Blue-Collar Blindspot: Christ as Carpenter, Examining how the LXX translates the Hebrew

The Christian tradition has always taught Jesus was a carpenter by vocation. For a while now there has been an undercurrent in Christian literature to subvert this and try to assert that Jesus was any of a myriad of other things: unskilled day laborer1, small businessman2, stone mason3, or even trained rabbi4. While I don’t think we should take every church tradition at face value, we should have solid evidence if we are going to throw them out. I do not think any of these other options have a strong linguistic or evidential basis supporting them. Let's start with what it says in the scripture itself.

[This is an excerpt from my book, The Blue-Collar Blindspot in it I dig deep into how Christian Media tacitly ignores blue-collar workers and the dignity of human work. I’ll be posting more each week till I’m through the whole book.]

The Greek word τέκτων5 is the one we need to understand if we want a clear idea of Jesus's vocation. Every major translation of the bible has a team of around a hundred scholars who fight and argue over every word. They want to make sure each word is translated as accurately as possible. Each and every major Bible translation6 renders τέκτων as 'carpenter'. The meaning of τέκτων is not quite this open and shut, but this is worth pointing out.

I wanted to get a better understanding of τέκτων , so I looked through every single use of the word in the Bible and the Apocrypha; and how other contemporary Greek writers from around the time of the New Testament used it. I read the larger context and broke down every word of every sentence, every time τέκτων was used. The goal was to see how it was used, so that we can better understand what an ancient writer had in mind when they wrote the word τέκτων.

In the Gospels, Matthew calls Jesus’s dad, Joseph, a τέκτων, and Mark calls Jesus a τέκτων. Both sentences lack any context clues about what a τέκτων is or does. The goal of both Apostles was to communicate clearly and have the common people understand their words. The meaning in Greek should be apparent to either a Hebrew or gentile audience.

If the meaning of τέκτων was ambiguous, why wouldn’t they use a more specific word to clarify? There are several different Greek words for 'stone mason' and 'general craftsman.' By not giving us any context clues, this leads us to think the word is common and its meaning is not easily misunderstood. There are other times in the Bible when both authors inform their audience about an uncommon word, practice, or tradition. Each time, they go out of their way to describe it. 7

It seems like the meaning of τέκτων should be obvious to anyone familiar with the word. Let’s look at its most common use.

The oldest (that we know of) and most common translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek is called the Septuagint. Most scholars date it back to around 300BC. The New Testament quotes the Septuagint more than 300 times. Matthew quotes from it six times and Mark uses it three times. It’s clear the Septuagint was commonly read by first century Jews. Their use of the word τέκτων, is going to be similar to how the Septuagint uses the word.

Τέκτων shows up in the Septuagint 32 times. Because the Septuagint is a Greek translation from the Hebrew, it helps to know the Hebrew word that the Septuagint's translators used for τέκτων. חָרָשׁ8 is a Hebrew word that means craftsman, or artisan.9 It usually includes a material the craftsman would work in, for example: “an artisan of stone,” or, “a craftsman of iron.” Some passages treat the words חָרָשׁ and τέκτων as interchangeable, but τέκτων and חָרָשׁ aren't always equal.

There are four different Hebrew words for 'mason,' two words for 'laborer,' and a single word for 'smelter.' Not once are any of these words translated as τέκτων. The translators mainly use τέκτων for a חָרָשׁ of wood. Once they use it for חָרָשׁ of stone, once for a חָרָשׁ of iron, and once for a חָרָשׁ of good or evil (as a metaphor). There are 22 times (out of 32 total) that a τέκτων is someone who works with wood and uses an axe.

Almost every time the Septuagint uses“חָרָשׁ of stone”, the translator uses one of four Greek words that mean 'stone mason'. The same goes for חָרָשׁ of iron, τέκτων is only used once; every other time the Septuagint uses a specific Greek word for 'smelter'. When you run the numbers, more than two-thirds of the time, τέκτων means 'a guy who makes stuff out of wood with an axe.'

While I was doing this research, I noticed something: not one of these references was from Nehemiah. The Book of Nehemiah is about the Hebrews coming back from exile and rebuilding the city wall of Jerusalem. That is one decent-sized book about building a massive stone structure, and there is not one use of the word τέκτων within it. Given the numbers, it seems pretty reasonable to think that when τέκτων shows up in the Septuagint, it means 'a carpenter' unless there are clues to the contrary right next to it.

[This is an excerpt from my book, The Blue-Collar Blindspot in it I dig deep into how Christian Media tacitly ignores blue-collar workers and the dignity of human work. I’ll be posting more each week till I’m through the whole book.]

If you’re interested in assessing your ministry or outreach, to know how blue-collar friendly it is, just pick up my free Ministry Assessment Tool it will allow you gauge what color your collar is and give tailored advice based on your score.

1Martin, James. “Op-Ed: How Can You Be Christian without Caring for the Poor?” Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 21 Dec. 2017, www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-martin-throwaway-holy-family-20171221-story.html.

2Novak, Michael. “For Catholics, The Vocation Of Business Is The Main Hope For The World's Poor.” Michael Novak, Michael Novak, 7 Mar. 2014, www.michaelnovak.net/news/for-catholics-the-vocation-of-business-is-the-main-hope-for-the-worlds-poor?rq=vocation of business.

3Galatty, Robby. “The Forgotten Jesus Part 2: Was Jesus a Carpenter or a Stonemason?” LifeWay Leadership, 26 Sept. 2018, leadership.lifeway.com/2017/04/04/the-forgotten-jesus-part-2-was-jesus-a-carpenter-or-a-stonemason/.

4Jesus the Jew, by Vermès Géza, SCM, 2001, pp. 28.

5Pronounced: TEK-tone

6KJV, NKJV, NLT, NIV, NASB, ESV, RSV, ASV, and the NET

7Matthew 1:22, 27:46, Mark 7:2, 11, 34, 15:42

8Pronounced: ha-RASH

9"H2796 - charash - Strong's Hebrew Lexicon (KJV)." Blue Letter Bible. Web. 29 Aug, 2020. <https://www.blueletterbible.org//lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H2796&t=KJV>.