Family Tradition

This morning, we're going to address the Jewish culture in Israel because we're going to be going through Jewish culture in terms of home life. We will address work issues, which typically more involve the adult males, later. But right now, we'll be looking at home life, specifically looking at Israel. And to be assumed I'm talking about Israel, mostly during the New Testament era, you'll see references to Old Testament.

One thing that makes this a little easier is our culture, things changed largely because of technology very quickly. Things did not change that quickly during the time of the Bible. The advances in technology were there, but much more slowly and much less substantial in terms of impact on people's lives.

So anyway, that's the approach. We will always give consideration to who, when, and where. So if I'm making a change from that orientation, you'll see it. The first marriage of a Jewish couple would take place typically by the father's arrangement. Now, the father would make the arrangements often, but the son would do the negotiating.

Isn't that interesting? So, OK, this is a good pick. Now go talk to him. It's kind of the arrangement. And in terms of the bride price, here's how much you have. So there would be an interesting setup there where the father would kind of make the connection, typically. And typically, the parents would be involved. And then the son would be the one negotiating and making the contact later.

Typically, the bride would be in her early teens. Beyond 15, you're getting into the risky period from the standpoint of that culture. Isn't that something? So you think of like Joseph and Mary, we aren't told how old Mary was. If the typical applies, she would be in her early teens, later teens for the groom.

Later marriages, if the first one didn't work out or if there was a death on either side, oftentimes those were arranged by the people being married. Subsequent marriages. Though by Jewish law and Roman legal exception, polygyny, that is multiple wives, was allowed for Jews, only a very few could afford it. It was expensive and so not only did you have to pay out some funds, bride price, but there was also the support issues and most people couldn't afford it. It was very rare. Okay. Marriage practices in the New Testament era. The prospective bridegroom would travel from his father's house to the home of the prospective bride. By the way, some of these will be brought back and adapted from a message we gave this last April.

So, anyway, if you want to look at more detail there, He would negotiate with the father of the woman to determine the price of the bride, mohar. Once the bridegroom paid the purchase price, the marriage covenant was established and the young man and woman would then be considered husband and wife, betrothed.

This was the status of Joseph and Mary, betrothed. Then that arrangement was called the Ketubah. This was the covenant for marriage, the Ketubah. And then, from that moment on, the bride was declared to be consecrated or sanctified, set apart for the bridegroom.

This is the word that Paul frequently uses and you'll find even like in Hebrews, other New Testament letters speaking of the church. So anyway, that word definitely applies. As a symbol of the covenant relationship that had been established, the groom and bride would drink from a cup of wine over which a betrothal benediction had been pronounced. This is the new covenant in my blood." So you see the connection there. The father, once the wedding day would be set, would tell the groom, go get your bride. It would be the father's declaration as to the time. How about that? The bride would be prepared and veiled for presentation to the groom.

This is a Jewish bride without her veil, so that's not with the veil on. Then there would be a procession to the bride's home followed by a ceremony. The wedding party, which is the chuppah, would go on for many days as long as a week. Long wedding parties. Can you imagine having a reception? Now, here's the humdinger. We're getting to it. The bride would remain hidden for the entire wedding feast. Then, at the end, the groom would present his bride to those gathered and she would finally be unveiled before them all at the end of the week.

How about that? Ready for that kind of a wedding ceremony? Oh, boy. When you talk about going to a wedding, this isn't just a Sunday afternoon event or something. You have on your handout this really dense summary of the practices of the Jewish traditional wedding and the parallels to the church and all the references there. So you can look at it in far more detail. Boy, you could study for an afternoon on that. There's lots there. Anyway, I think it's really neat. It's rich.

Now, the flip side, I should tell you, like all traditions, there are always people who did something different. So this is the general pattern. there were exceptions. The marriage supper of the Lamb, Revelation 19, 7-9, would be similar to the Chuppah. Finally, this is the parallel, and I think that also is similarly given in your handout.

