What Did Jesus Do Before he was 30?
Was Jesus a Carpenter?
The Gospel of Mark, in the words of one of Jesus' detractors, calls Jesus a tekton: "Is this not the tekton, the son of Mary?" (Mark 6:3). The Gospel of Matthew is more precise: "Is this not the tekton's son?" (Mark 13:55). A third century church father wrote that Joseph was a maker of plows and yokes, so Joseph's customers would have been farmers. Jesus would have learned Joseph's trade at the side of his adopted father.
The King James Version translates this word as "carpenter," but a more literal translation is "builder." Tektons were construction technicians working in stone and wood. Jesus shows familiarity with the principles of construction in one of his parables (Matthew 7:24-27). If you build a house on the sand, you are just waiting for the first storm to come along and knock it down. But if you give it a good foundation with rock, it will withstand the storm.
Was Jesus a Farmer?
Around small villages the like of Nazareth, the residents would own fields they would work part time to grow crops. This was dry farming, and almost all the work was done around planting time and harvesting time. There is evidence that the family of Joseph did indeed own a plot of farmland outside Nazareth, and if so, Jesus would have certainly helped with the planting and harvesting.
The church historian Eusebius includes a story from his sources of a confrontation between Zoker and James, and the dominion of the realm of Roman emperor Domitian. These two men are the grandsons of Jude, who was the youngest brother of Jesus. They had been accused of plotting the overthrow of the Roman Empire by the little-known sect of Christians.
Zoker and James pleaded with the government representative that they were poor farmers who had but little money and what they had consisted of the value of 29 acres of land, which can safely be assumed to be located in Palestine. Scholar and Professor Richard Bauckham says, "Their farm was no doubt the inherited family property, which may have remained in possession of the family," and is probably a good indicator of "Jesus' own socio-economic background."
Zoker and James admitted that Jesus was coming back to take over the world, but that it would not happen until Jesus returned with the clouds of heaven. The two men were highly regarded by the church after this incident, for the way in which they had stood up to the Roman Empire and had been acquitted as guiltless.
Jesus shows extensive familiarity with dry farming in his Parable of the Sower and the Soils. He uses it to show what happens when seed is sown into less-than-ideal soil and compares that with the word of the Gospel told to less-than-ready hearers of the word (Mark 4:1-20).
Was Jesus a Shepherd?
If the family of Jesus were construction workers, their best income sources would be the many building projects going on in Galilee, especially the growing city of Sepphoris quite near to Nazareth. Rather than keep animals such as goats for milk, they may have traded services for their milk with other residents of the town. They would certainly not have a large herd of sheep.
However, it was traditional for young boys to help with tending flocks of sheep, and it is quite possible that young Jesus spent a summer or two hired out to one of the local shepherds. By observation he would have learned that the sheep in the flock knew the voice of their own shepherd, and would have little regard for the voice of a stranger (John 10:2-5).
If Jesus took up any of these trades, they gained him little acclaim or notoriety in the annals of history. But there is one incident when young Jesus did indeed gain both acclaim and notoriety:
Was Jesus a Student of Scripture?
At the age of Twelve, Jesus stayed behind in the Jerusalem temple talking with the teachers of Scripture, and they were amazed at his understanding and his answers, as he both listened and asked questions. This need not have been the same lessons that Jesus preached at the age of Thirty, but they were certainly beyond what was expected from a twelve-year-old.
If Jesus' mother had told him about the astounding events surrounding his birth, and the prophecies that had been given over him, this would have aroused his curiosity to learn even more from the Scriptures. If he indeed was the one who would bring salvation, what did the Scriptures say about this salvation-bringer?
Jesus' occupation, whenever he had the time, was to dive into the Scriptures and learn. Although he attended no recognized school for Scripture, Joseph must have provided him with important scrolls, such as the Book of Isaiah. Or perhaps the little synagogue in Nazareth had a rich library of scrolls, and he was allowed access to them.
Jesus' job was to know and proclaim the Gospel of the salvation he was to bring.
