What Was Jesus' Earthly Inheritance?

What Did Jesus Own?

Other than at his birth and at his temple visit as a 12-year-old, Jesus' life before his baptism was relatively unremarkable. When he returned to Nazareth in the summer of AD 27 and spoke in the synagogue, the villagers said, "Isn't this just Joseph's son?" And when he returned again in the fall of AD 28, they doubled down on their doubt: "Isn't this the carpenter's son? Doesn't his family live right here? Where did this [ordinary] man get all this knowledge and power?" (Luke 4:22, Matthew 13:55).

So if Jesus led an ordinary life up to age 33 or so, what could he have acquired as possessions from his employment as a construction worker (carpenter)? His adoptive father Joseph has died, so what was Jesus' inheritance?

Out of a family of 7 or 8 children, James, the oldest step-brother, was due a double portion of the inheritance according to the customs of the land. In this case that meant that James would have inherited the family house, quite a grand place considering that it was owned and maintained by a professional carpenter. But James moved to Jerusalem after Jesus' death, and never married, meaning that the house would have fallen to younger brothers Joseph Junior and Simon.  Jude, the youngest, inherited the 29-acre plot of farmland that the family owned. We know this from history, which tells us that Jude's grandsons were still working the land sixty year later. For Jesus' two or three stepsisters, their share of the family wealth would have consisted of the dowry they took with them when they got married.

So what was left  for Jesus? I have some suggestions.

From the tale of Jesus' visit to Jerusalem at age 12, we know that he held an avid interest in the Hebrew scriptures, and was able to ask challenging questions about them. If we look at his preaching career, we know that Jesus was especially familiar with the book of the prophet Isaiah. This was a massive tome, which required a whole flock of goats slaughtered to have enough parchment to produce a single copy of the work.

Could Joseph have owned a copy of Isaiah? This would have been a costly and most precious possession. If so, Joseph would have certainly willed it and any other scrolls to his adoptive son Jesus, who had received powerful prophecies when he was an infant. Joseph would have had an active role in teaching Jesus about all the Hebrew scriptures. As Jesus grew taller and wiser, he apparently surpassed his father in the understanding of scripture, especially the book of Isaiah.

Most of those who learned to read Scripture would have been taught in the synagogue. No self-respecting synagogue would have been without copies of the five books of Moses. But for the small village of Nazareth, with maybe 200 residents, they may have had little more. Still, it was not impossible that they would have possessed the books of Isaiah and other prophets, for much of the property of these synagogues could have come from rich benefactors.

Here is an idea of how massive these scrolls can be. In this modern synagogue, this is probably a complete scroll of the five books of Moses, although it could also be the scroll of Isaiah.

In the summer of AD 27, when Jesus was handed the scroll of Isaiah, he went directly to the passage he had in mind, in a book with which he was well familiar. (It is also possible that the passage to be read was preassigned according to a yearly calendar of readings.)

This image gives a good idea of how large the synagogue may have been in the village of Nazareth.

When Philip met the Ethiopian on the road back to his queen Candace, It was the scroll of Isaiah from which he was reading. This was a precious possession, and it may have been the sole purpose of his journey to purchase and bring back such a scroll. Perhaps it was intended for the use of the queen, or for a synagogue in Ethiopia. It may also have been purchased for the use of the Ethiopian servant himself, who wanted to learn from its ancient teachings.

And so here is what one of those ancient copies of Isaiah really looked like. This is the Great Isaiah Scroll (known technically as 1QIsa), copied sometime between 150 and 100 BC. It is the best preserved and most complete of the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered in the mid-20th century. It is 1,100 years older than the best copy that was used to produce our Bibles today, and has only minor differences from the newer one, the Leningrad Codex, which is bound in book format.

The Scroll is written on 7 sheets of parchment sewn together, and is 24 feet long and 11 inches tall. Seven facsimile copies have been made, computer-printed onto actual parchment. I had the privilege of studying one of those copies, and looked for the appearance of the passage that Jesus read: Isaiah 61:1-2a.

This is Cave One of the several caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered and retrieved primarily between 1946 and 1956. This overlooks the Dead Sea, and the Essene village of Qumran is near here.

This is the Shrine of the Book in Israel, which was built to display the Great Isaiah Scroll. However, some deterioration in the scroll was noted due to its exposure to light. One of the seven facsimile copies is on display there now.

The Great Isaiah Scroll

And this is the complete Great Isaiah Scroll, one of the most beloved treasures of the Jewish faith.

If Jesus owned such a treasure, he gave it to John son of Zebedee when, from the cross, he assigned to John the responsibility of Jesus to care for his mother.

But Jesus owns a greater treasure. Jesus' earthly possession is the "called-out-assembly" of his holy people--the church. He purchased it with his blood. It is his possession forever, and can never be taken away from him.

Post #72