Amid the excitement of Christmas, it is sobering to think how little we know about Jesus’ early life. Only two of the four canonical gospels – Luke and Matthew – say anything at all about it; and even they leave much unsaid or unclear. Apart from mentioning that Jesus was born during the reign of Augustus and Herod the Great, they give no clue as to the exact date of his birth; they cannot agree whether he was visited by shepherds or Magi; and only one of them mentions the flight into Egypt. Most strikingly, nothing at all is said about Jesus’ youth. Apart from a brief story in Luke about the 12-year-old Jesus being found deep in discussion with the elders in the Temple in Jerusalem, we hear nothing more about him until the beginning of his ministry, ‘when he was about thirty years of age’. His childhood, his adolescence, even his early manhood are passed over in silence.

Granted, this is not altogether unexpected. The gospels were never intended to be complete biographies – least of all in the modern sense. Composed in the late first and early second centuries, on the basis of oral tradition and earlier written sources, they were conceived as brief, theological accounts of Jesus’ words and deeds. What mattered was his heavenward journey: his incarnation, preaching, miracles, sacrifice and resurrection. Since this could be understood perfectly well without dwelling on his early life, it was quite reasonably felt that everything between circumcision and baptism could be safely ignored.

For modern historians it is still frustrating, though. The gospels’ silence leaves unanswered many questions vital to an understanding of the historical – rather than theological – Jesus. It deprives us of any direct (or at least direct-ish) evidence of his intellectual and spiritual development prior to his baptism, his understanding of his mission, even his relationship with his family.

Infancy gospels

Fortunately, there are other sources for Jesus’ ‘lost years’. The four canonical gospels are merely those narratives which the early Church recognised as being divinely inspired. There are plenty of apocryphal gospels – omitted from the New Testament – which discuss Jesus’ youth at greater length. These so-called ‘infancy gospels’ not only contain a wealth of detail, but also had a lasting influence on perceptions of the nativity. It is only in the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, for example, that we learn that the infant Jesus was adored in the manger ‘by an ox and an ass’, while it is to the Protevangelium of James that the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity traces its origins. They also recount some unusually vivid episodes not found elsewhere. In one shocking scene in the so-called Arabic Infancy Gospel, the young Jesus orders a snake to suck the venom out of a boy whom it had bitten. When the snake obeys, it bursts and the child is miraculously healed.

Arguably the most striking of the infancy gospels, however, is the Gospel of Thomas. Most likely written in the second century, it is a mysterious text. In the surviving Greek manuscripts, it is attributed to a certain ‘Thomas the Israelite’. This was probably meant to give the impression that it was written by the apostle Thomas, said by some to have been one of Christ’s brothers. But since earlier Syriac versions mention no such person, it is equally possible that this was a later interpolation, added to lend both credibility and immediacy to the narrative.

In its longest form, the Gospel of Thomas describes Jesus’ life between the ages of five and 12. As a piece of writing, it is lamentable. There is no real structure. Throwing chronology to the wind, the narrative loops and wheels about, seemingly at random. The tone veers from the playful to the grave, even menacing; and among the mass of imaginatively repetitive detritus, there are elements both of magic and of whimsy. Yet its strength lies in its psychological insight. Unlike in the canonical gospels, where Jesus appears on the stage of his ministry fully formed, the Gospel of Thomas goes to great effort to present him as an uncertain boy, conscious of, but still uneasy with, his divinity.

At times, Jesus can be rather sweet. He stretches out a piece of wood so that Joseph can make a bed for a rich man; and – just as in the Quran – even brings clay birds to life. But he can also be capricious, even vengeful. At school, he pokes fun at his teacher and, when punished, makes the man faint. He is brutal when other children offend him. In one episode, he causes a boy who had bumped into his shoulder to drop down dead, then blinds the child’s parents when they complain. The people of Nazareth are more terrified than adoring.

This is as compelling as it is terrible. But as evidence, it is virtually worthless. Too much is redolent of folk traditions to be credible; too much of Jesus’ powers are on show for his subsequent ‘unmasking’ by John the Baptist to be necessary. Although it enjoyed a certain popularity in medieval Europe, especially Ireland, its absurdity was apparent even to its earliest readers. As far back as the late second century, Irenaeus of Lyon denounced it as a patent falsehood – and there is no reason to disagree.

