In the Bible, there is no referance to Jesus between the ages of 13 and 30?

Question

Why is this? What was he doing during this time? I have heard that Jesus preached about reincarnation, but it was cut out as the church felt it would have less control over people if they thought reincarnation was possible instead of the idea of purgatory and heaven. Just an interesting question- hold the extremes please!

Answer 1

Salvation cults were a dime-a-dozen in biblical times. The christ-cult was originally a midrashic up-dating of Judaism, attempting to incorporate 'modern' Hellenistic philosophical ideas. That describes the Christianity of Paul/Saul. Paul's early epistles give not even a HINT of the idea that his teachings had anything at all to do with a 'human' christ who had lived on earth in the recent past... his 'christ' operated strictly in 'heavenly' realms.

The idea for a 'human' christ did not arise until around 70AD... the Gospel of Mark. This is where the 'suffering-hero/king-god' archetype came into play... not the history of a man's life... just a series of vignettes in the archetype form, modified to incorporate reference to Hebrew scripture in order to create the illusions of prophecies fulfilled.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke came much later... some scholars say after the beginning of the 2nd century. Both used Mark as a template, and fleshed it out with 'sayings' of Jesus, from a common source... the 'Q-document'... sayings which were Judaized versions of philosophical tidbits from the Greek 'cynic' and 'stoic' philosophies. This accounts for a lot of the discrepancies in the gospels... Matthew and Luke each invented scenes for Jesus to deliver these 'sayings'... but their scenes were different. Same sayings... different settings.

It is interesting to note that the total 'Jesus-time' accounted for in the bible ads up to no more than 3-weeks.

"There is not a single contemporary historical mention of Jesus, not by Romans or by Jews, not by believers or by unbelievers, not during his entire lifetime. This does not disprove his existence, but it certainly casts great doubt on the historicity of a man who was supposedly widely known to have made a great impact on the world. Someone should have noticed." ~ Dan Barker

"The Gospel story, with its figure of Jesus of Nazareth, cannot be found before the Gospels. In Christian writings earlier than Mark, including almost all of the New Testament epistles, as well as in many writings from the second century, the object of Christian faith is never spoken of as a human man who had recently lived, taught, performed miracles, suffered and died at the hands of human authorities, or rose from a tomb outside Jerusalem. There is no sign in the epistles of Mary or Joseph, Judas or John the Baptist, no birth story, teaching or appointment of apostles by Jesus, no mention of holy places or sites of Jesus’ career, not even the hill of Calvary or the empty tomb. This silence is so pervasive and so perplexing that attempted explanations for it have proven inadequate." ~ Earl Doherty, The Jesus Puzzle

Answer 2

Well I guess if you really want to know about Jesus' childhood you should make sure you trust him a your Saviour, obey his commandments and go to heaven. Then you can ask him. Why the Bible is mute on this, I dont know. But I'm sure God has a very good reason for not having this period of our Lord's life recorded. Jesus never preached on reincarnation ( part of a false religion)or on purgatory ( a man made false doctrine). All of Jesus' preaching and teaching was absolute truth. Therefore neither of these false teachings ever came out of his mouth. God bless Cap'n Arlo

Answer 3

The only reference we have of Jesus between the ages of 13 and 30 is a simple verse. Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man. Any interpretation of this can only be correct in light of all else we know.
Biblical studies and the act of translating from old manuscripts have been on-going for centuries, many of those manuscripts have been only recently found and are very old. Surely modern scholars would make reference to any discrepancies found. That's just the thing about revisionist history. Most of the revision tends to take place shortly after the events in an effort to hide truth or sway opinion. Truth nearly always prevails.
Our faith in God is incomplete if we lack faith in those He appointed. I believe the four gospels and all the writings of the New Testament contain truth and bear no contradictory witness. Eliminating any suggested teaching of reincarnation by revisionists would require heavy editing of the entire book.

Answer 4

The answers you seek may be found in Christopher Moore's "Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal"

Oh yes, answers....dig 'em! And have a chuckle at the same time, I like to think Jesus had a sense of humor.......even of so many of his followers really DON'T. Give a read to the Gnostic gospels as well......there's interesting stuff throughout there - seriously, Christopher Moore's book is funny but poses some interesting hypotheses.......

Answer 5

There are lots' of theories and hypotheses, but so far I am not convinced with any of them.

The important thing is, do people believe in him? Do they believe that he is the savior like he said?

That's my problem with the reincarnation thing. The people who would say something like that don't believe what he is reported as saying. Not at all. So that theory should have died long ago except: Some people just can't accept the truth.

Answer 6

Someone said they talked about it in the bible. That it be way to long. Plus I think someone said to me he was a normal man during that time to become fully human or some thing.
But really who cares if its not written then it was not important. He got up a 6 am and went to bed at 10 PM wow

Answer 7

Till one meets an original Bible writter or Christ, or someone else with such knowledge one can't say for positive what he was doing.

Never heard the reincarnation idea. Doesn't really fit with Christian teachings, so I doubt it.

It is probably the same situation as Adam and Eve, their day to day activities aren't all listed. This leads me to believe, that, assuming one believes the Bible was inspired of God, that God didn't think those sections needed to be in there.

Answer 8

Foxy,
There actually is NO REFERENCE to HIS Age at all. Why do you think you know when (at what age) anything happened? There should be no extremes. The only place you will see such references are in writkings that have already been proven not to fit with the archeological facts and times that HE lived in. Have a wonderful week.
Thanks,
Eds


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Answer 9

I saw your question and had wondered this myself but i think that if they had mentioned those years it would have not only made Jesus seem more human but it would have shifted the focus of the book from the moral and value lessons to the half god himself
I also wanted to let you know that all mention of reincarnation was stricken from the bible in a sixth century edict by emperor Justinian and Empress Theodora

Answer 10

Maybe something freaky happened to Jesus like in the movie 13 Going On 30. But a lot of stuff was cut out of the Bible, and for some reason I don't think it was to save space... *cough*censorship*cough*hack*.