The Jews typically considered being fruitful and multiplying as a commandment. That would be considered mandatory according to Mosaic law. It was required, you must do so, okay? So lack of children was thought of as a moral issue among the Jews, okay? Isn't that interesting? I mean it wasn't just a, boy I'd sure like to have kids, but it was a moral issue as if there was a moral failure.

Under the laws of Augustus, this is Augustus Caesar, okay? Roman law taxed single people more heavily and required anyone of childbearing age who was divorced to remarry in 18 months. Or if the spouse died, two years. Give you an extra six months to get back together with somebody. So I mean, that's pretty amazing. The exceptions were if you had three kids or are beyond childbearing age, then you're accepted. But bottom line is Rome wanted kids. And of course, that applies to Roman law, whereas what's on the left there with the Jews was all during the time of the Jews. So there's the distinction in time, okay? Now, childbirth took place, if possible, in the home with the assistance of a midwife. That was kind of the standard way of doing it.

They would wash the infant with water and then with salt and olive oil and then take little bands about an inch wide and wrap the baby up tightly. That's the swaddling clothes that you see wrap the baby up tightly. The custom was based on nothing I can find in scripture, but the idea that if you wrap the baby up tightly when he's first born, their bones will be straight. Where'd they get that?

I don't know. But that was the custom and what they did. So that would be the example. I looked for all kinds of scenes of Joseph and Mary and the baby, and I couldn't find anything that really matched the biblical picture. It was probably not in a barn-like structure, but more like a cave. The manger was probably not made out of wood. It was probably carved out of stone. They were swaddling clothes, not a bare infant.

In the Greek and Roman culture in New Testament times, the wishes of the father prevailed in this. you might want to brace yourself, it was legal to abandon an unwanted child to the elements. Completely legal. And it was the father's decision. So if, for example, you say, no, that's the wrong gender. I want this one and not that one. Then it was required to take the baby out and just leave it out in the woods. And so whether the elements or the animals or somebody could pick that baby up then and make a slave out of them or sell them or whatever they wanted to do.

But real interesting, I mean to us that would be crazy, but perfectly legal in the Roman Empire. Not saying it's good, I'm just saying it's legal. Okay, most Jewish homes would have a flat roof. The law in Deuteronomy 22.8 required a parapet, that's just a short wall around the perimeter, to avoid falling. Absolutely required by Mosaic law, so every Jewish home would have this parapet around the outside to keep you from just dropping off the edge. Rooftop activities include drying of food, and this one in Joshua, Rahab hid the Israelites in a bunch of flax that was stacked up on a roof.

Prayer, you see Daniel and also in Acts 10, here's Peter praying up on top. And general viewing, and you'll see frequently people would go up, just kind of looking at the fields or whether it be a king up on top of their house. Let's remember how David saw Bathsheba. Get yourself in a lot of trouble if you're not viewing the right thing.

But anyway, this is the pattern. Occasionally, they would also put an extra little kind of building off on one corner or one edge. So there'd be a kind of a rooftop chamber, and so you'll see some reference to that. But that was the typical thing, and you'll see it again in both the Old and New Testaments, long-standing pattern, flat-top roof. They weren't, by the way, real watertight. So if it rained a lot, get ready to leak. This would be, and I purposely went and did a larger picture of it because I wanted us to be able to take a look. You see, there's the parapet. You see here some food drying activity. That would be fairly typical. You see also, here's a goat off to the side. Some food and water handling preparations.

Fire outside typically. Most of the time of the year, it'd be too hot to have a fire inside. And so fire would be typically outside. It was the woman's job typically to gather the firewood and to get it going. in the start of the day if it had gone out overnight.

And you see off to the side some more food preparation type stuff. What they would do is typically prepare the food outside unless it was raining or something of that sort. Prepare the food outside and if people were walking by, they'd talk with you and sample the food and give you suggestions and feedback whether you want it or not. And so that would be fairly typical.

