Draft-Status
Ready
Used in Meeting
No
There is significant evidence that Jesus was not a carpenter as commonly believed, but a stone mason. Let us make that case.
It is commonly accepted that He would have worked in the same trade as his father. But his father's trade mentioned in the bible is tekton in the Greek which just means "builder" or "artisan". In many ancient Greek places, that would mean "carpenter", except Nazareth didn't have a wood industry.
- There are more words of Jesus about shaped stone than shaped wood:
- The main industries in ancient Nazareth is similar to today: grapes, figs olives. Jesus mentions these many times but not forests.
- Houses in Nazareth were generally stone.
- Galilee used wood for boats but Nazareth in Galilee is about 40 km from any major source of water.
- There was a lot of work near Nazareth commissioned by Herod Antipas for stone and tile work.
References