Times passes quickly in the Gospel accounts.

John 7-10 record events happening in a period from the Feast of Huts (aka Tabernacles) in the early fall to the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) during the winter.

In the opening paragraphs of John 7, the conversation between Jesus and his brothers occurs before the pilgrims of Upper Galilee had begun their five day journey to Jerusalem for the Feast of Huts.

At the end of John 7, when Jesus stands and shouts to the thirsty (7:37-38), the events take place at the end of the seven day fall feast. In John 10, the mention of the Feast of Dedication moves the time to the winter.

More events transpire in the city of Jerusalem in John 8 and 9. The reader has to decide whether these events coincide with the sequence of John 7 and 10, or whether they are inserted for effect. It seems natural enough to read these chapters sequentially given the consistent characters and setting and theme.

4 months in 4 chapters.

We naturally overlay assumptions from our experience onto Jesus’ story. The notion of the modern teacher impacts how we read Jesus’ story. People I have questioned think of Jesus as teaching from sun-up to sundown, and when he is not teaching, he is traveling to his next teaching opportunity.

Whether grade school or grad school, as a general rule in North America people who specialize in teaching earn their living from teaching.

In some parts of the world, teachers supplement their income with a trade, and this practice gets us closer to first-century reality.

“Few pharisaic teachers and scribes were wealthy, and many followed rather lowly trades” (Jesus Life and Times, 74). “Rabbis were expected to gain a skilled trade apart from their study (thus Paul was a leather-worker)” (Carson & Moo, 240). Further, “work was considered dignified” (Jesus Life and Times, 160).

When I suggest that Jesus was bi-vocational, I often hear the protest that we know that Jesus received support from others.

True, but think of a non-profit organization today that employs twelve people. What kind of payroll do they need? Jesus had at least twelve full-time followers, some with families. How much income would they need in order to maintain a consistent travel schedule as a team as well as take care of their families?

The bottom line is that Jesus’ experience as well as that of his disciples most likely involved supplemental work at a trade. And this assumption informs the way we read the Gospels.

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D.A. Carson & Douglas J. Moo, An Introduction to the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1992, 2005).

Jesus and His Times, ed. Kaari Ward (Pleasantville, New York: The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc., 1987).

The Feast of Huts (aka Tabernacles) celebrates a major chapter in Israel’s formation–the time when the exodus generation lived in portable, temporary shelters. The nation remembered (by re-enacting a part of) the journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.

The Gospel of John specifies that Jesus attended the Feast of Huts…in secret at first (John 7:10). None of the Gospel accounts mention the palm-branch huts specifically, so did Jesus participate in the re-enactment? Did he live in a hut?

Moses’ Law records the instruction from God for people attending the Feast. First, every able-bodied man in the nation must participate. Then, “Live in the huts for seven days” as a national remembrance of Israel’s history. (Leviticus 23:42)

Josephus reiterates the command, “Upon the fifteenth day of the same month, when the season of the year is changing for winter, the law enjoins us to pitch tabernacles [huts] in every one of our houses, so that we preserve ourselves from the cold of that time of the year” (Josephus, Antiquities 3.10.4  244).

The Mishnah states that “All seven days [of the feast] a person treats his sukkah [hut] as his regular dwelling and his house as his sometimes dwelling” (Sukkah 2.9).

Did Jesus have a feast hut? Yes, naturally … if Jesus was an able-bodied male who followed God’s law recorded by Moses.

On a very earthy level, it seems that he would have been more conspicuous if Jesus did not have a hut.

For more on understanding Jesus’ story, see Earth-Bound Experience.

Predictions, whether prophecy or folklore, influence thinking.

Zechariah was a prophet who lived in Jerusalem around 520 BCE. He encouraged his neighbors to rebuild the temple destroyed 70 years earlier by the Babylonians.

Zechariah encouraged the people by stating that the nations will worship the King during the Feast of Huts (Zech 14:16).

The prophecy is problematic as all prophecies are. The challenge lies in reconciling figurative imagery against references to real experiences. It’s easier for us moderns to reject prophecy out-of-hand but not for the ancient mind.

The Feast of Huts was part of Jesus’ experience. So was Zechariah’s prediction. Naturally the feast reference by the prophet prompted questions and anticipation.

The people of the day were trying to understand their experience. They were trying to reconcile real events with references in writings from Moses to Ezra and all those in between.

His closest followers were trying to understand Jesus’ story even as it unfolded before their eyes–an experience no less challenging than trying to understand the relationships within our own stories.

Connect with Jesus’ experience.

SpendaYearwithJesus.

The Gospel writers mention a variety of people around Jesus — the twelve disciples, supporters, crowds of followers, teachers and scribes, children, his brothers, and his mother.

At least three times a year, Jesus and his friends and family would travel to Jerusalem. And we see this larger community around Jesus.

In John 7, Jesus has conversation with his brothers who are preparing to go to the Feast of Tabernacles (or Huts).