Did those feet…?

Over the centuries, many people have tried to fill the void left by the gospel accounts with theories of one kind or another. Understandably these vary considerably, but they generally reflect the spread of Christianity around the world and are underpinned by a religious syncretism, or at least a sense of religious transfer. Perhaps the oldest was recorded by the Greek philosopher Celsus. In his now lost True Discourse, written in the late second century, he reported that an early Jewish critic tried to discredit Christianity by claiming that Jesus spent part of his youth learning magic in Egypt. Many more such tales followed: one asserts that Jesus travelled to Japan to study with a great master at the foot of Mount Fuji; another – popular among Victorian theosophers – places him with Hindus in India; a third in the monasteries of Tibet. There has even been some suggestion that he lived for a time with the Essenes, on the banks of the Dead Sea.

Perhaps the most picturesque tradition, however, puts Christ in England. Inspired by Robert de Boron’s Joseph d’Arimathie (c.1200), this suggests that the adolescent Jesus travelled to ‘Avalon’ with his ‘uncle’, Joseph of Arimathea, a tin merchant who had business in Cornwall. Together, they stayed at either Glastonbury or Priddy. Jesus was so taken with it that he returned to prepare quietly for his baptism. Some believe that a version of this may have inspired William Blake’s poem ‘Jerusalem’, where Jesus is famously pictured ‘on England’s pleasant pastures’.

Charming though this may be, it is patent nonsense – just like all the other stories of Jesus’ supposed travels. There is not a shred of evidence for any of them. While they provide an interesting insight into cultural reappropriations of Christianity, they say next to nothing of any value about the historical Jesus himself.

The simple life

So what can we say about Jesus’ ‘lost’ years? Well, more than you might think. While the canonical gospels provide little direct evidence for his youth, their accounts of his ministry contain enough detail for us to infer something about his early life. Of central importance is his preaching. Just as today, priests often draw on their own experiences when expounding moral messages, so Jesus’ own preaching is likely to have been grounded in his past. His parables are peppered with language and imagery from the Galilean countryside, and there are occasional allusions to his domestic life.

More likely than not, Jesus grew up in a crowded, single-parent family. His father, Joseph, vanishes from the narrative soon after the nativity. This suggests that he died, leaving Mary to manage alone. We are also told that Jesus had at least four brothers, and a number of sisters.

It was a simple life. We can picture Mary grinding grain with other women or lighting a fire with ‘grass of the field’, while yeast makes the dough rise. Stray comments in Matthew and Luke help us to see Jesus and his siblings gather round, asking for bread – or, more hopefully, for an egg or a piece of fish.

They were no doubt poor. Mary and the children likely wore rough clothes, patched and repatched until they could no longer be repaired. What their house looked like, we cannot know; but it was still swept regularly, with pride and attention. More often than not, money was tight – so much so that if a single coin was lost it had to be found.

But what they lacked in means, they made up for in spirit. The children squabbled, sat in the marketplace, and sang songs. From time to time, they sulked and refused to join in games. They adored the natural world. Judging by the sheer number of references to plants in the parables, they probably played often in the fields, watched the crops grow, and followed the rhythm of the seasons – just like any others.

Jesus certainly received some education. He went to school; he read the Old Testament; and he went regularly to the synagogue. When he was old enough, he embarked on a profession. According to both Mark and Luke, Jesus was a carpenter until he was baptised. The fact that he stuck at woodworking for so long may well have been influenced by his family’s situation. If Mary was indeed a widow with six or more children to care for, it is likely that Jesus – as the oldest – was their principal breadwinner, at least for a time. Only when his younger siblings were old enough to fend for themselves would he have been able to leave his workshop and embark on his ministry.

As explanations go, it is not the most remarkable. It is neither as compelling as the infancy gospels, nor as thrilling as the travelogues. It is distinguished by no portents of destiny, no sweeping adventures. It is humble and unremarkable, marked not by signs and wonders, but by hardship and family, grit and graft. But that is precisely what gives it the ring of truth – and its power. For what miracle could be greater than that a simple child, from a simple family, should change human history quite so much?

Alexander Lee is a fellow in the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance at the University of Warwick. His latest book, Machiavelli: His Life and Times, is now available in paperback.