The Gospels of Mark and Matthew say that Joseph, Jesus' stepfather, was a "tekton" which is normally translated as "carpenter" but likely meant "craftsman/artisan/builder". I've been told Jesus was likely not a carpenter because wood was scarce in Palestine at that time, but is that true? I'm thinking it's likely that the Roman trade network would have brought lumber to the region in exchange for olives, dates, and other agricultural products. Or perhaps was Palestine at the time more forested than we think it was? Did ecological change from deforestation denude the land? Thanks!
I'm not the best-qualified person around here to answer your real questions, though there are plenty of others who might (and I wonder if it's valid, weren't the great cedar forests in what is now Lebanon doing just fine?), but I think it's worth noting that there was an interesting previous discussion of the meaning of ὁ τέκτων. Now, I'm no scholar of Biblical Greek, and I'm happy to be corrected if I have erred therein, but the usage of ὁ τέκτων in Classical Attic at least is pretty overwhelmingly "carpenter," or some sort of woodworker