You see here's a woman showing, bringing her water into the house. The women worked hard, real hard. Tents were also common. Of course, we know Paul was a tent maker. He owns up to that in Acts 18. All the way from the pre-flood culture, remember that from Genesis 4.20 in the New Testament times, we think of a tent as a casual place.

They had very rigid rules about tents. Typically, the tent was something that was the woman's domain and the men were not, you know, just any man was not allowed to go in. You find an example in Judges 4 where a guy was killed for going into a tent. He was not supposed to. So we think of, again, we think of a tent as real casual and, you know, do whatever you want to wear, whatever you can.

To them, there were very rigid social rules about what you do and don't do and who goes in and where they go. Sometimes they would have a partition, you know, a cloth partition. You know, you're on this side or that side. There would be a canopy over the entrance. Men could go there, but who went inside was, again, strict social rules. So it's a different mentality than we have. We look at a tent and we think informal. They had very rigid rules as to what you do.

OK. Keeping warm and well-lit. Fires for cooking and warming oneself were often burned outside. That's a typical thing. You see examples of that in John in a couple of places. Fires inside a home often had no chimney, so there was smoke and soot all over the place. And the smoke would just billow out the windows. So typically, if you wanted to get real smoky, you'd keep your head down.

So to us, that would be unthinkable, but that was the way they did it. The lamp was always kept burning at night. It was unthinkable that you would let the lamp go out. Of course, usually the problem is if you have really high wind, but that wasn't so much the issue as running out of oil. That was just like, you'd never do that. You just wouldn't do that. So, real interesting.

So when you see references in scripture to the lamp being lit or even the Sermon on the Mount, you are a lamp, light to the world. The lamp always lit was just that's drilled into the mentality. Always. Everybody go to bed, you know, to sleep at night, lamp must be lit and enough oil to make sure it stayed on all night.

Among the poor families, animals often stayed inside the home in the lower section. Here's the way they would do it. They'd have a stone platform for the people and then below on kind of packed earth would be animals and then they'd dig a pit for the fire. That was the usual arrangement. So your barn was inside the house on the lower section and the people stayed in the upper section. Very little furniture. They'd have some mats down for the people to sleep on.

Typically, the whole family slept together, okay? Now, given the hot climate, everyone tended to start the day early, especially the mother of the home. She usually got up first, get out, you know, get the fire going. And if it went out, you know, even if it didn't go out, get it back, you know, stir it up again. And if it had gone out, you got the lamp to get some flame from, you know, so. In her daily duties, she'd start the fire, get water, mill grain, bake bread, shopping for food and olive oil, making clothes and washing clothes. It was just a constant cycle of lots of hard work.

Here at the Pool of Gibeon, here's a picture of the pool and it kind of steps down here. You can see the steps kind of spiraling down into the dark below. This is a drawing of it. That's, I think, on page three of your handout, right? What happened, look at that thing spiraling down and what you see happened here is it had apparently dried up here and so they dug it down deeper. You imagine every day you're going to take a water jug, which is clay, this thing isn't light, you're going to take a water jug, oh what they would have done for a plastic jug, right? And then carry it down those steps and then carry it all the way back up, substantial climb, And that's just for one jug.

So this is something. Anybody here lived in a situation where they lived for an extended period of time with limited water? Ever been in that? You've been in that? We used to, when we first moved on to the farm, we had a well that during the summertime we'd get five or 10 gallons a day, and that was it for the family.

And you learn to make do with that. So anyway. This had been done probably later to accommodate a lower water table. You have Proverbs 31, 10 through 31 printed out on a special sheet as well. I won't go through it now, but that's an example of showing the woman's duties and the things that she does these, does these well. It kind of lists and gives you an idea of what would be expected of a woman's work during the day.

Rest from the heat was the norm because during especially the hot months, the heat would get to be pretty intense. So they'd just take a couple hours off. The day would start early and better start early where it's cool and then during the middle of the day take a break for a couple hours. Rest from the heat whether you're traveling or whether you're at home and get out of the sun.

