I have no doubt that Jesus had no monetary resources of his own after he started his ministry. I suspect he donated any he may have had to his mother and family, living thereafter solely on donations from supporters.
I believe he chose poverty when he started his ministry, just as he chose celibacy rather than starting his own family.
When Jesus returned to Nazareth, the villagers sneered that he was just another one of them. There was no implication in their taunts that he or his family were on the low end of the social scale in Nazareth, which if they'd been the local equivalent of white trash there certainly would have been.
You said — “When Jesus returned to Nazareth, the villagers sneered that he was just another one of them. There was no implication in their taunts that he or his family were on the low end of the social scale in Nazareth, which if they’d been the local equivalent of white trash there certainly would have been.”
Well, subsistence living — not having (extra) money, not having property and living from day-to-day — is not what I would call “white trash”. It’s honorable that they were able to survive day-to-day, by the blessings of God and the work that Joseph and Jesus did. It’s not “white trash” — but it is being poor and it is barely getting by (although it is “getting by”). They obviously did that (i.e., get by).
That’s the point here (which I brought up in the beginning of this conversation, and which the original posting was about), that He was poor and from a poor family.
You’re making it out to be that either they are “white trash” (or the equivalent of that in those days) or else, were connected and aristocracy.
No, there were no “connections” (that we’re given by the Bible) and there is no aristocracy (in terms of their living conditions and circumstnaces). Jesus came from very “low circumstances”, was brought into this world in “lowly conditions”, lived by lowly means (in terms of finances and property and wealth). That’s the *contrast* that God had set up for Jesus to live in this life, and then to be elevated to His pre-eminent position, at the completion of His “job” here on earth. That He did.
In His “character” He was not “lowly” by any means. But in his circumstances, the way He came into this world, the family He grew up in, the finances/wealth He had, the property He owned — it was all of *very lowly circumstances* — but *not* “white trash” by any means.
That’s a contrast that you’re setting up in opposition to being “connected” or “aristocracy” — which is not the case.
Regards,
Star Traveler