aa5874

Jesus spoke in Aramaic? How could that be?

Toto

The discussion of Aramaic is getting a little off topic. Please feel free to start a new thread if you want to discuss the Aramaic question [again].

kcdad

He was a Jew, presumably, which means if he was farmer he was a landowner. If he was a laborer on someone else's farm, he would not have been called a farmer. He would have been called a laborer.

DCHindley

But he wasn't called a "farmer," but "son of a tekton (artisan)." Some peasants (your "farmers") would also work as part time tektons, as would those who had abandoned farming for life as itinerant artisans in the towns and cities.

You will find it unbelievably hard to show that private landholding existed among Jews of Judea or especially in a client kingdom. Land ownership is an emotionally charged issue, and this is reflected in the researches of various scholars. The evidence is contradictory and the terms by which Judeans held rights to land seem to have varied from period to period. Judea and Galilee had been conquered by the Persians and then the Macedonian Greeks. In each case, the conquered land became the legal property of the conquering king. Like Vespasian did upon conquering Judea, the Royal land was let out to tenant farmers. Only the elite classes, who administered the conquered land for that king, received gift land, and even that was conditional, and they also leased it to tenants. The best that could be said was that until its destruction, either Jerusalem or the Jewish temple had land granted to it, which was administered in the traditional manner. The traditional manner was to allot land to the people by tribe, not individual. IIRC, Josephus calls the relationship of the individual farmers to the temple a kind of lease (but I am having trouble locating this reference).

DCH

Lenski, Gerhard E., Power & Privilege: A Theory of Social Stratification (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1966;1984)

Kautsky, John H., The Politics of Aristocratic Empires (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1982)

Ste. Criox, G. E. M. de, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1981)

Habel, Norman C., The Land is Mine: Six Biblical Land Ideologies (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1995)

Pastor, Jack, Land and Economy in Ancient Palestine (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1997) ($115! Make a photocopy)

Fiensy, David A., The Social History of Palestine in the Herodian Period (or via: amazon.co.uk) (1991) ($109! Ditto)

Julio

Did I write that? Don't remember, sorry [...?]

kcdad

OK... now what is an artisan? Is it a laborer? Is it a tiller of the soil? Masonry, carpentry, clothier, potter... what else?

spamandham

It's someone who originates things. It *can* be a carpenter, but it also can be a blacksmith, a mason, a sculptor, an architect, an author, or even a spiritual entity through whom the world was fashioned by his divine father.

kcdad

how "metaphysical" of you... I am thinking the peasants around Nazareth were referring to Jesus' "spiritual entity" when they called him the son of an artisan.

spamandham

You are starting with the assumption that there is a historical core to the Gospels.

kcdad

Wrong. I started with the presumption that the writings exist... I then take into consideration that a lot more writings have existed and still do that are not in accord with or included in the Canon. So I am led to the conclusion that they are based on something someone somewhere experienced and wish to record in writing... could be a dream, a political satire, a comedy, a religious revelation or historical event.
You apparently have started with your presumptions... what were they?

let's try not to be so Rush Limbaugh-Bill O'Reilly and be serious and stay away from black and white conclusions...