Now, raising children. For the most part, raising and educating the children was the parent's responsibility. That was considered the norm. They would hand off to children whatever chores were age-appropriate, and they kind of had some ideas as to what that would typically be. Boys were taught things about the Old Testament starting about age three, and the girls as needed to fill their domestic role. In other words, each had a separate role, so they would teach The women certain things that they wouldn't necessarily spend time with the guys on in terms of here's how you have to handle the food and all these kinds of things. And when you make your fabrics, don't mix the different things. Don't put the meat and the milk together. You couldn't serve them meat and milk within six hours of each other. So all those different rules.

Boys were trained in their father's trade as they got older, typically starting about age 10. That's why you see in one reference it says, is not this the carpenter's son? And elsewhere it says Jesus was a carpenter, so you see the typical pattern of the culture carried on.

Sleeping arrangements and household security. Now this is a different mindset, somewhatly, from our culture. The door was barred at night. In other words, they didn't have all the latches and all that stuff like we have, but they would close this door, put a bar over the door, a wooden bar, And then the family would typically sleep together on mats. That 11-7 reference there was this guy is saying, I'm already sleeping with my family, you know, and it'll disturb everybody if I get up to see you at the door.

Okay? Security of the house was a personal responsibility. See, we think, okay, we've got certain things we can do, but then we also got the police to call and 911 and all that stuff. It was considered in that culture, it is your job to keep your house safe.

Period. And because police coverage was minimal. Only the very largest cities had some sort of police coverage. Roman law did not consider theft a criminal act. It's a civil problem. So that guy stole your water pot or whatever it is. You got to either talk him out of it or buy it back or take them to court or something like that, but the government isn't going to get involved.

That's something a little different. Animals and any valuables, including tools, often be kept inside. So you bring everything in, animals too, because those are worth something, and bar the door and better be ready. And frequently see, especially in the New Testament, reference to thief in the night, because obviously what they would do is come at night how they would typically get in.

They wouldn't sit there and bang on the door, try to crawl through the window. The windows were oftentimes real small, couldn't get through them. They would undermine a wall. So they'd go and dig until part of the wall collapsed and then break in that way. And so, and as surprising as it may seem, that still wasn't a crime. Part of your house just fell down, but no biggie. And it's still your problem. Okay, that was the considered judgment on that.

Women would typically be in a spot of milling together, hand mills was a common thing, women sharing it. We brought this up earlier, one lady would be dropping the grain in and the other grinding and then they trade off because it was obviously tiring. But that was one of the more efficient ways to do it.

Deuteronomy 24.6 says that somebody who loans money may not take either or all of the hand mill as collateral. Why? You need it to survive, right? Here we have some people, a little hard to see here, but have some people washing in a lake or a river was real common. Washing in a tub was, because it was such work to get the water in and out, was unusual. Obviously, folks that are in a nomadic situation may be doing it differently, but the usual situation is get to some body of water.

There would be this pattern here, you know, everything from fixing the fire, getting the water, food preparations, everything involved with it, and then this lamp. Most of the lamps were clay, usually burning olive oil, occasionally some other things like, you know, some pitch or some beeswax or something of that sort. But clay, if you are really upper class, you might have a metal lamp, but usually clay. And by the way, these are some of the more fancy ones, actually with some patterns. Some of them are just real simple, you know, folded over clay.

Few are fortunate enough to have the water well or the marketplace right next to them, so daily trips to both of these places would be required. What they need was usually pretty basic, but You had to go and make sure you don't run out of oil. Make sure you don't run out of water. You have to have those things. So make those every day. And so typically that would be the gathering places where you'd talk and catch up on, you know, everybody's related to everybody else, right? And so you'd catch up on what's going on when you'd run into people there at the marketplace.

Meals were usually simple, eaten generally without utensils. By the way, typically two meals. One in the morning, one at night was the usual. I might supplement a little bit, but usually a couple meals. They didn't use utensils, so the bread was constantly a dipping kind of idea.

