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Introduction

Thomas L. Thompson
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Thomas S. Verenna
Affiliation:
Rutgers University
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Summary

He left there and came to his homeland, accompanied by his disciples. On the Sabbath, he began to teach in the synagogue and many who heard him wondered, saying, ‘Where did all this come from? What wisdom has been given him and what great things are done with his hands! Is this not the carpenter, Mary's son, brother to James, Joses, Judas and Simon? Aren't his sisters here with us?’ They were offended by him, as Jesus told them that a prophet did not go unrecognized except in his homeland, among his relatives and in his own house. And he was unable to do any great deed there, except that he laid his hands on some of the sick and healed them, while wondering over their mistrust.

(Mk 6:1-6; variants: Mt. 13:53-58; Lk. 4:16-30; Jn 4:44-46)

Mark's story brings together two central but distinct sayings of Jesus, each of which has a significant, thematically driven, sub-motif. The first embodies our title: ‘Is this not the carpenter?’, with its subordinate leitmotif of hands doing wonders, significantly emphasized in the story's conclusion wherein hands are laid on some of the sick to heal them. The other saying is Jesus' complaint that a prophet is unrecognized in his own home town, and the corresponding anger and dissonance that this provokes. These distinct thematic elements are treated independently in the variants of this story we find in the other Gospels.

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Is This Not the Carpenter?
The Question of the Historicity of the Figure of Jesus
, pp. 1 - 24
Publisher: Acumen Publishing
Print publication year: 2012

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