It is often assumed (especially around Christmas-time – cue smelly stable) that Jesus was born and raised in poverty, and that his ministry focussed very much on the economically disadvantaged.

Ian Paul draws our attention to this homily:

‘This Christmas why not ask the gift to love the poor more deeply, with an abiding and deep affection? For poverty and neediness are an intrinsic aspect of the Infancy narratives. The first Christmas was anything but charming or sentimental. It is charged with homelessness, hardship, a lack of decent resources, disregard for human life (by Herod), and the flight of the Holy Family as refugees and aliens in a foreign land…

‘Yes,  Joseph and Mary are swept away from their resources, their family, extended family, and Joseph from his livelihood. They are swept downstream some 70 miles to the town of Bethlehem at a critical time for their family, the 9th month of Mary’s pregnancy. Could you walk 70 miles? And what if you were pregnant?

Homelessness awaited them…Off to the stinking stable, the dank cave. Poverty does stink, and leads to deep and dank places. We may sentimentalize the birth of Jesus among animals, but there was nothing cute about it…Yes, the wondrous mystery is that God so esteems poverty. But the disgrace of this remains at our door…So poverty is an overarching theme in the infancy narrative.’

There are several factual problems here.  The distance from Nazareth to Bethlehem was not 70 miles; it was more like 100 miles.  Mary and Joseph are not dragged away from their family: in Joseph’s case, at least, they are going to his family home.  There is no evidence that Mary was in the 9th month of her pregnancy.  And there is no evidence that they were accommodated in a stable or a cave.  (Certainly, by the time the magi arrived, they were living in a house.

As for the more general claim that Jesus was born into poverty, a survey of the available evidence shows that the reality is considerably more nuanced than this.

I was pointed by this article from Ian Paul to a chapter by Roland Deines in the German volume Anthropologie und Ethik im Frühjudentum und im Neuen Testament (Anthropology and Ethics in Early Judaism and the New Testament).

What follows is extracted from pp350-354.

When Jesus commissioned the Twelve to spread the message of the kingdom of God he required them to go without provisions of any kind: according to Matthew and Luke they were not allowed a staff, a purse or any money, nor shoes (only Matthew) nor a second tunic, whereas in Mark the restrictions are less rigid; here Jesus allows them a staff and sandals (Mark 6:8f. par. Matt 10:9f.; Luke 9:3, cf. 10:4; 22:35). The point here is that such requirements only make sense if the disciples were able to provide themselves with these things; in other words, if they had more than one tunic etc. From Luke 22:36 it becomes clear that this requirement was not seen as a lasting one but as a symbolic one for this specific commissioning…

According to John 12:6; 13:29 the disciples had a shared purse which was administered by Judas Iscariot, which means that Jesus had money with him when he was on the way. (The possession of money is also presupposed in the reply of the disciples about buying food: Mark 6:37 par. Matt 14:15; Luke 9:13.) Although only mentioned by John, it is confirmed by Luke 8:2f. where three women out of many, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Salome, were named who provided for Jesus and his disciples out of their means (cf. also Mark 15:40f.).

There is more evidence for this position between the rich and the very poor throughout the Gospels, and even a casual look at the people Jesus is associating with reveals that they are not the “destitute” in economic terms but people with at least some means and not bound in a daily struggle for survival, with some even having a certain surplus they can spend on things other than their own immediate subsistence.

1) The disciples of Jesus were evidently not among the destitute:

• • • Simon Peter owns a house (Mark 1:29 par. Matt 8:14; Luke 4:38) and a boat including fishing implements (Mark 1:16)…
    • Zebedee, the father of two of the disciples, also has a boat and even employs day-labourers (Mark 1:20); Jesus calls only the sons, not these hirelings, by the way. And in Luke 17:7, Jesus asks a non-specified audience what to say to a servant when he returns from the field to the house (Τίς δὲ ἐξ ὑμῶν δοῦλον ἔχων…). Even if this is merely an illustration for a teaching of Jesus and should not be read as a matter of fact, it is nevertheless worth recognizing that it is formulated from the perspective of the one who has a servant.
    • A similar picture emerges from the wider circle of disciples, like the many women who supported Jesus and the Twelve with their money (Luke 8:2f.); Joseph of Arimathea (Mark 15:43, 46 par. Luke 23:50f., 53, Matt 27:57, 59f.; John 19:38, 40f.); and Nicodemus (John 3:1; 19:39).
    • Levi-Matthew, the tax-collector (Mark 2:13–17 par. Matt 9:9–13; Luke 5:27–32) is able to invite many into his house, which points to a certain standard of living, even if one should not assume that all tax-collectors are wealthy just because of their profession…Nothing brings the soteriological emphasis of his mission over against a mainly social agenda more clearly into focus than Jesus’ attitude towards the tax collectors. He invites them to repent and to follow him.
    • In contrast, no calling story is transmitted to illustrate that Jesus implemented “the good news for the poor” (Isa 61:1, quoted by Jesus in Nazareth, see Luke 4:18) in such a way as to actually choose one of them as a member of the Twelve… no beggar or similarly “visible” poor individual is called directly.
    • The women who anointed Jesus with precious oils clearly had some surplus (Mark 14:3–5: the alabaster jar mentioned is a luxury item, containing ointment worth about 300 denarii; in John 11:2; 12:1–8, the woman is identified as Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazarus, and the price of the oil is mentioned in 12:5; nothing is said about the price in Luke 7:38 and Matt 26:7 though); the three women on Easter morning also could afford to buy ointments (Mark 16:1 par. Luke 23:56–24:1).

