Interesting Fact: Mark Never Mentions Joseph (Isaiah, church, prophecies, Muslims)

[thrillobyte]

Continuing on the theme of the evolution of the gospels, we note that Mark never once mentions Jesus as being the son of Joseph (neither does Paul, for that matter). When Jesus returns to Nazareth we have an interesting line from the crowds, echoed later in Matthew and Luke but with one very significant difference)

"Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary” (Mark:6:3)

In Jewish tradition, a son was ALWAYS referred to as being the son of the paternal side. It would have been more proper for Mark to have written, "Is not this the carpenter, the son of Joseph [and Mary]?"

So why does Mark skip Joseph? We could speculate that Joseph had died by this time so that Mary was now a widow, but then we have the question of why then does Luke say,

"Is not this Joseph’s son?" (Luke 4:22)

A possible explanation might be: the enemies of the fledgling Christian movement were accusing Jesus of being illegitimate, possibly because up until Matthew circa 85 CE, no mention was ever made by Paul or Mark or James or Jude about the virgin birth or Jesus' paternity in general--it simply had not been even remotely hinted at, even in the Old Testament. The verse in Isaiah, 7:14

"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son.."

is incorrectly translated. The actual text correctly translated reads,

"Behold a woman shall be with child"

To counter these scurrilous accusations and to put right Mark's enormous blunder, the leaders of the Christianity movement might have asked the writer of Matthew to figure out some way to counter these claims. So we have the writer pouring over OT literature and, stumbling upon Isaiah 7:14, having an "Aha" moment, then changing "woman" to "virgin". Thus the story of the virgin birth came into being. In this way the leaders could say, "No Jesus was not illegitimate; He was born of a virgin and the Holy Spirit. Look. It's in Isaiah."

Whatever the explanation, we still have the curious fact that Jesus being born of a virgin never surfaces in all the stories about Jesus being handed down from generation to generation until Matthew finally writes it down some 90 years after Jesus' birth, assuming Jesus was born roughly 5 BC. This then naturally gives rise to the botched genealogies of Matthew and Luke and the horrid discrepancies between them as both Matthew and Luke hurriedly try to piece together a history of Joseph's lineage with disastrous results.

[TRANSPONDER]

That is interesting. I had never noticed that.

[whoppers]

There's an important piece of information missing from the discussion: that Mark was written before Matthew and Luke and supplied them with their main text. For some reason, Matthew and Luke altered the tradition of Jesus being a woodworker.


It's also helpful to see that both the authors of Matthew and Luke handle the "problem" of Jesus' occupation in different ways. Jesus was called a tekton in the Gospel of Mark, which is not as specific an occupation as "carpenter", but is better translated as "wood-worker". This occupation was not really a glorious one, for sure, and probably involved making yokes and plows in the very small village in which Jesus supposedly lived. This doesn't mean that he didn't do other things, just that the majority of his wood-working would have consisted of this, in my opinion. Mark does not seem to have a problem with this in his tradition, as he writes:

"Is this fellow not the woodworker?" (Mark)

For whatever reason, and perhaps because they felt that the Messiah should not have such a lowly occupation, Matthew and Luke both change this passage and eliminate the problem -but in different ways:

"Is this fellow not the son of the woodworker?" (Matthew)

"Is this fellow not the son of Joseph?" (Luke)

So this might give us a better clue as to why the tradition changed, possibly. I personally think it had more to do with Jesus' lowly occupation than with anything to do with his paternity. The occupation was simply given to his father, and Luke removed it altogether. Matthew and Luke both changed various things that they thought would hurt the image of Jesus - this is not the only instance.

[theflipflop]

One more thought. We Jews only refer to a person as a son of their mother when the person is gravely ill. Perhaps this was a reference to Jesus being mentally ill, requiring prayers on his behalf in the merit of his mother's merciful nature.

[TRANSPONDER]

All excellent posts - thanks.
I had read that 'carpenter' in the eyes of Hebrews and perhaps even 'tekton' in greek, could have the connotation of a builder, or house constructor, not just making footstools.

I remember by the way that my RI teacher tried to tell us that Jesus, as a 'carpenter' would have had to make crosses. This guy had a degree to teach this stuff.

I am wondering whether there is a possible link with the rabbi teacher Hillel, who was ..not a 'carpenter'..that was Shammai. Wasn't Hillel a fisherman? Anyway, several of the quotes attributed to Jesus are Hillel originals.

I note the idea that the reference to the mother might be connected with the idea that Jesus was seen as mad by the people doing the remark in Mark.

It probably won't hurt to note that Luke's extended account at the outset of the ministry (with the attempted assassination by Jesus' neighbours) is linked by the 'Is this not Joseph's son' and 'no prophet acceptable in his own country' with the 'rejection' (Mark 6, Matthew 13, 53) after a lot of Galilean material. Indeed Luke refers to what he did in Capernaum (and the customary teaching in the synagogue surely refers to Capernaum)

It must be clear that Luke has not only lifted material that properly belongs around before Luke 9 and put it as almost his first act in Galilee. It must also be clear that Matthew and Mark could not have failed to mention the attempted murder and this is surely 'added' material. I have a suspicion that the 'passing through the midst of them' while a handy get -out of an impossible situation, might be connected with John's 8.59, where the temple crowd are going to stone Jesus (illegally and unbelievably) but he hid himself and 'went' out of the temple.

