How Jesus became a carpenter

[Heywood]

I wonder what was considered 'poor' in those times. Were you poor only if you couldn't feed your family or were you still poor if you owned a home and business but had trouble making ends meet? Did they even have a middle class?

Thanks for answering the question. I had forgotten about that verse

Did the bible writers forget that the young family had been given expensive gifts by the wise men or did they receive the gifts after they paid for the two turtle doves to be sacrificed at the temple?

I imagine that at the time of the birth of Jesus, the very rich did the expensive sacrifice and and everyone else sacrificed two turtle doves. Lambs are a scarce source of food and I doubt society would allow most of the population sacrificing lambs when a mother gives birth. It would just be giving up too much. Say the top 10% sacrificed lambs and the bottom 90% sacrificed doves. Mary and Joseph were surely not in the top 10%, but I doubt they were in the bottom 10% either.

Even this passage does not really tell us that Mary and Joseph were poor. They could have easily been in the top half, third, or even quarter and still sacrificed doves. Of course this is all merely speculation on my part. I haven't studied any of this stuff.