Galilee: a critical matrix for Marian studies

Theological Studies, June, 2009 by Elizabeth A. Johnson

As the wife of a village tekton, the Greek word used in the Gospels to designate a carpenter, stonemason, cartwright, and joiner all rolled into one, Miriam of Nazareth belonged to this peasant world and, using Lenski's model, to its lower bracket of artisans. In addition to plying their craft her family probably also cultivated some plot of land for basic foodstuffs. This might explain why many of the images in Jesus' parables are taken from farming rather than carpentry, though he was himself a tekton (Mk 6:3) and son of a tekton (Mt 13:55). (19) We need to guard against romantic images of the carpenter shop, for being an artisan in an agrarian society like that described by Lenski did not give one the same economic and social standing that being a skilled craftsman in an advanced, industrial market economy like our own bestows. Consulting an ancient "lexicon of snobbery," MacMullen found tekton among the slurs the literate upper classes could throw at those of plebeian origins. (20)

This family was a village family of the artisan class, no more respectable than anyone else. Its members belonged to the poor who had to work hard for their living. It is true, as Meier argues, that theirs "was not the grinding, degrading poverty of the day laborer or the rural slave." (21) But it would seem equally misleading to compare their economic status, as Meier does, to "a blue-collar worker in lower-middle-class America." (22) The analogy does not work insofar as structural analysis indicates that there was no middle class. The family of Miriam of Nazareth lived on the underside of a two-sided system. Occupying a lower rung of the economic ladder, her situation is typical of that of countless people throughout the ages, including countless women, who experience the civic powerlessness, low social status, and lack of formal education that result from poverty.

Political Research

The poverty and hunger in Galilee acted as a spawning ground of first-century revolts against the repressive Roman occupation and taxation. Rome customarily appointed client-kings from the conquered population, rulers charged with subduing their own people. This policy of indirect rule through native aristocracies backed by Roman military might brought three generations of the Jewish Herod family to power. The first, Herod the Great, came to power in 37 BCE and ruled until his death in spring of 4 BCE, during Mary's childhood and young adulthood. Politically savvy in dealing with the Romans, Herod was a cruel tyrant at home and ruled with an iron fist. The incident recounted in Matthew's Gospel of Herod's killing all the male children under the age of two in Bethlehem, even if not strictly speaking historical, fits with the way he was remembered. His brutality was matched only by his love of luxury and the hate he engendered in the people. (23)

This King of the Jews took the already existing town of Sepphoris, four miles from Nazareth, beautified it, and fortified it as the center from which to administer the region. To the peasants in the villages the already burdensome triple tax became next to unbearable as Herod's portion was increased to pay for this and other massive building projects. The prayer Jesus taught his disciples, with its plea to "give us this day our daily bread" (Mt 6:11), had critical resonance as many cascaded from subsistence living into penury and loss of family land. People yearned for a messianic king who would do justice for the poor. Rebellion was in the air.