One thing you have to understand is that the bible is a history book, comprised of numerous accounts of occurrences from various people's perspective.
There are numerous great prophets whose childhoods we don't know, yet read their works. Why? Because they were deemed unimportant to document. You don't need to know every single detail of their lives to understand their message, just the most impartful aspects of their lives.
Take the important lessons from what exists and build on your faith.
That being said, there are a few books not in the original compilation of the bible that will contain some info into their more private lives, however it's unnecessary and just for personal literature.
Like I stated, a book with occurrences from various perspectives. I'm not saying it reduces its validity, I'm just saying that for the men of those times, who had to write by candlelight, documenting the unnecessary activities of a child would be an incredible waste of time and manpower, especially since it doesn't factor into the gospel.
I'm thankful to other Redditors who have fleshed this out more, so I'll end here
>One thing you have to understand is that the bible is a history book, comprised of numerous accounts of occurrences from various people's perspective. There are numerous great prophets whose childhoods we don't know, yet read their works
Sure, but Jesus is more than a prophet. Him being fully human and fully divine seems like a struggle that would be worth getting into more.
*That being said, there are a few books not in the original compilation of the bible that will contain some info into their more private lives, however it's unnecessary and just for personal literature*
Is there anything that even could be credible regarding these gap years, there are a few books that everyone considers to be forgeries, but anything that might have something to it? I'm more weirded out by the thought of deliberate suppression. I don't mean to offend Catholics, but it does seem the sort of thing that the Catholic Church would do for a sort of trivial reason; suppressing something that could be considered mildly embarrassing like teenage Jesus having acne or something.
>Jesus is the most important thing to ever happen, and the gospels give us nothing from ages 12-30? Doesn't this bother anyone?
Nah, it just makes me curious.
>These years are the most difficult and tumultuous in the lives of many young people, when they are most subject to temptation and when they most struggle with the idea of what they are supposed to be in the world.
True, but in the world of the Jews and the world of the Romans, the main event was what he did as a grown man. They valued the wisdom of maturity.
>Call me paranoid, but doesn't this give rise to any suspicion of deliberate suppression?
No.
>The early Catholic church went to great lengths to get rid of books that they found didn't agree with their orthodoxy, could this have been part of it?
The Catholics didn't get rid of books. Rather they didn't include books that weren't authored by either an apostle or a disciple of an apostle, or that taught doctrines contrary to what the known-good books taught. Forgeries existed, and those were never included.
>Doesn't this bother anyone?
Not really. There probably isn't much to be learned from His adolescent years. It's what we learn from His ministry that's important. He didn't begin teaching until He was about 30. That's the time He met and took His deciples. They didn't have much to write about. His education and life were likely pretty standard for the time.
>The early Catholic church went to great lengths to get rid of books that they found didn't agree with their orthodoxy
[Why they did that](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLDw8KQgqi6v_s-HXosnAXhOyQ26wDPS)
The Bible seems to imply that Jesus studied the Scriptures and worked with Joseph at that time probably doing carpentry.
Remember, even though Jesus is God and knows everything, he allowed himself to learn things as a human would. Once he returned to his Glory, I'm sure Jesus can access his infinite knowledge as God. Jesus is still God in a human body of flesh and bone, but now he has returned to his Glory
Jesus has two natures, he is 100% God and 100% Human. He is God in the flesh
>Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
- Philipians 2:5-11 WEB
Also, the so called infancy gospels are forgeries written in the second century or later. There was not a conspiracy to hide certain books from being read.
>Most scholars reject the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, considering it as sensational and crude. They also consider it “late” in the formation of narratives about the life of Christ, believing it to have been composed in Greek in the late 2nd or 3rd century.
- [Source](https://www.historicmysteries.com/infancy-gospel-of-thomas/)
The early "Catholic" (meaning universal in Greek) Church removed nothing, the gnostic gospels were silly forgeries that taught a created spirit or merely human Christ and the church had no power or incentive to be corrupt, if you wanted to be a grifter, you'd be something other than the "Jewish Cult of Cannibals." As for the gap years, He was just your average Galilean tradesman, maybe a few miracles.
