson
Michael and Denise Perry
Brian and Barb DeMann
Corky and Debbie Erickson
Dan and Jodi Johnson
David and Kelley Shirkey
Scott and Cindy Pontier
Larry and Jana Plaisier
Joey and Katie Allen
John and Melanie DeKruyter
Marlin and Sally Vis
All our great friends from JUC
Brian and Amy Moore
Mark and Michelle Trescott
Michael and Breanne Fuelling
Thor Sawin
Hayley Wilton
Rod and Irene Wilton
Tom and Cathy Tomasik
Lauren Tomasik
The Read Family (Steve, Rita, Stephen and Shannon)
Travis and Mariah West
…

But most of all, thanks be to God – the Creator, the Caller, the Sustainer, the Lover, the Rock, the One who was, who is and who is to come. We give it all back to Him.

Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
and to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy,
to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty,
dominion and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen.
-Jude 24-25