The Gospel in the Common Lectionary for next Sunday (Trinity III) in the Church of England is Mark 6:1-13.
In Mark 6:3 there is an important question from the crowd in Nazareth, but in different manuscripts of the Gospel it occurs in two forms:
The form which could cause offence is: "Is not this the carpenter the son of Mary.?" And the form which causes no particular offence is: "Is not this the son of the carpenter and of Mary.?"
Most English translations follow the first of these possibilities as being used by the more important collection of manuscripts.
However, the well known Church Father, Origen, in his treatise "Against Celsus" VI.36, strongly asserts that in none of the Gospels is Jesus called a carpenter. Thus the copies of the Gospels which he had contained only the second of the possibilities, that Jesus is the son of a Carpenter and also of Mary.
The parallel text of Matthew 13:55 provides the question in this form: "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary?." Here there is neither an assertion or denial that Jesus was a carpenter; and significantly Jesus is not called "son of Mary."
To call Jesus "son of Mary" is very strange in a Jewish context where a boy was said to be the son of his father. It is possible that the designation as "son of Mary" is an indication that there was rumour or knowledge in Nazareth that Joseph was not the biological father of Jesus. In other words this is an indirect reference to the virginal conception of Jesus by Mary.
Further, in the ancient world to describe someone as a carpenter, a manual worker, was to confine them to the lower orders of society, from where great teachers, prophets and leaders did not arise. To be the son of and to rise above the station of manual worker was fine, but to be a manual work was not fine.
It seems highly probable that what Mark originally wrote was "carpenter, son of Mary" for this was the truth of the matter. Jesus did have a manual trade and he did not have a biological human father. It also seems that Matthew - aware of the feelings in Judaism and the Gentile world - softened the original Marcan words to make them more palatable. Further, it seems that some copyists of Mark's Gospel adjusted the original Marcan words to conform to what was in Matthew.
To assert that Jesus had not been trained in the rabbinic schools but had worked as a carpenter is to take him off the map of respectability!
To assert that he had no biological human father is to raise all kinds of suspicions about his identity!
But if it be true that Jesus was a manual worker and that he had no biological father then these facts must be asserted as part of the doctrine of the Incarnation, wherein the Son of God not only took human nature but also became a servant , for us and for our salvation.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.)
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