Carpenter

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There was no systematic education for a boy after age thirteen. After this age, the father was obligated to teach his son his trade or apprentie him to a craftsman of another trade of the boy's choice. A boy could study the law with adults who studied in their spare time...
The quote is taken from a section on Jewish and Greco-Roman education from the book, 'Dictionary of New Testament Background'. What this implies to me is this: could Jesus have taken on any other form of employment or apprenticeship other than carpentry? We have always assumed that Jesus would have taken after Joseph to be a carpenter, cos this is of course the logical pathway to go. But if the quote is true, then it could have been any other occupations. Jesus might even have studied under a scholar of the law or be trained to be a rabbi. If this is so, it does solve one of the mysteries in the gospels, which stated that Jesus began teaching after His 40 days in the desert. I have always wondered other than what Jesus said, what had prompted thhe people to readily accept Him as a rabbi? Nonetheless, this is not conclusive. In fact, the rejection of Jesus from the people as descirbed in Luke 4 suggests that Jesus might have been known for a more humble background than I have previously suggested. The gap between His outing in the temple and His baptism had not been fully accounted for in the gospels, and we can only make educated guess based on what we know about the culture back then.

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