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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.
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Q&A

Do we have any reason, apart from tradition, to believe Jesus took up Joseph’s trade of carpentry?

Catholic Answers Staff

Question:

Where did the idea come from that Jesus was a carpenter? My Bible says this was Joseph’s profession and that Jesus was regarded as "the carpenter’s son" (Mt 13:55). Do we have any reason, apart from tradition, to believe Jesus took up Joseph’s trade?

Answer:

Yes. The Bible says so. In Mark 6:3, the people of Nazareth, Jesus’ hometown, astonished by the way he spoke with authority, ask, “Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary?” Jesus is spoken of here as “the carpenter,” rather than as the “the carpenter’s son,” as in the passage you cited.

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