2. With regard to the people Jesus is staying with or dining with the evidence again points throughout to people above poverty; those who invited Jesus and his group could obviously provide food and space for a sizeable number of people:

– The tax-collectors Levi (Mark 2:15 par. Luke 5:29; Matt 9:10) and Zacchaeus (Luke 19:2–6).
– Simon the Pharisee (Luke 7:36; for other meals in houses of Pharisees, see 11:37; 14:1); the context presupposes a rather large group even if not all participants are mentioned.
– Simon the Leper from Bethany (Mark 14:3 par. Matt 26:6).
– Mary and Martha (Luke 10:38), and – according to John – Lazarus (John 11:1f.; 12:1–8).
– The owner of the house with the upper room in Jerusalem for the last supper (Mark 14:13–15 par. Luke 22:11f.).
– The wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1–11) also displays a decent level of means..
– At least one family in Jerusalem provided generously space for the followers of Jesus from very early on (Acts 1:13, see also 2:46), and it is likely that it is the house of Mary, the mother of John Mark (Acts 12:12); but also Mnason of Cyprus, an “early disciple,” was able to provide for a large number of guests over a longer period (Acts
21:15f.).

3) Even the beneficiaries of Jesus’ miracles belong to the relatively wealthy as in the case of the centurion in Capernaum (Matt 8:5–13 par. Luke 7:1–10; John 4:43–53), the synagogue leader Jairus (Mark 5:21–43 par. Matt 9:18–26; Luke 8:40–56), and Mary Magdalene (Luke 8:2). In most cases the economic situation of those healed is not mentioned but one should not assume too easily that illness always means economic poverty.  The haemorrhaging woman in Mark 5:25ff. par. is said to have spent all her money with the physicians during the twelve years of her illness, which implies she had some money to spend in the first place; the healed leper in Mark 1:44 par. is sent to Jerusalem to bring the sacrifices for healing described in the Torah, again implying that even this leper was not of the begging poor (cf. Lev 14:10). Bartimaeus, the blind beggar in Jericho (Mark 10:46 par. Luke 18:35), is one of the few persons where one can assume with some certainty economic poverty, but this is not addressed at all in the encounter between him and Jesus. Besides the blind and the lame, hardly any other person who is mentioned in
close contact with Jesus can be described confidently as economically poor (in the sense that they are in need of subsidies from others to survive). And even if one might assume with good reason that some of those healed by Jesus were actually poor then it is nevertheless noteworthy that this is not highlighted at all.

4) Even the key characters in the parables are more often than not well-established in life and not desperately poor: Lazarus and the day-labourers in the vineyard are actually the only truly poor people mentioned, whereas otherwise kings, landowners, merchants, stewards etc. make their appearance. The poor ones from the streets leading to the city (“usher in the poor and the cripples, the blind and the lame” [τοὺς πτωχοὺς καὶ ἀναπείρους (crippled) καὶ τυφλοὺς καὶ χωλοὺς εἰσάγαγε ὧδε], Luke 14:21) are the last to be invited to the great supper – and they got invited only because the more important and wealthy ones declined to come in the first place – but in the end they will be there and not the previously invited well-established.

In conclusion, Jesus is not addressing directly the very rich nor the very poor (in economic terms). The really rich and the destitute are actually – with some notable exceptions – rather absent as real persons. Instead, they function as types against which the followers of Jesus have to learn how to follow him with regard to their possessions.

(Emphasis added)