By John Tiffany. At Christmastime the thoughts of Christians naturally turn to Jesus. Perhaps surprisingly, little of a hard, historically factual nature is known about Jesus the Nazarene, also known as Jesus the Galilean or Jesus Christ, the founder of Christianity. Besides no “forensics” evidence, there is the “missing 17 years,” that period when reports on the goings on in His life (from ages 13 to 29) are almost non-existent.
One thing we did think we knew for sure about Jesus was that he was a carpenter. But now historians are saying the profession of Jesus and his earthly father, Joseph, has been misinterpreted from ancient scripture.
Tradition has it that Jesus (Joshua, if you like— or Yehoshua, to give him the name he was probably known by in his life) was a carpenter. And since that is what we were taught as children, we might like to believe it. But was he really? [Read the entire article as PDF…]
Taken from
The Barnes Review, November/December 2006: New Revelations About Jesus
VOLUME XII, NUMBER 6