Why don’t we know anything about the teenage Jesus?
Jesus was once a teenage boy, right? Was he a rascal? Who did he hang out with? Was he considered the ancient equivalent of a jock, a cool kid, a nerd, or something else?
And how on earth did he get through the normal teenage years of angst and still be … the perfect incarnation of God?
There’s a bit of speculation about teenage Jesus. And we promise to cover all the evidence for it in this episode.
LINKS
Download a transcript of this episode here
- This episode is brought to you by Zondervan’s new Bible commentary on the Gospel of Mark
- More about 10 Things I Hate About You, which you heard at the beginning of this episode.
- Check out the Infancy of Thomas, an apocryphal document that purports to narrate episodes from Jesus’ youth from the age of five up until his twelfth year.
- Listen to Canon Fodder, from Season 3 of Undeceptions, which also features Dr Forbes. It’s all about how the Bible was put together and why which books were chosen as scripture and some books weren’t.
- Here’s that TedTalk on raising rebels. Good luck to listeners attempting to do so!
- The Lost Years of Jesus documentary.
- The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ by Nicolas Notovitch (Yeah, we’re not suggesting your rush out and get this one!)
- Here’s a travel diary to follow if you want to try to “walk in the steps of Jesus” in Nepal, even if he didn’t actually go there! Articles like these just keep popping up.
- Check out this talk that John Dickson gave on the difference between the teachings of Jesus and the teachings of Buddhism or Hinduism.
- Here’s the one passage in the gospels that talks about Jesus as a teen… Luke 2:42-51.
- More on David Flusser, the great Jewish Professor of History and Religion from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Meet our guest
Dr Chris Forbes is an Associate Senior Lecturer in Ancient History. His fields of research and teaching focus on New Testament history, Alexander the Great and Hellenistic history, Graeco-Roman History of Ideas and the intersection of early Christianity and Graeco-Roman culture.
His current research is in the field of the relationship between religion and philosophy in Graeco-Roman thought. He gained his BA (Hons I) Dip.Ed. in Ancient History at Macquarie in 1978, and his PhD in Ancient History in 1987. He taught at Macquarie in various positions since 1985, full time since 1987, and was appointed Senior Lecturer in 2001.
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Undeceptions is part of the Eternity Podcast Network, an audio collection showcasing the seriously good news of faith today.