You'll see it in Ruth 214. And by the way, what's interesting is the word there is for vinegar that Ruth dips it into. But what typically, like we have condiments, and it'll include vinegar and some of them like mustard, things like that, pickles, things of that sort oftentimes use vinegar. So Ruth was not necessarily just dipping it in vinegar, but some vinegar-based condiment. And so taking a bread, whether it was a flat wafer, you know, a matzo, or whether it was raised, either way, you'd break it and then dip it into whatever these condiments were. All kinds of things to dip into. because you didn't have spoons and forks and knives and those sorts of things. Meat was unusual. That's usually for special events. You typically didn't sit down and eat a bunch of meat.

Fish was also a common protein staple. We talked about this before, and you can look at the number seven New Testament history of the life of Christ, where the fish were either fresh, which was least common. Obviously the disciples, many of them being fishermen, would have that. or dried. This is probably what Jesus took the loaves at the feeding of the 5,000, broke the loaves and the dried fish.

And then what we mentioned before and was a staple of the Roman army, and that's the fermented fish paste. Bread eaten daily. Remember, give us this day our daily bread. And be not sliced, torn or broken off. You'd show the slice of bread. They just never ate it that way, okay? Never done that way.

Milk is from sheep, camels, or goats. And we think of milk as coming from a cow, and certainly it does. But in that culture, sheep, camels, or goats, and they would actually use it to make butter and yogurt. The yogurt was not like these little, you know, eight or six ounce thing and Yoplait and all that. It didn't have all these nice flavors. It was sour yogurt. It was typically in a leather bag. And of course you had to maintain some of the sour stuff so you didn't strip the bag out. You had to maintain the sour stuff from one batch to the next. Any of you have made yogurt, done that? Yeah, we did some. We didn't use sheep or goat milk, but we did make yogurt. And then the food items, fruit eaten regularly along with nuts.

Fruit was sweetened either with wild honey or they're boiled down the grape juice. They didn't have, like we have in our culture now, where you have apiary experts that go and deal with the bees and put on the hoods and use the smoke and all that stuff. It was just a matter of, hey, you're brave. Go and take on those bees. So it would be that or the boiled down grape juice.

Porridge and dips made from lentils and vegetables. Lots of lentil and vegetable base on what you would eat. All right. All right. Eating was done reclining, sometimes with a table. It was fancy to use a table. And even at that, it would be low. You would sit down on the floor on mats and pillows and things of that sort. But just to sit down and eat off the containers on the floor would be not unusual. Okay, social gatherings. Ah, who one ate with, what and how one ate was a big issue among the Jews in the New Testament times.

Not only was there the Mosaic Law to contend with, but then there was all these other things to associate with that. The idea of the Pharisees was, we not only have the Mosaic Law, but we have to make extra rules to make sure you don't get close to the edge. So for every law, they'd come up with six more. And that's why mosaic law says you must not boil a baby goat, the meat, in its mother's milk. And they said, well, we have to make sure you don't do that so you cannot eat milk and meat within six hours of each other. So they had various rules like that. So lots of rules, and of course then eating with somebody who was considered vile and disgusting, tax collectors and sinners. was just an awful thing to do.

And then to get ready to eat, they had a certain procedure for how you go about, you know, washing your hands and all that. Men often ate separate from the women. That was a common thing. We think of, you know, having the family together and all that, and they did some of that, but frequently the pattern was that, you know, you'd serve the men, they'd go off and do their work, and then the women would sit down and eat. At a social gathering, a seat at the table was according to rank. Typically it wasn't that much of a concern over that in the family gathering, but if you've got a social situation, you know, okay, you get this seat and that's what, this one's better than this one, you know, just that sort of thing mattered a lot.

Peering through the doors and windows and making comments was normal behavior. People looking in, you know, seeing who's eating and commenting on what they're eating and who they're eating with and, hey, I saw that guy and he was talking to him and, you know, all those kinds of things. Hey, are those lentils pretty good? Yeah, that kind of thing. Normal stuff. Drive us nuts, but that's what they did.

