Anonymous Asks (348)

“Was Jesus rich?”

There’s a well-known theological answer to this question, but I’m guessing our anonymous questioner can Google “rich” and “Jesus”, and come up with 2 Corinthians 8 as fast than I can, so that’s probably not what he has in mind. He’s curious whether Jesus the man actually had shekels a-plenty during the time of his ministry.

Two years ago, I would have called this a silly question. Today, not so much.

Ashley Terradez is just one of a growing number of modern writers who think they have discovered something two thousand years worth of readers have missed. In their view Jesus was not just well off, he was loaded. You can find that argument set forth here. I would not give the allegation the time of day (or waste a perfectly good rebuttal post at CU) were it not for a friend who raised the question at a Bible study in the not-too-distant past. He took it seriously.

Aw, why not. Let’s play.

Lookin’ for Clues

Mary and Joseph were not well off. Carpentry is a trade, and Joseph lived like a tradesman, not like a wealthy merchant. Our first clue that this was in fact that case is Mary’s purification sacrifice under the Law of Moses: “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons”. This is a reference to Leviticus 12, which provided an out for an Israelite woman too poor to offer the lamb required by law. Nobody was too poor for God. But if Mary offered turtledoves or pigeons, it was because she and her husband could afford nothing more. Either that, or they were flippant about the Law of Moses. Take your pick.

Clue number two: Jesus grew up in Nazareth, not exactly a town of stellar reputation. Upon hearing of his origins, all agreed he would never amount to anything, and money and spiritual success were inextricably linked in the Jewish first-century mind.

Clue number three: the Lord’s answer to the scribe who wanted to follow him around, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” Men of independent means do not usually say such things. I for one do not believe the Lord was simply making it up.

Clue number four, again from Luke, is that a number of rich women provided for the daily needs of the Lord and his disciples as they ministered. Why would he take money from others if he had plenty of his own?

Clue five: the common purse or moneybag to which John refers, and of which Judas had custody. Why have a common purse if Jesus was perfectly capable of meeting his needs and those of his disciples?

Clues six and seven: the feeding of the 4,000 and 5,000. In both cases, the question is asked, “Where are we to get enough bread?” The answer is not that the disciples were just a little bit short of meeting the need, but that on their best day (the feeding of the 4,000), they could barely manage a meager seven loaves and a few small fish between thirteen men. Worse, to feed the 5,000, the disciples had to borrow five loaves and two fishes from a boy in the crowd. Presumably, these would have constituted a child-size lunch.

Must we continue? Oh sure, why not.

More Hints and Implications

Clue eight: to pay the temple tax, the Lord required Peter to pull a shekel from the mouth of a fish. It does not sound as if his pockets were full.

Clue nine: on at least one occasion when the disciples were hungry, they were reduced to plucking heads of grain in a field through which they were passing. This was a sign of poverty, and surely humiliating if they disciples had not become used to it.

Clue ten: He was with the rich in his death. Couldn’t his family afford to bury him? Or were they afraid to identify with him? We don’t know, but the prophet’s implication is surely that being buried with the rich was an unexpected and unlikely thing for our Lord.

Clue eleven: At the Lord’s instruction, John took Mary into his own home after Jesus’ death. Why do so if Jesus had already provided for his mother’s needs, which would have been his obligation as firstborn? Evidently John, who hadn’t worked for three years, could give the Lord’s mother more reliable and loving care than her own family.

Clue twelve: Peter says the Lord’s disciples have “left everything and followed you”. Why would they do that if Jesus had plenty of money?

Clue thirteen, and with this I close (and not because I’m about to run out): Paul’s “theological” answer, that “though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich”. In context, the apostle is manifestly talking about material wealth. Jesus lived like a poor person, whether or not he needed to. There should be no argument about that. That there was an element of choice in the act we always knew: he was God manifest in the flesh. Of course poverty was a choice!

The Counterargument

The argument from the modern critics is simply this: the wise men offered him gifts, “gold and frankincense and myrrh”. Ashley Terradez writes:

“These are valuable gifts. In fact, the amount of wealth handed to Jesus at that moment has been studied and estimated. In today’s currency, those gifts added up to millions. Maybe even tens of millions.”

Those “studies” and “estimations” referred to above are linked to precisely nowhere, but that doesn’t stop Terradez alleging they have some merit. But this idea of “millions” or “tens of millions” is an absolute fantasy. Nowhere does the scripture tell us the value of the gifts the Lord Jesus received from his worshipers. Unless we know the weight of each gift (and we do not), its worth either in our day or theirs is quite impossible to calculate. It is exceedingly improbable that three men, however rich they may have been, would have traveled through foreign countries with millions of dollars worth of precious spices and gold on their persons, even with an armed escort.

The Flight to Egypt

Moreover, Joseph, a poor man from all accounts, promptly obeyed the warning of an angel and took mother and child to Egypt until the death of Herod. Others have calculated this may have been as long as two years during which Joseph and family were in a foreign country with no visible means of support, apart, perhaps from the timely gifts of the wise men. It is more than likely this little blip of wealth was sufficient to sustain the family in its time of urgent need. There is no indication it was enough to last until Jesus was approximately thirty years old and beginning his ministry.

We have listed numerous indications in scripture that the Lord Jesus lived and ministered in a state of near-poverty and daily dependence on his Father meeting his needs. Everything he did and said during that period was consistent with an exceedingly humble existence.

Against that mountain of biblical evidence, we have the wild speculations of novelty seekers, which amount to exactly nothing.

No, our Lord was not wealthy.