In Matthew 20, Zebedee’s wife and mother of Jesus’ followers, James and John, is on the road to Jerusalem traveling the Passover.

Jesus’ mother and other women were Passover pilgrims as well (Luke 2:41; John 20:25). In fact, Luke writes that Jesus’ parents went to the Passover feast every year (2:41).

Later, Paul observed that the disciples as well as Jesus’ brothers traveled with their wives (1 Corinthians 9:5). This observation comes after Jesus’ last year, but it implies a common practice among these men.

While the record shows that the twelve were Jesus’ common companions, the historical context and hints in the records include a community of friends and family who traveled with Jesus at certain times and for specific events.

New Year (Rosh Hashanah) was an official holy-day that began with loud trumpet blasts. In fact, in the Hebrew Law, it was called the Festival of Trumpets.

Businesses were closed on New Year’s, and in addition, the law prohibited working from home as well. The Hebrew Scripture mentions the day in Leviticus 23:23-24.

The Gospel writers suggest that in Jesus’ experience, he followed the Hebrew Law recorded by Moses, so we can assume that on this day he listened to the trumpet blasts and enjoyed the down-time.

No walking/traveling and no teaching that would qualify as work. Jesus could enjoy New Year’s day at home with family and friends.

New Year’s is a good example of how we relate more deeply to Jesus’ experience by knowing a little bit of the ancient Hebrew Law. Leviticus 23 lists all of the holidays that Jesus would have followed.

You too can follow Jesus’ story including the holidays at SpendaYearwithJesus.

SpendaYearwithJesus Sign-up.

“I don’t read.” I have lost count of the number of times I have heard that statement.

Statistics and personal experience suggest, however, that people are surrounded by thousands of words a day even though they may never pick up a 300-page book.

This paradox of information culture underlies the design of the text-message experience.

Rather than try to cram thousands of words into a narrow band of experience (i.e. reading a book in a few sittings), SpendaYearwithJesus releases the word-base into a year of experiences and multiple channels.

The juxtaposition of words and experience create meaning.

SpendaYearwithJesus sign-up includes

• A year of  messages
• Weekly email digests
• Jesus’ experience daily in real-time
• Subscriber access to SpendaYearwithJesus.com

Thus far, no one has complained that the story involves too much reading.

Jesus had four brothers and two (or more) sisters (Mt 13:55-56). One of his brothers, Jude, had children and grandchildren. In Jesus’ culture, we would expect that his other siblings had children as well.

A story from ancient church history relates events involving Jesus’ family fifty years after his death. The story is interesting because it invokes both the Messiah legend surrounding Jesus as well as the fallout of Messianic expectation from the Jewish Wars.

The text refers to the grandchildren of Jude, “who was said to be the Lord’s brother.” And the story concludes, “They ruled the churches because they were witnesses and were also relatives of the Lord.”**

It may be as simple as observing that Jesus’ great-nephews just continued the “family business.” I wonder, however, what they thought of the man and his life. Jesus was their great-uncle after all.

Did their father have a relationship with Jesus that he passed on to these boys? And by relationship, I mean, did they pass time together and share some common, human interests?

I can’t imagine that to his nephew(s) a pan-handling know-it-all would have been acceptable — an uncle who refused to get a real job. Case in point, when Jesus started teaching, his mother and brothers thought he had lost his senses (Mk 3:21, 31).

As we read stories about Jesus’ experience, it’s easy to bracket off other elements of life like extended family. The immediacy of our own experiences begs the question, however. What were the contours and texture of Jesus’ experience as we consider all of the elements of his life?

SpendaYearwithJesus.

** Read the story of Jesus’ great-nephews at <http://newadvent.org/fathers/250103.htm>. Scroll down to 19-20. Eusebius (4th century) quotes Hegesippus (2nd century) in Historia Ecclesiae, Book III, ch. 19-20. Accessed: October 2013.

Logical deductions. We make them all the time. Subconsciously, we fill in data like the edges of a cropped photograph.

The Gospel writers cropped the photograph of Jesus’ life. And like a cropped photograph, they leave us edges from which to complete the picture.

One such cropped edge is the scene at the High Priest’s gate in the John 18:15-16. It is the night Jesus was betrayed. The guards have arrested Jesus. Peter and another disciple follow.

At the gate, the disciple is allowed to enter because he is “known to the High Priest,” but Peter is not. This other disciple talks to the gatekeeper, and she allows Peter to enter.

The compelling two-part question follows: who is this unnamed disciple and how is this disciple known? One plausible answer is that the disciple is John, son of Zebedee, who supplies fish to the High Priest.

The implications of this fish connection combine with other factors to inform four periods of the SpendaYearwithJesus story. Labor marked Jesus’ experience as well as the lives of his disciples. Though their trade ceased to be the defining feature of their lives, the disciples continued to work periodically maintaining their work connections.