I tar'd a site up that I had developed, pushed it to the server, untar'd it and set the mysql options appropriately. I also transferred over the database via mysqldump and cat'ing it back into mysql on the server. I am, however running into a problem.

First, chown is not working as expected so as to set the group ownership to www-data. That may or may not have bearing on this issue, but I thought I'd share it. I have a request in for assistance as to why ownership is not changing as expected.

The error that I'm actually receiving is:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STATIC, expecting T_OLD_FUNCTION or T_FUNCTION or T_VAR or '}' in ... sapphire/core/ManifestBuilder.php on line 33

I also fear that as I am moving from a 5.0.41 mysql database to 4.1.11 that some sort of incongruity may be plaguing me.

Can anyone offer some assistance as this is a rather urgent issue.

Make sure the account you are using to host the SilverStripe site is running PHP5 and not PHP4. If you are on a GridServer then that option is available in your Account Center under PHP Settings. Each hosted domain can be toggled between PHP4 and PHP5 on a per domain basis.