In New Testament times, it was legal for a son to ask for his inheritance when his father was still alive. It had the implication that the son wished the father were dead, so it was not well received. But you could do so. One of the problems was the inheritance was intended to provide for the subsequent generation. And by asking for your inheritance early, it meant that usually the father and the family that's there is still depending upon what they have. So it is not only a hardship in dividing things up before it's time, but it's a hardship because what they would have left to survive on after that would be difficult.

But it was legal. They could ask for it. Accounts of asking for and wasting the inheritance to the point of poverty can be found in the papyri. We have lots of letters describing this kind of thing and legal events. Postings by parents. So and so took our inheritance and we have no more responsibility for this person. And you probably see similar kind of postings in the paper now as legal notices. Those kinds of things are in the papyri of those days where they would put out public notices and they say we have no responsibility for this person who's wasted his inheritance and try to cut off the cash bleed.

The best a son could hope for after that was to come back and perhaps be a slave, a servant in the household. But it was not unheard of to stone them to death if they came back. So what did the prodigal son do? He's practicing. Here's what I'm going to say to my father. as he's walking back, and he says, look, I'll shoot for the best, I'll ask to be a slave or a servant. Up to that point, everything about what Jesus told in the account of the prodigal son was just, okay, we've heard this story before. Up to that point.

But, what came as a shock in Jesus' parable was the response of the Father. This is completely unheard of in the culture. Absolutely shocking for this response. So he got up and came to his father, but while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him and ran and embraced him and kissed him. That we have no record of anywhere during New Testament times. Completely shocking account. What? I mean, come back as a servant or a slave, maybe. but to run and embrace him. And then what happened? Put the robe on him, put the ring on his finger, throw a party.

The response of the son, while we have no accounts, we have no accounts of anyone responding to a prodigal son this way, not one, except for that in Jesus' parable. The response of the other son, however, would, based on what we know from the culture, have been very typical. You know, here he goes and squanders all this and he's done these horrible things and you're not only taking him back, which we might accept as a slave, but you're taking him back and throwing a party and giving him full inheritance anyway. That would have been considered the normal response of the older brother.

Okay. Next time we'll get into never talk about religion and politics except And as we know in our own culture, people will say, don't get in discussions about religion and politics if you want to keep the discussion civil. What we find as we go in scripture is that it almost continuously talks about nothing but those things. Religion and politics, constantly. And there's a lot behind it. Religion and politics were far more connected, whereas in our culture, We've put in the Constitution in such a way as to divide those things. I think we're probably going too far in terms of separation now, but nonetheless, there's been a tendency not to adapt it. One of the things we'll find as we go into this is that it was expected in those cultures that there would be some accommodation, if not complete accommodation, to the religion of whoever is the ruler. And that was considered to be the norm.

The Roman Empire was most liberal in only saying, hey, do whatever you want. We just want your money. But you got to occasionally go and do this sacrifice at the emperor's temple. Aside from that, you can do whatever you like. The Jews were given an exception. Anyway, we'll go into that part of it next week.

Questions? We buzzed through this a lot more quickly than I expected we would. Thoughts, questions, puzzlings? It was a lot of hard work, wasn't it? You start thinking about it. The women worked very hard, very hard. For most common people, living into your 40s would be about the norm. Yeah, living in your 40s and someone getting to around 50 was getting to be somewhat exceptional. And there's record, of course, people living longer, but most often it would be because they had maybe a merchant's life or some exceptional situation that kept them from having to work hard, or maybe it was just exceptional because of genetics. Things that for us are just, well, I've got to go see the doctor about this. For them, it was, you know, hey, It's been nice knowing Joseph. And that brings up another point in this.

You see, why does Joseph pass off the scene after Jesus being about 12 and there at the temple? We don't see him anymore. It was quite common for men to die early. And Joseph may either have died much earlier than normal or have been older. Perhaps for him it was not a first marriage.

