You brought up the carpentry stuff, not me. Therefore you are the one doing this diversion.
It does not say in the Bible that he was a carpenter. It says that his father (stepfather?) Joseph was a carpenter. Actually, Joseph probably belonged to a itinerant carpenters who traveled about doing jobs in a fairly large area. It does not actually make a difference, since his carpentry skills if he had any, were unrelated to his wandering ministry, except perhaps, for the wandering about part.
It was when he appeared at Emmaus that he promised to return ere the last person in the group had died. Read your bible, it is all in the book.
Like most Christians, you know about that the Bible says from hearsay, what they told you, than from actually reading the thing for itself.
The Bible is not so much the "Greatest Story ever Told" as it is "The Greatest Assemblage of Folktales, Customs, Taboos, Poetry, Prophesy and Nonsense Passed off as Divine and Rarely Read or Comprehended".
Of course, the big draw for Paul was the Eternal Life bit. Jews do not traditionally believe in life after death. There were a few famous Jews, Moses, for example, that were so holy they were sucked right up into the cloud by the Divine Celestrial Electrolux, and of course, the Egyptians were firm believers in life after death, hence the great attention they paid to embalming and fancy tombs. But for Jews, you did what Elohim said, because if you did not, Elohim would get pissed and fuck up your children for generations to come. Jews were believers because of the stick of punishment of the descendents rather than the carrot of eternal life. Christians promised a place in the Choir Celestial to everyone, though the description is beyond vague.
You got a better place in Heaven if you died a martyr, so Paul was like, "Oooh! Where do I sign up?"
Christianity did not invent martyrdom. It has a very long history with many a Sand Person.
Prayer is probably good for some people, if they do it right. But so is meditation, and for the same reason.
With meditation, you are not left with the problem of waiting for your prayers to come true, though.
I suppose that Christianity is a boon for those people who feel that they need LittlebabyJeezus to keep them in line and not go ape and do wicked things. Of Jeezus keeps sirs from taking his arsenal out and drilling holes in the kiddies at Hometown Elementary, then religion is clearly a good thing, despite its inherent disconnection from reality.
