Family Background
Apart from the infancy stories,2 which in any case inject an element of doubt into the issue of paternity, the name of the father of Jesus appears only in Luke and in a variant reading in Matthew.
‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’3
‘Is he not [Joseph] the carpenter’s son?’4
The same passage contains also the Greek form of his mother’s name, Maria or Mariam, and (unless the reader’s judgement is affected by the later belief in the perpetual virginity of Mary) the names of his four brothers, Jacob, Joseph, Judah and Simon, and mention of his several sisters.5
The main Gospel, as opposed to the birth stories in Matthew and Luke, does not state where Jesus was born. If anything, it implies that his birthplace was Nazareth, the unimportant little Galilean locality where he and his parents lived. The only indirect evidence on his date of birth is concealed in the verse describing him as being of about thirty years of age when John baptized him in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius, probably in AD 28/29.6
Although several women were included in his group during his ministry, no wife is ever mentioned. He does not seem to have left one behind at home, as he advised his would-be disciples to do,7 or as did certain mature Jewish ascetics, the Therapeutae, according to Philo of Alexandria.8 The Gospels do not depict him as a widower either, so one is to assume that he was unmarried, a custom unusual but not unheard of among Jews in his time, as will be shown in a later chapter.9
Jesus the Carpenter
His secular profession remains uncertain. Tradition has it that he was a carpenter and learned his trade from his father, but this on the fragile evidence that after his first and last sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth, the townsfolk could not understand how ‘the carpenter’,10 or ‘the carpenter’s son’,11 could have acquired such great wisdom. Was he a carpenter himself, or was he only the son of a carpenter? The confused state of the Greek text of the Gospels usually indicates either (a) a doctrinal difficulty thought by some to demand rewording; or (b) the existence of a linguistic problem in the expression in Hellenistic terms of something typically Jewish. Here the second alternative applies. The congregation in the synagogue voices astonishment.
‘Where does he get it from?’ ‘What wisdom is this . . . ?’
‘Is not this the carpenter/the son of the carpenter . . . ?’12
Now those familiar with the language spoken by Jesus are acquainted with a metaphorical use of ‘carpenter’ and ‘carpenter’s son’ in ancient Jewish writings.13 In Talmudic sayings the Aramaic noun denoting carpenter or craftsman (naggar) stands for a ‘scholar’ or ‘learned man’.
This is something that no carpenter, son of carpenters, can explain.14
There is no carpenter, nor a carpenter’s son, to explain it.15
Thus, although no one can be absolutely sure that the sayings cited in the Talmud were current already in first-century AD Galilee, proverbs such as these are likely to be age-old. If so, it is possible that the charming picture of ‘Jesus the carpenter’ may have to be buried and forgotten.16
Jesus the Exorcist
Whatever he did to earn a living before he entered public life, the New Testament record leaves no room for doubt that during his ministry Jesus practised no secular profession but devoted himself exclusively to religious activities. The Synoptists are unanimous in presenting him as an exorcist, healer and teacher. They also emphasize that the deepest impression made by Jesus on his contemporaries resulted from his mastery over devils and disease, and the magnetic power of his preaching. He is claimed to have once defined his mission in the following words:
‘Today and tomorrow I shall be casting out devils and working cures; on the third day I reach my goal.’17
In Galilee, such was definitely his main occupation.
They brought to him all who were ill or possessed by devils . . . He healed many who suffered from various diseases, and drove out many devils.18
So all through Galilee he went . . . casting out the devils.19
In addition to these summary references, the Synoptists list six particular episodes involving exorcism. Four of them, the only ones to appear in Mark, describe as demonic possession what seems to have been mental or nervous illness. The Gerasene demoniac was a dangerous madman who walked about naked, repeatedly wounded himself, and had to be kept on a chain.20 The boy whose devil the disciples were unable to cast out was an epileptic and possibly a deaf-mute.21 The man exorcised in the synagogue of Capernaum shrieked and was seized by convulsions.22 More vaguely, the daughter of the Tyrian woman was tormented whilst possessed, but lay peacefully on her bed after her unclean spirit had been expelled.23
In two other instances, unrecorded in Mark and possibly a double narration of the same story, possession is seen as the cause of dumbness, or of dumbness and blindness combined.24 The twelve apostles of Jesus,25 as well as his seventy (or seventy-two) disciples, are also portrayed as generally successful exorcists,26 and to John’s great indignation, even a non-disciple was once seen to cast out devils in the name of Jesus.27
Contrary to Jewish folk medicine,28 the Gospels know nothing of a ritual of exorcism. The actual expulsion is described four times and, with the exception of the one effected in absentia by a mere declaration,29 always follows a direct command:
‘Be silent!’30
‘Out, unclean spirit, come out of this man!’31
‘Deaf and dumb spirit, I command you, come out of him and never go back!’32
The last example is the only instance in which the devil is ordered to stay away permanently and not to return when its desert exile becomes too unbearable.33 Does this imply that in the other cases, to employ contemporary psychiatric jargon, there was merely a temporary remission? It ought to be mentioned at this juncture that the psychiatrist whom I have consulted on the question whether most of the diseases exorcised or healed in the New Testament could be recognized as hysterical, after giving a qualified affirmative reply, wished to know the success rate of the treatment and the state of health of the patients six months after discharge!
The story of the demon called ‘Legion’ who sought to bargain with Jesus and obtained a comparatively light sentence (a transfer into the local herd of pigs) may sound extraordinary, but is not unparalleled in ancient Jewish literature, as will appear later.34 Another curious Gospel feature deserves to be pinpointed here: the excellence of the demonic intelligence service.35 In the temptation story, Satan challenges Jesus to prove that he is ‘the son of God’;36 his underlings are afraid of Jesus, knowing that he is ‘the holy one of God’,37 ‘the son of God’38 and the ‘son of the Most High’.39
Jesus the Healer
It is not always easy to draw the line between exorcism and healing in the Gospels, but for practical purposes the most