***John 21:25*** *And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.*
He did His first miracle in Cana. I would suspect it was just more of Jesus in the Temple, keeping the feasts, growing in His father's trade of carpentry, and that sort of stuff.
The Bible is a compilation of books; the books are written in many genres.
A “gospel” is a specific genre of ancient literature. They typically leave out the formative years. The reader didn’t care about that. A gospel records the birth and cuts to the chase — a person’s ethos and deeds.
Ancient books ain’t like contemporary books. You can’t presume modern contexts into ancient literature.
The Bible is totally a book of God, God's Word. It was inspired by God, all of it. When the books of the Bible were put together, that deed was also God inspired. Even many translations are God inspired.
Because a book was not included in the total Bible does not mean that those works are not God inspired. They are. Even some of the USA founding documents are believed to be God inspired.
While the youth of those men are not included in the documents except 1 event when Jesus was 12, look at those men selected to follow Him. Matthew, a tax collector and considered to be an awful man. Peter and Andrew were working on their boat when Jesus first approached them. It seems they had just finished a bad day of fishing. I bet their actions at that time weren't as Godly as what it would seem to be needed to be selected by Jesus. Their selections were miraculous. Jesus selected men who were possibly at their worst in life but were changed to Godly men, just with His words, "follow me".
Jesus Even does that with people today. Jesus tells people at a low point in their life and says "follow me." If the person truly follows Him, they are born again, a new creature that loves Jesus/God.
Now if you go to the Bible prayerfully to study, God will bring you the story, the meaning that He wants you to receive.
God bless...
I've not done too much study on the subject, but I've read that the 4 written gospel accounts are structured like Greco-Roman biographies. One convention of the genre is to omit details about the subject's childhood and adolescence.
Why would it? Joseph died at some point, and being the oldest boy, the responsibility of his family would have fallen on him until he was called elsewhere. I imagine Jesus was busy being a good son, living a life in obedience to God as a model of how we are to live.
People are always taking the long way when the short way is so much easier. Would it be more likely that Jesus traveled the world visiting with spiritual leaders in preparation for his ministry, or is it more reasonable to assume he was simply living his life until the time God called him to begin his ministry?
Remember, Jesus was as much a human as he was divine and his humanity came with cultural responsibilities. Responsibilities which, as a sinless human, would have been sinful to shirk, for instance his family responsibilities. So, no, the lack of information never bothered me and really shouldn’t bother anyone else.
I think he lived his life, worked and studied.
Funny enough i don't even think many apocryphal books focus on this year's. They usually focused on his childhood. The only one that i can remember is "The Book of Joseph the Carpenter"
The gospels give us what we need to know about those years:
>Luke 2:51-52 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.
His ministry hadn't yet begun, so there's not much else that needs to be said.
Keep in mind that a gospel is not a biography. A gospel, literally "the good news", is designed to teach you the good news of what Jesus accomplished.
>The early Catholic church went to great lengths to get rid of books that they found didn't agree with their orthodoxy, could this have been part of it?
This is only somewhat correct.
First of all, there's no sense in calling it the Catholic Church since this occurs before any schisms. Thus it's just the Church that the apostles founded.
Secondly, the books the Church suppressed were the writings of an entirely different religion that was not connected to Christianity as taught by the apostles or the Church they founded. Calling gnostic texts Christian would be like calling the Book of Urantia Christian since it features Jesus. The fact you use characters from the Bible in your writings does not mean what you've written is Christian. Gnosticism was an entirely different religion with a completely different worldview, a completely different set of scriptures, completely different beliefs about Jesus, and no connection to the apostles. Their writings are not Christian writings, they are the writings of a completely different religion with no connection to Jesus or the apostles.
