Mark 6:3

Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary, and brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended in him.

The carpenter ... From this it is clear that our Lord was himself a carpenter, as was Joseph; and we reject the allegation that Matthew "softened" this by recording "carpenter's son," as if the latter was in some manner more complimentary to Jesus than the fact of his being a carpenter. The snobbery of the critics in such a view shows.

As a matter of fact, Mark's words here contain elements which actually add to the glory of Jesus' name. As Barclay noted:

The word used for "carpenter" is [@tekton], meaning not a mere worker in wood. It means "a craftsman", more than merely a joiner. In Homer the [@tekton] is said to build ships and houses and temples.[3]

The English, word "technician" comes from the same root; thus the villagers' slur unintentionally glorified Jesus as the Master Workman. Chrysostom said that our Lord made plows and yokes, and certainly Jesus referred to both in his teachings (Luke 9:62; Matthew 11:29).

As Barclay said, "They despised Jesus because he was a working man."[4] In this attitude, the citizens of Nazareth were guilty; but they were not any more guilty than the scholars who suppose that Matthew tried to cover up the scandal that Jesus was a carpenter. The imputation of such an attitude to Matthew is an anachronism in which the current prejudice against people who work with their hands is retrogressively attributed to the holy apostle of Jesus Christ. Jesus was both a carpenter and the son of a carpenter, being, of course, the legal son of Joseph.

The true reason for Mark's reference to "carpenter," as distinguished from Matthew's "son of a carpenter," lies in the obvious fact that the villagers freely gossiped about the Lord, using both expressions; and Mark, writing in 65-70 A.D., at a time when Joseph was dead, and having omitted from his narrative the record of the virgin birth of our Lord, consciously selected the particular form of the villagers' gossip which could not have been construed as a denial of that essential tenet of Christianity. Matthew, on the other hand, writing at a much earlier date than Mark (44 A.D.), and having fully spelled out the particulars of the virgin birth, and having also as his objective the establishment of Jesus' right of kingship over Israel (a right that depended upon his legal sonship of Joseph) found it more natural to record the common gossip of Nazareth in its other form. There is no way to deny that the gossip existed in both forms as recorded by Mark and Matthew.

The son of Mary ... To solve the problem of this reference by supposing the villagers thought Jesus was "illegitimate"[5] is ridiculous, there being no true evidence that they ever made such a charge; they also called him "the carpenter's son" on this very occasion (Matthew 13:55). Matthew recorded the villagers' mention of BOTH his parents (as they supposed). Mark's record of only this part of their gossip was in all probability for the purpose of stressing the virgin birth. Even if there had been some intended reflection on the legitimacy of Jesus by the villagers, which we cannot see at all, then it would only mean that the wrath of man was praising God; for Jesus WAS the "Son of Mary," the promised "seed of woman" (Genesis 3:15). Likewise, Cranfield saw this as "an important piece of evidence in support of the historicity of the virgin birth."[6]

Brother of James, and Joses, etc. ... The natural way of understanding this is as a reference to the actual brothers of Jesus, sons of Joseph and Mary after Jesus was born. Devices such as making these the sons of Joseph by a previous marriage, or the "cousins" of Jesus, are mistaken efforts to sustain the myth regarding the "perpetual virginity of Mary," the latter being unscriptural and even anti-Scriptural. Christ was the "first-born" son of Mary (Luke 2:7) and "the only begotten Son of God." Why "first-born" if she had no other children? As Halley said, "There would never have been any other meaning read into these passages, except for the desire to exalt celibacy as a holier form of life."[7]

His sisters ... Matthew recorded, "Are they not all with us?" And from this it is clear that there were at least three sisters of Jesus. The word "all" could not have referred to just two.

And they were offended in him ... They rejected Jesus as being any more wise or able than themselves, the judgment being a moral one rather than an intellectual one. As is always true, it was their sins which blinded their eyes to the Lord (John 3:17-19).

[3] William Barclay, The Gospel of Mark (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), p. 138.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Earle McMillan, The Gospel according to Mark (Austin: R. B. Sweet Publishing Company, 1973), p 76.

[6] C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (Cambridge: University Press, 1966), p. 195.

[7] Henry H. Halley, Halley's Bible Handbook (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), p. 383.