Note 8 — Chapter XV · THE METHOD OF M. LOISY

The whole “carpenter” story, in which M. Loisy sees no difficulty, is one of the weakest of the Gospel attempts at circumstantiality. A trade or calling for the Messiah, as a true Jew, was perhaps as requisite in the eyes of some Jews as either a Davidic descent or an argument to prove that Davidic descent was for the Messiah unnecessary—both of which requirements the Gospels meet. Every good Jew, we are told, was required to have a handicraft or profession. A “Ben-Joseph,” again, was called-for to meet the requirement, common among the Samaritans but not confined to them, of a Messiah so named.8 But how came it that “the carpenter” of Mark is only “the carpenter’s son” in Matthew? We can conceive the Gentilizing Luke putting both statements aside as ill-suited to his purpose, his Jesus being a God competing with Gentile Gods; but if there really was an early knowledge that Jesus was a carpenter, why should Matthew minimize it? And how came it that Origen9 knew of no Gospel “current in the churches” in which Jesus was described as a carpenter?