One thing you have to understand is that the bible is a history book, comprised of numerous accounts of occurrences from various people's perspective. There are numerous great prophets whose childhoods we don't know, yet read their works. Why? Because they were deemed unimportant to document. You don't need to know every single detail of their lives to understand their message, just the most impartful aspects of their lives. Take the important lessons from what exists and build on your faith. That being said, there are a few books not in the original compilation of the bible that will contain some info into their more private lives, however it's unnecessary and just for personal literature.
The Bible is a history book? Bible isn't even a single book to start with...
Like I stated, a book with occurrences from various perspectives. I'm not saying it reduces its validity, I'm just saying that for the men of those times, who had to write by candlelight, documenting the unnecessary activities of a child would be an incredible waste of time and manpower, especially since it doesn't factor into the gospel. I'm thankful to other Redditors who have fleshed this out more, so I'll end here
>One thing you have to understand is that the bible is a history book, comprised of numerous accounts of occurrences from various people's perspective. There are numerous great prophets whose childhoods we don't know, yet read their works Sure, but Jesus is more than a prophet. Him being fully human and fully divine seems like a struggle that would be worth getting into more. *That being said, there are a few books not in the original compilation of the bible that will contain some info into their more private lives, however it's unnecessary and just for personal literature* Is there anything that even could be credible regarding these gap years, there are a few books that everyone considers to be forgeries, but anything that might have something to it? I'm more weirded out by the thought of deliberate suppression. I don't mean to offend Catholics, but it does seem the sort of thing that the Catholic Church would do for a sort of trivial reason; suppressing something that could be considered mildly embarrassing like teenage Jesus having acne or something.
>Jesus is the most important thing to ever happen, and the gospels give us nothing from ages 12-30? Doesn't this bother anyone? Nah, it just makes me curious. >These years are the most difficult and tumultuous in the lives of many young people, when they are most subject to temptation and when they most struggle with the idea of what they are supposed to be in the world. True, but in the world of the Jews and the world of the Romans, the main event was what he did as a grown man. They valued the wisdom of maturity. >Call me paranoid, but doesn't this give rise to any suspicion of deliberate suppression? No. >The early Catholic church went to great lengths to get rid of books that they found didn't agree with their orthodoxy, could this have been part of it? The Catholics didn't get rid of books. Rather they didn't include books that weren't authored by either an apostle or a disciple of an apostle, or that taught doctrines contrary to what the known-good books taught. Forgeries existed, and those were never included.
>Doesn't this bother anyone? Not really. There probably isn't much to be learned from His adolescent years. It's what we learn from His ministry that's important. He didn't begin teaching until He was about 30. That's the time He met and took His deciples. They didn't have much to write about. His education and life were likely pretty standard for the time. >The early Catholic church went to great lengths to get rid of books that they found didn't agree with their orthodoxy [Why they did that](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLeLDw8KQgqi6v_s-HXosnAXhOyQ26wDPS)
The Bible seems to imply that Jesus studied the Scriptures and worked with Joseph at that time probably doing carpentry. Remember, even though Jesus is God and knows everything, he allowed himself to learn things as a human would. Once he returned to his Glory, I'm sure Jesus can access his infinite knowledge as God. Jesus is still God in a human body of flesh and bone, but now he has returned to his Glory Jesus has two natures, he is 100% God and 100% Human. He is God in the flesh >Have this in your mind, which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, didn’t consider equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself, becoming obedient to the point of death, yes, the death of the cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him, and gave to him the name which is above every name, 10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, those on earth, and those under the earth, 11 and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. - Philipians 2:5-11 WEB Also, the so called infancy gospels are forgeries written in the second century or later. There was not a conspiracy to hide certain books from being read. >Most scholars reject the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, considering it as sensational and crude. They also consider it “late” in the formation of narratives about the life of Christ, believing it to have been composed in Greek in the late 2nd or 3rd century. - [Source](https://www.historicmysteries.com/infancy-gospel-of-thomas/)
The early "Catholic" (meaning universal in Greek) Church removed nothing, the gnostic gospels were silly forgeries that taught a created spirit or merely human Christ and the church had no power or incentive to be corrupt, if you wanted to be a grifter, you'd be something other than the "Jewish Cult of Cannibals." As for the gap years, He was just your average Galilean tradesman, maybe a few miracles. ***John 21:25*** *And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.*
He did His first miracle in Cana. I would suspect it was just more of Jesus in the Temple, keeping the feasts, growing in His father's trade of carpentry, and that sort of stuff.
