The Boy Jesus from Luke 2:41-52

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It's frustrating to us that we don't know more about the biography of Jesus, but in Luke 2 we get to see Jesus as a 12-year-old boy. It's important to know that the Gospels tell us what we need to know. For the ancient writers, the message was more important than the characters. In this episode, I describe how it makes perfect sense that a Galilean Jewish boy like Jesus was talking to rabbis in Jerusalem. He was preparing for manhood, his bar mitzvah. The rabbis were always interested in evaluating the boys coming up. The message was that Jesus was well prepared to be Messiah. In the Gospel of John, we really see this. Jesus appears to have rabbinic standing so he can speak in the synagogues. We also see this in his discourse with Pharisees and Scribes. They wouldn't bother with a nobody. They were intensely interested in engaging with Jesus because he was a real threat.