And in which case, Jesus, being the firstborn, would have had the job of continuing to work to raise the family before he could start his ministry. So, that's kind of reading between the lines, but a likely scenario. Yeah, by the time Mary would have been at the cross, she would have been quite old and then it was John's job to care for her because caring for the parents was one of the not only culturally accepted things to do, but a requirement of the law. So it would have been something for Jesus to say, okay, who's going to take care of this lady?

And what's interesting is you've got the brothers and sisters and they don't seem to fit in the picture too well. So, real fascinating. And some of that, you know, we can only kind of interpolate from what the culture would have said. We don't know all the facts, but it seems to fit the picture. Yeah. Other thoughts, questions? Yes.

I heard someone say to me today that, well, the James and John and Peter and Andrew Fisherman are illiterate. How well educated do you suppose they're disciples? If you look at it, Fishermen would often have been illiterate, but not necessarily. There's something else that seems to make a difference here, and that's that, like in any industry, there are those who seem to be more on the upper end of it and not.

John, we read from various points in the Gospel of John, had some unique connections with the Sanhedrin, which would also seem to indicate, too, Since they called them Sons of Thunder, here the mother was asking for a special place for these two. Likely they were in the upper end fishing business.

And since here being from Galilee and yet having connections with the Sanhedrin where, for example, we read of Peter standing outside of Caiaphas' gate and John gets him in. John records the conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, one of the Sanhedrin, and none of the other Gospels do. John also records about Nicodemus later on, and Joseph of Arimathea, and he also records one thing the other Gospels do not, and that is one account where Nicodemus defends Jesus to the Sanhedrin, and the other Gospels don't touch it. So what that tells us is that likely at least James and John were of a kind of a different background than your average fisherman.

So that would be I think a good indication that they were not the typical ones and they were literate. And that's one thing that there would be typically at a minimum some teaching being from a Jewish background. So I think the claim of illiteracy is taking not all the facts into consideration. There was, I'd say, a higher rate of illiteracy among kind of the common fishermen, but at least several of these disciples were not the common fishermen.

One of the things you do see is John's writing, and it's actually a help in interpreting what he writes. John writes simply, like Paul writes with these two, three, four, you know, part compound words. And as we'll see in the passage we'll study in the main service, Paul would write with very complex words, sometimes words that are used rarely anywhere else. John would write with simple words, if at all possible, So once he would write with the word, he would write with profound consistency. So that makes interpreting what John writes much easier because he stays with a word pattern, a symbol, and he sticks with it and you can trace it all the way through.

John repeatedly, in the Gospel of John and the Book of Revelation, calls Christ the Lamb. None of the other authors do. He's consistent with it. when it's said in Revelation that the sword comes out of Jesus' mouth. He uses the same word, and it's not the same word as for the Roman short sword, it's rumphia, which is a long barbarian sword, all the way through where he speaks of it to the end of the judgment period at the end of the tribulation.

Profound consistency. And so what that would tell me is that John was literate, but that perhaps Greek was not his first language. So anyway, I think the indications are that the disciples who were fishermen were literate, but that perhaps Greek was not first.

The traditional Jewish background would be you'd start them at Hebrew school at three. So that would be the norm. Do you know if Hebrew school was like an all-day thing or an hour a day? Typically, you know, again, you probably have some variation when you get to different areas, you know, but typically they would have a prescribed time because the intent was, you know, they'd send them off fairly early in the day and they'd come home and they'd have their lessons and whatnot. The intent was that these sons, these Hebrew sons, would know, you know, here's not just how to read and write, but here's the law and here's, you know, because you're expected to be the family shepherd. And you better know this stuff because you've got to talk to your wife and you've got to talk to your kids about this and tell them what's up.

So that would be the expectation. Obviously, it's a little tiny town or traveling, there'd be some deviation from that. The farther you went away from Israel, you also ran into deviations from it. But in Israel, that would have been the norm is to have prescribed Okay, it's this hour you go to Hebrew school and learn your stuff and we'll see you at such and such time.