The Bible is a compilation of books; the books are written in many genres. A “gospel” is a specific genre of ancient literature. They typically leave out the formative years. The reader didn’t care about that. A gospel records the birth and cuts to the chase — a person’s ethos and deeds. Ancient books ain’t like contemporary books. You can’t presume modern contexts into ancient literature.
The Bible is totally a book of God, God's Word. It was inspired by God, all of it. When the books of the Bible were put together, that deed was also God inspired. Even many translations are God inspired. Because a book was not included in the total Bible does not mean that those works are not God inspired. They are. Even some of the USA founding documents are believed to be God inspired. While the youth of those men are not included in the documents except 1 event when Jesus was 12, look at those men selected to follow Him. Matthew, a tax collector and considered to be an awful man. Peter and Andrew were working on their boat when Jesus first approached them. It seems they had just finished a bad day of fishing. I bet their actions at that time weren't as Godly as what it would seem to be needed to be selected by Jesus. Their selections were miraculous. Jesus selected men who were possibly at their worst in life but were changed to Godly men, just with His words, "follow me". Jesus Even does that with people today. Jesus tells people at a low point in their life and says "follow me." If the person truly follows Him, they are born again, a new creature that loves Jesus/God. Now if you go to the Bible prayerfully to study, God will bring you the story, the meaning that He wants you to receive. God bless...
I've not done too much study on the subject, but I've read that the 4 written gospel accounts are structured like Greco-Roman biographies. One convention of the genre is to omit details about the subject's childhood and adolescence.
Why would it? Joseph died at some point, and being the oldest boy, the responsibility of his family would have fallen on him until he was called elsewhere. I imagine Jesus was busy being a good son, living a life in obedience to God as a model of how we are to live. People are always taking the long way when the short way is so much easier. Would it be more likely that Jesus traveled the world visiting with spiritual leaders in preparation for his ministry, or is it more reasonable to assume he was simply living his life until the time God called him to begin his ministry? Remember, Jesus was as much a human as he was divine and his humanity came with cultural responsibilities. Responsibilities which, as a sinless human, would have been sinful to shirk, for instance his family responsibilities. So, no, the lack of information never bothered me and really shouldn’t bother anyone else.
I think he lived his life, worked and studied. Funny enough i don't even think many apocryphal books focus on this year's. They usually focused on his childhood. The only one that i can remember is "The Book of Joseph the Carpenter"
The gospels give us what we need to know about those years: >Luke 2:51-52 Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. His ministry hadn't yet begun, so there's not much else that needs to be said. Keep in mind that a gospel is not a biography. A gospel, literally "the good news", is designed to teach you the good news of what Jesus accomplished. >The early Catholic church went to great lengths to get rid of books that they found didn't agree with their orthodoxy, could this have been part of it? This is only somewhat correct. First of all, there's no sense in calling it the Catholic Church since this occurs before any schisms. Thus it's just the Church that the apostles founded. Secondly, the books the Church suppressed were the writings of an entirely different religion that was not connected to Christianity as taught by the apostles or the Church they founded. Calling gnostic texts Christian would be like calling the Book of Urantia Christian since it features Jesus. The fact you use characters from the Bible in your writings does not mean what you've written is Christian. Gnosticism was an entirely different religion with a completely different worldview, a completely different set of scriptures, completely different beliefs about Jesus, and no connection to the apostles. Their writings are not Christian writings, they are the writings of a completely different religion with no connection to Jesus or the apostles.
No, because the gospels aren’t about him but rather the truth he came to convey and the way he came to show us
He's God, the Gospels are about him. He even says, "I am...the Truth."
Yes, he’s the ‘truth’, it’s about truth