Mark 6:3 te,ktwn( o` ui`o,j {A}

All uncials, many minuscules, and important early versions read, “Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary …?” Objection was very early felt to this description of Jesus as carpenter, 11 and several witnesses (including î45) assimilate the text to Matthew 13:55 and read, “Is not this the son of the carpenter, the son of Mary …?” The Palestinian Syriac achieves the same result by omitting o` te,ktwn.


11 For example, Celsus, the second-century antagonist of Christianity, sneeringly remarked that the founder of the new religion was nothing but “a carpenter by trade” — a jibe that Origen sought to rebut by declaring, “In none of the Gospels current in the churches is Jesus himself ever described as a carpenter” (contra Celsum, VI:34 and 36). Either Origen did not recall Mark 6:3, or the text of this verse in copies known to him had already been assimilated to the Matthean parallel.

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Old Testament