What did Jesus do during the 30 missing years not recorded in the Bible?

Question

We know of Jesus' birth, his ministry and death but we know nothing about Jesus' life while growing up. What did Jesus do before he met John the Baptist?

Answer 1

I'm amazed how many people pretend to know the answer.

The truth is NOBODY KNOWS! The presumptiousness of Christians to fill in the gaps with made up stories is truly astounding.

Answer 2

No fact here, just suppostion. At 13, He would have been able to help Joseph provide for the family and the younger children. When his ministry begins, Joseph is no longer present. As the oldest son, he must have been the head of the household after Joseph's death. Did God wait til he was 30 to begin his ministry because there were younger children at home? So that he would be old enough to be a credible rabbi? Because it fit some part of God's plan with which we are not familiar? No one knows. There are thousands of ancient parchments of the 4 Gospels and the Epistles and the Dead Sea Scrolls give us parchments of the Old Testament which date to Jesus time. Before you believe anything not in the Book, do some independent research to find how old the source document is that it depends on. Don't buy anything which is not attested to by independent scientists as dating back to 100-200AD.

Answer 3

All things that are recorded in the Bible are the things that we need to know. The Bile talks about Jesus being in the the temple "sitting in the midst of the teachers and listening t them and questioning them". Luke 2:44-46

Jesus was the first born of is mother Mary and adoptive father, Joseph, was a carpenter. Jesus too became a carpenter, evidently learning the trade from Joseph.

Matt. 13:55 Mark 6:3; Luke 1: 26-31

Although Jesus was perfect it was also human and born as we all are (a baby). so Jesus had to grow from a baby ,to a boy to a young man. No, doubt when Jesus was a child, he sometimes played games, even as the bible says children did in early times.

Zechariah 8:5; Matt. 11:16,17

Also being the oldest child in a large family of modest means, he had chores to do in addition to receiving training from Joseph to become a carpenter.

Later, Jesus became a preacher and devote himslef to his ministry to the extent of sacrificing personal comforts.

Lkue 9:58; John 5:17

Answer 4

I don't understand why all these people are leaving these bogus answers. No one knows what Jesus did during those years but his contemporaries! All we can do at this time is speculate on what happened during those lost 20 years.

There is an apocryphal text, the Infancy Gospel of Thomas, an account of Jesus when he was younger. However, most Christians don't choose to believe anything it has to say, due to the fact that it raises the possibility that Jesus was not the greatest kid before he matured into a more responsible person. And no need to to fear I am anti-Christian; I am Christian, but one who is open minded and realizes that I will never know everything about Jesus or his activities.

Answer 5

RE: "Jesus the Magician" Dr. Morton Smith

According to Jewish teachers of the first century he could not find work in Judah and went to Egypt to find some. While he was there he studied the Egyptian mysteries. If one studies the Egyptian religion it becomes quite apparent that the Teachings of Jesus are far more Egyptian than Jewish. Example: The bread and wine ceremony at the last supper is not a Jewish rite. It was one thousands of years old that was done by the Egyptians to celebrate the death and resurrection of their man-god Osiris

Answer 6

We know more than that. We know that the Magi finally found him at 1 or 2 years of age. Their gifts paid for Jesus' temporary move to Egypt to avoid Herod's death decree. We also know that at 12 he (unknowingly to his parents) stayed behind at the Temple and schooled the priests on the Word of God. We know he followed Joseph's trade as a carpenter. From that until his baptism at the age of 30 we know little of his life, but we certainly know more than you give credit for.

Answer 7

Other than Luke 2:41-52, the Bible does not tell us anything about Jesus’ youth. From this incident we do know certain things about Jesus’ childhood. First, He was the son of parents who were devout in their religious observances. As required by their faith, Joseph and Mary made the yearly pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. In addition, they brought their 12-year-old son to celebrate His first Feast in preparation for His bar mitzvah at age 13, when Jewish boys commemorate their passage into adulthood. Here we see a typical boy in a typical family of that day.

We see also in this story that Jesus’ lingering in the temple was neither mischievous nor disobedient, but a natural result of His knowledge that He must be about His Father’s business. That He was astonishing the temple teachers with His wisdom and knowledge speaks to His extraordinary abilities, while His listening and asking questions of His elders shows that He was utterly respectful, taking the role of a student as was fitting for a child of His age.

From this incident to His baptism at age 30, all we know of Jesus’ youth was that He left Jerusalem and returned to Nazareth with His parents and “was obedient to them” Luke 2:51. He fulfilled His duty to His earthly parents in submission to the 5th commandment, an essential part of the perfect obedience to the law of Moses which He rendered on our behalf. Beyond that, all we know is that “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men" (Luke 2:52).

Evidently, this is all God determined that we needed to know. There are some extra-Biblical writings which contain stories of Jesus’ youth (the Gospel of Thomas, for example). But we have no way of knowing whether any of these stories are true and reliable. God chose not to tell us much about Jesus’ childhood – so we have to just trust Him that nothing occurred which we need to know about.

Answer 8

This is the dark area of the `truth`. Many will say "carpenter", for which there is no proof. There is evidence of a variety of religious doctrines within the Jesus story, without doubt he spent time learning things that Rome would rather forget.

Answer 9

Considering that Christ was only 32 when he died, there are only about 20 years missing. And those years are accounted for in several other writings that weren't accepted as part of the bible during the counsil of nicea. Keep in mind, at the time, everyone was writing about their experience with Christ and what they were going through at the time. Not all of that actually made it into the bible.

Answer 10

I believe that Jesus was completely unknown before he started raving about having powers greater than the Emperor.
After he was thought of as a "god" by some, after his execution, I believe that the church had to account for his beginning, so the whole story about Mary, the Ghost, Bethleham, and the rest of it. was hurridly invented and put together without much thought.
They figured that the very superstitious people would believe anything. When you think deeply about the birth story, it just doesn't come out properly. I think they should have taken more time, and get more skillful thinkers into the act.
I am convinced in my mind that he was absolutely unknown before his ministry.

Answer 11

He grew up like anybody else would. The part of His life recorded in Scripture (His ministry) is what was important for us to understand about salvation.