Rabbinic “Tentmakers”

In the world of the rabbis, a scholar was expected to earn his keep by engaging in a secular profession. The Mishnah tractate Avot reads:

Make them [the words of the Law] not a crown wherewith to magnify thyself or a spade wherewith to dig. And thus used Hillel to say: He that makes worldly use of the crown shall perish. Thus thou mayest learn that he that makes profit out of the words of the Law removes his life from the world.

From this severe stricture it is easy to understand that rabbis in Jesus’ day were expected to support themselves with secular professions. Engaging…