The Early Years of Jesus

In his book: “The Gospel According to Jesus”, Stephen Mitchell has some interesting observations about Jesus’ early life.

Mat 1:18 This is how Jesus Christ was born. A young woman named Mary was engaged to Joseph from King David's family. But before they were married, she learned that she was going to have a baby by God's Holy Spirit. Joseph was a good man and did not want to embarrass Mary in front of everyone. So he decided to quietly call off the wedding. While Joseph was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord came to him in a dream. The angel said, "Joseph, the baby that Mary will have is from the Holy Spirit. Go ahead and marry her. Then after her baby is born, name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

If we withdraw the mythic elements, then this passage is simply an acknowledgement that Mary had committed adultery. The so-called virgin birth is never mentioned anywhere else apart from Luke’s genealogy, and plays no part in Jesus’ preaching. There are no discussions amongst the scribes or Pharisees. Jesus doesn’t mention it as a fact that would enable him to claim divine status.

Mat 1:1 Jesus Christ came from the family of King David and also from the family of Abraham. And this is a list of his ancestors. From Abraham to King David, his ancestors were: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah and his brothers (Judah's sons were Perez and Zerah, and their mother was Tamar), Hezron; Ram, Amminadab, Nahshon, Salmon, Boaz (his mother was Rahab), Obed (his mother was Ruth), Jesse, and King David. From David to the time of the exile in Babylonia, the ancestors of Jesus were: David, Solomon (his mother had been Uriah's wife), Rehoboam, Abijah, Asa, Jehoshaphat, Jehoram; Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amon, Josiah, and Jehoiachin and his brothers. From the exile to the birth of Jesus, his ancestors were: Jehoiachin, Shealtiel, Zerubbabel, Abiud, Eliakim, Azor, Zadok, Achim; Eliud, Eleazar, Matthan, Jacob, and Joseph, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is called the Messiah. There were fourteen generations from Abraham to David. There were also fourteen from David to the exile in Babylonia and fourteen more to the birth of the Messiah.

Four women are mentioned, all of dubious character. Was Matthew trying to use this as a way of excusing Mary’s dubious behaviour?

Mar 6:1 Jesus left and returned to his hometown with his disciples. The next Sabbath he taught in the Jewish meeting place. Many of the people who heard him were amazed and asked, "How can he do all this? Where did he get such wisdom and the power to work these miracles? Isn’t he the carpenter, the son of Mary? Aren't James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon his brothers? Don't his sisters still live here in our town?" The people were very unhappy because of what he was doing. But Jesus said, "Prophets are honoured by everyone, except the people of their hometown and their relatives and their own family." Jesus could not work any miracles there, except to heal a few sick people by placing his hands on them. He was surprised that the people did not have any faith. Jesus taught in all the neighbouring villages.

Although both Matthew and Luke change the text to avoid any hint of illegitimacy, Mark’s text is most certainly more original. The crucial point here is that “son of Mary” is a euphemism that translates into a son with no known father i.e. illegitimate. The lack of miracles is because the villagers remember Jesus from his youth as the local bastard and are unable to see him in a new light. In Jesus’ time illegitimacy was despised, shunned and hated. He had grown up with these people and they had not forgotten nor forgiven.

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Joh 8:40 Instead, you want to kill me for telling you the truth that God gave me. Abraham never did anything like that. But you are doing exactly what your father does." "Don't accuse us of having someone else as our father!" they said. "We just have one father, and he is God."

This debate in John’s gospel seems to have a barbed reference to Jesus having a different paternity. Other bibles translate the relevant passage as: “We were not born of fornication”.

Deu 23:2 No one born outside of a legal marriage, or any of their descendants for ten generations, can fully belong to the LORD's people.

So Jesus was a “mamzer”- a bastard or child of an adulterous union. His early childhood, adolescence and manhood would have been a constant source of ostracism, insults and humiliations.

It would seem that the epithet of “suffering servant” readily applies to Jesus’ early years. Always the outsider and never accepted like his younger brothers and sisters. The picture of a happy family life with Jesus being trained in Joseph’s craft is mistaken. An adulterous mother and a step father are heavy burdens to bear. Stephen Mitchell suggests that his coldness towards his mother was because he hadn’t yet forgiven her. (Were his words to her from the cross an indication of reconciliation?)

Further exploration:

The usual assumption made about Mary and Joseph, often reinforced by sacred art, is that Mary is a young woman perhaps in her twenties and Joseph is a bearded old man. Both of these impressions are incorrect. In “A Dictionary of Judaism and Christianity” by Dan Cohn-Sherbok, he gives the earliest age that people can marry as 13 years and 1 day for boys. 12 ½ years and 1 day for girls. Men were expected to marry before the age of twenty.

A C Bouquet in “Everyday Life in New Testament Times” says that marriage could be at a very early age, 11 or 12 and sometimes even nine.

And, of course, marriages were arranged and money changed hands.

So if we strip away the mythic elements from the story, we are left with two young people being betrothed and then at a later stage actually having a wedding ceremony. Mary becomes unexpectedly pregnant, and after a great deal of soul searching, Joseph sees fit not to divorce her. We have no reliable information about these circumstances.

In the Jewish text, Toledoth Yeshu, it is a man called Joseph Pandera who seduces Mary against her better judgement. This might be a remnant of the original facts, but hardly conclusive.

One could also postulate other scenarios. Give the prevalence of paedophilia in contemporary society and the cover-ups by figures in the establishment, such a situation might have occurred in Mary’s life. A young girl overawed by a respectable official or relative is not beyond possibility. Given the low status of women, if she had said anything it would have carried little weight.

Mary’s visit to see Elizabeth and later going to Bethlehem seems quite likely under these circumstances. Not an invented census, nor to fulfil OT prophecies. Rather to escape the derision of neighbours in the village. Similarly the journey to Egypt, if true, would also be a way of avoiding criticism and ridicule.

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The only angel in all of this is Joseph. Given that he shares the same values as his family and neighbours, he shows amazing compassion in accepting Mary and her child. He was entitled to divorce her. This is confirmed by his having many other children with her, suggesting a good family life.

However, as I suggested earlier, Jesus seems to have suffered from his illegitimacy. Joseph may have done his best to accept him but there are limits to how much acceptance Joseph could offer. Jesus wasn’t his child, but all the others were. In contemporary society step-fathers do indeed face difficulties in bonding with their partner’s children, and I suspect the same applied to Joseph. Jesus wouldn’t resolve his “father” issue until he experienced God’s overwhelming love. He describes this intimacy in the parable of the Prodigal Son.

However one needs to ask where does this early information come from? Did Mary or Joseph recount their early lives together to some chronicler? Did Jesus reveal his early life to his disciples? If all of this was false, or at least serving a Christological purpose, it wouldn’t affect how we view Jesus and his mission, after all Mark starts with Jesus being filled with God’s spirit at his baptism and neglects any prior history.

So you pays your money and make your choice.

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