Mary Dzon in The Conversation:
After its account of Jesus’ birth, the Bible is almost entirely silent on his childhood. Yet legends about Jesus’ early years circulated widely in the Middle Ages – the focus of my 2017 book. While the detail of the ox and ass is quite familiar to many Christians today, few are aware of the other striking tales transmitted by the apocrypha.
The Bible does include one famous scene from Jesus’ youth: the incident when 12-year-old Jesus stayed behind at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, unbeknownst to his parents. Searching for him with great anxiety, they find him conversing with religious teachers, both asking questions and astounding them with his answers. Fourteenth-century painter Simone Martini’s “Christ Discovered in the Temple” portrays him standing before his parents with crossed arms – a stubborn youth, apparently unapologetic about making them worry for days.
More here.
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