Start at 3, which means you don't just send your kids off and there's no bus. So you've got to take them. Typically they would start the training for whatever craft or trade they were going to carry on somewhere around 10. So from 3 to 10, Hebrew school would be the norm.

Now, you may have a a writing trade scribe and they would have a graphon business in some of the larger cities where you'd have, if you want something written up, you'd have somebody write things up. If you wanted to, for example, we talked a couple weeks ago in our main service about a chirographon, a handwritten IOU. If you didn't know how to write, you'd have one of these places where they write it for you, write it out, and you could pay them a fee. So there were people, scribes, who made a profession of this writing and carried it on much more extensively and seriously. What they seem to have had, yeah, they carried on a bar mitzvah. Obviously today it's gotten a lot more tradition.

So we shouldn't just take a cookie cutter from today and put it back. But yeah, the understanding was when you got to be about age 13, you're considered, for legal purposes, an adult. And so the growing up was a lot quicker. Of course, life was shorter too. That would have been the expectation. For example, Jesus shows up at age 12 at the temple and he's answering questions and what would typically happen at a Bar Mitzvah is they would ask you some questions and you'd be expected to answer and here's Jesus giving these phenomenal answers. So about that age, 12-13, you'd be considered, by then, you've been to Hebrew school, you've had some training in a trade, you're an adult. It'd be a while before you get full respect, but yeah, you're an adult. Other questions?

Okay, anybody care to step back in time? Has anybody seen, I think PBS had a series where they went back, you know, a few hundred years into colonial times. Have you seen that? They had a series where they had modern day people from various walks of life put together stepping into colonial times with the first kind of funded towns and cities that were put together by investors over in Europe. Anyway, they had people of our modern era basically spending a spring into a fall, living month after month, living and building homes and just doing everything as they would have in the early 1600s. It was amazing to watch because you'd see, of course, trying to take our mindset and go back there, you know, real tough, real tough. This would even be tougher because, you know, they had some technology by the 1600s that was not available during New Testament times.

One of the things we think of, for example, is medicine. You know, you don't call 911, you don't have, you know, basically don't have doctors. Baby's born, you got a midwife, you know how to handle that. We have examples, you know, people get like chronic headaches.

They go and cut open a part of the skull, you know, take out a piece and not everybody lived through it. What they would do is put the piece back because they just sit there and scrape, you know, until they cut the piece out. They would put the piece back so if they find a skull with the piece gone, they figured they didn't make it. So things like that, the technology available for medicine was just not anything that we would care for.

And things, for example, it's common for men to run into prostate trouble in the 40s, 50s. Frequently that was fatal because there'd be all sorts of urinary tract backups and toxicity. So if you had prostate trouble, you're probably going to die. So that's one of the reasons why people die early. One of the things you also read about commonly is eye problems. In the Gospels, Jesus would heal people with eye problems.

Think about this. All the travel routes have got all these donkeys and goats. It's dirty, right? And so as you're traveling from one town to the next going along the pathway that everybody else is on that's had decades of donkey dung and, you know, yeah, and all that dust is flying around up in the air. So, you know, if you get a problem, it's going to, you know, be substantial.

That's why Laodicea was famous for its eye salve because a lot more people had eye problems, you know, various infections and things of that sort. And so salve of some kind would be valuable. So you have this fine clay that they'd mix with olive oil, put in these little containers and sell that for an eye salve for people with eye problems.

And so what does the book of Revelation record as being said to the people of Laodicea? You are blind. What do you mean? We have the best eye salve in the world. So anyway, it's one of the patterns of culture that come out. Once you see the background, it makes perfect good sense. Yeah. Let's call it good, okay? All right. Thank you, Lord.

Looking at these things here, certainly there's lots of interesting details of culture. But what's even more fascinating is in the reality of those events in those times, you saved people who put their trust in you. And people grew as they continued to trust you and to walk with you. We thank you for that and thank you for what you've done in our lives and in theirs. We pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.