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Ian Jones shares a craftsman's insights into what Joseph's life might have been like as a carpenter in 1st century Palestine.
Joseph’s Workshop
Joseph’s Workshop
I was trying to imagine what Joseph’s workshop must have looked like at the point he and Mary upped-sticks and headed for Bethlehem. Joseph was after all a professional carpenter, making a living from maybe a 12 hour, 5 or 6 day a week occupation.
Carpentry and metalwork skills were well advanced by Joseph’s era. In Isaiah 41:7 we read, “The craftsman encourages the goldsmith, and he who wields the hammer cheers him who strikes the anvil, saying of the soldering, "It is good." He nails it down so it will not be toppled.” In Isaiah 44:13 we also read, “The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in human form, human form in all its glory, that it may dwell in a shrine.” In 1 Kings 6:31-35, we read just part of the description of Solomon’s Temple for the Lord, “For the entrance to the inner sanctuary he made doors out of olive wood that were one fifth of the width of the sanctuary. 32 And on the two olive-wood doors he carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers, and overlaid the cherubim and palm trees with hammered gold. 33 In the same way, for the entrance to the main hall he made door frames out of olive wood that were one fourth of the width of the hall. 34 He also made two doors out of juniper wood, each having two leaves that turned in sockets. 35 He carved cherubim, palm trees and open flowers on them and overlaid them with gold hammered evenly over the carvings.”
Ancient Egyptian drawings dating back to 2000BC depict beds, chairs, tools, tables, and chests, with tools such as bowsaws, bow drills, chisels, axes, adzes, pull saws in use producing high quality carpentry fit for a pharaoh. Skills, tools and techniques must have transferred to the exiled Israelites and so it’s probably a good guess to say that Joseph would have had a good set of tools and the knowledge to use them, passed down from father to son. He might have had an order book looking like the following:
I guess that when Mary and Joseph returned with Jesus via several months or more in Egypt avoiding Herod’s wrath, there were few things left in their house and thinking they were dead, others may even have occupied it. Joseph would most probably have had to start all over again, creating a workshop and making many of his tools. He would have had to rebuild his list of clients, maybe in competition with another carpenter, and his family may not have been popular, having possibly the only male child of his age in Bethlehem, following Herod’s murder of male children under 2 years old.
Although probably much older than Mary, Joseph certainly lived for perhaps another 10 years or so, still being around when unbeknown to him and Mary, their son didn’t return with the party coming back from Passover celebrations in Jerusalem. In that time, he might have continued to work in cedar, juniper, or olive wood, making ploughs, tables, chairs, doors, staircases, chests, bowls etc to a standard of construction that may not have changed for 1500 years thereafter and in doing so, passing on his skills to his son, Jesus and maybe Jesus’ younger brothers. How fascinating it would be to time-travel back to that workshop and observe his skills in motion.
References:
The Bible: New International Version.
Journeyman’s Journal - Ancient tools & History of Woodworking – Journeyman's Journal (wordpress.com)
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