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Tax Collectors and Sinners

Jirair S. Tashjian

The Pharisees complained that Jesus went to dinner parties with tax collectors and sinners. But who were these people? How did they fit in the world of their time?

Sociologists assign people to upper, middle, and lower classes. In industrialized nations, the middle class is relatively large. In Palestine in the time of Jesus, what we know as middle class was rather small. It was made up of professional people such as shopkeepers, tradesmen, fishermen, and educated people such as the Pharisees and scribes. Being a carpenter, Jesus most likely belonged to this class.

Even smaller than the middle class was the upper class. This class included the very wealthy such as the aristocratic families of the Herods, the high priests, and the rich nobility that owned most of the land.

The majority of the people in Palestine belonged to the lower class, known as the poor. All sorts of people belonged to this class, such as orphans and widows, the blind, the crippled, and the mentally ill. Having no other means of livelihood, people with physical and mental handicaps became beggars. To this class also belonged outcasts. One can be an outcast without necessarily being poor economically. Such were tax collectors and sinners.










-Jirair Tashjian, Copyright © 2013, Jirair Tashjian
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