Sorry for the digression, but it may just provide a little background to why the passage has been modified in the synoptics from Mark's original to Matthew's modification and Luke's alteration.

[Miss Hepburn]

Good research and good thinking, guys.
Can't give any more reps or would....didn't know there is a LIMIT
in a 24 hr period....geeze.

[perry335654]

Hey Joseph!!!!!! There I mentioned him in place of Mark, I gave him a break, a lot of names to remember

[thrillobyte]

Originally Posted by whoppers

There's an important piece of information missing from the discussion: that Mark was written before Matthew and Luke and supplied them with their main text. For some reason, Matthew and Luke altered the tradition of Jesus being a woodworker.


It's also helpful to see that both the authors of Matthew and Luke handle the "problem" of Jesus' occupation in different ways. Jesus was called a tekton in the Gospel of Mark, which is not as specific an occupation as "carpenter", but is better translated as "wood-worker". This occupation was not really a glorious one, for sure, and probably involved making yokes and plows in the very small village in which Jesus supposedly lived. This doesn't mean that he didn't do other things, just that the majority of his wood-working would have consisted of this, in my opinion. Mark does not seem to have a problem with this in his tradition, as he writes:

"Is this fellow not the woodworker?" (Mark)

For whatever reason, and perhaps because they felt that the Messiah should not have such a lowly occupation, Matthew and Luke both change this passage and eliminate the problem -but in different ways:

"Is this fellow not the son of the woodworker?" (Matthew)

"Is this fellow not the son of Joseph?" (Luke)

So this might give us a better clue as to why the tradition changed, possibly. I personally think it had more to do with Jesus' lowly occupation than with anything to do with his paternity. The occupation was simply given to his father, and Luke removed it altogether. Matthew and Luke both changed various things that they thought would hurt the image of Jesus - this is not the only instance.

Yes, this goes to my supposition that the Jesus we know today from Matthew, Luke and John is most likely a complete fabrication from the real Jesus that walked Palestine.

Remember that the church leaders in the 30-40 years after His death were trying to "sell' a new religion to the people and at the center of this religion was a pretty un-unique, un-glamorous prophet with no special abilities other than to perform some miracles, which the Jews had already seen from numerous prophets like Elijah and Elisha and Jonah, etc. Jesus somehow needed to be "deified" and this need was not lost on Matthew, Luke and John, who readily supplied the fulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament (nothing about this in Mark), statements by Jesus that hinted His Deity (nothing about this in Mark) and other pertinent "fabrications" to form a totally new image of Jesus apart from that presented in Mark. It's almost like what image-makers do today to turn a Justin Bieber from a cute kid on YouTube into a teeniebopper superstar of the rock world---you have to "glamorize" his image; go anywhere from a little tweaking here and there to a major overhaul.

This is evident in technicolor between the gospel of Mark and the gospels of Matthew, Luke and John. Jesus undergoes this complete radical redo from practically itinerant non-God wandering preacher, possibly a little crazy to Jesus Christ Superstar, human-God Deity, second person of the Trinity. The dress-up is almost startling between Mark and John and you can see it happening in stages in the next three gospels. And this new Jesus apparently was glamorous enough to catch the fancy of the crowds because once combined with Paul's writings Christianity began to catch on, though it was still a minor-league player until Constantine hit a home run and made it the official religion of the Roman empire. Without that one act we might all be Muslims today.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by thrillobyte

Yes, this goes to my supposition that the Jesus we know today from Matthew, Luke and John is most likely a complete fabrication from the real Jesus that walked Palestine.

Remember that the church leaders in the 30-40 years after His death were trying to "sell' a new religion to the people and at the center of this religion was a pretty un-unique, un-glamorous prophet with no special abilities other than to perform some miracles, which the Jews had already seen from numerous prophets like Elijah and Elisha and Jonah, etc. Jesus somehow needed to be "deified" and this need was not lost on Matthew, Luke and John, who readily supplied the fulfilled prophecies of the Old Testament (nothing about this in Mark), statements by Jesus that hinted His Deity (nothing about this in Mark) and other pertinent "fabrications" to form a totally new image of Jesus apart from that presented in Mark. It's almost like what image-makers do today to turn a Justin Bieber from a cute kid on YouTube into a teeniebopper superstar of the rock world---you have to "glamorize" his image; go anywhere from a little tweaking here and there to a major overhaul.

This is evident in technicolor between the gospel of Mark and the gospels of Matthew, Luke and John. Jesus undergoes this complete radical redo from practically itinerant non-God wandering preacher, possibly a little crazy to Jesus Christ Superstar, human-God Deity, second person of the Trinity. The dress-up is almost startling between Mark and John and you can see it happening in stages in the next three gospels. And this new Jesus apparently was glamorous enough to catch the fancy of the crowds because once combined with Paul's writings Christianity began to catch on, though it was still a minor-league player until Constantine hit a home run and made it the official religion of the Roman empire. Without that one act we might all be Muslims today.

Yes, indeed - I think you've hit the nail on the head concerning the drastic change that Matthew and Luke, and Paul as well, enacted in turning Jesus into Christ.

[Vizio]

Wow!


Wait.....so what?