questions

[john78]

does anyone know if the RCC has any theory or doctrine or an iota as to what Christ may have been doing before his short public ministry ? We have a snipet of a meeting with elders in a temple an then nothing.

I have never heard anything that is definite, and maybe there is nothing out there to really give anyone a clear answer and there is really only speculation ?

Also would it be fair to say that the Romans or Roman government at the time of Christ had no real knowledge of Our Lords’ ministry until He was brought before Pontius Pilate . ?

An I am just assuming Pilate was a roman official, So thus the Jewish people at that point in time who claimed or might have, that Christ would be a threat to the Roman gov, and thus bring trouble to the Jewish people would not really have been accurate or just flat out wrong.

My thought is that if the Roman gov during this time in history did infact get wind of Christ, that someone in the Roman gov would have written about it / there would have been some kind of documentation that would or could have been preserved.

Lastly, with John the Baptist, After John baptised Christ, did John follow Christ, or did he continue preaching and baptising across the land, or did he follow Christ and then after the Crucifixtion moved on to proclaim the Truth and thus ended up a martyr. ?

Then back tracking more to Pilate, we know Christ said that an poorly paraphrasing here, that between Pilate and Judas, Judas had the greater sin, all indications show that Pilate wanted nothing to do with crucifying Christ, tried to release Him an was pressured into not doing so, so is there any chance that perhaps Pilate could have been forgiven, or is there anything in history of Christ coming back to talk to Pilate ?

Sorry for the poor spelling, these are just some random thoughts i have had recently an i am sure they have been answered to some degree here before but not really sure how to search it, if anyone has links that are here on the form an can post it here i would appreciate it.

or any insights in general.

 

[Robyn_p]

You’re right, no doctrine. I think there’s been some private revelation about it, but nothing official.

Tradition usually holds that Jesus spent his days as a carpenter with Joseph.

As far as John the Baptist goes, the gospels tell us he was imprisoned by Herod shortly after Jesus began his public ministry and was beheaded by him. So he died before the crucifixion. As for what he did after Jesus began his ministry, but before he was captured, I’ll let him speak for himself.

And John’s disciples came to him (John) and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, here he is, baptizing, and all are going to him.” John answered, "No one can receive anything except what was given him from above. You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him. He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; * therefore this joy of mine is now full. HE MUST INCREASE, BUT I MUST DECREASE* (Jn 3:26-30)

So it looks like John realized his mission to prepare the way of The Lord was finished. And he was content to disappear.

Anyway, hope that helps!!

 

[Lancer]

Once again…the Catechism nails it!..a beautiful teaching on what the Silent years mean and teach us. Note the teaching words of Pope Paul VI…the quote in para 533 (footnote 225). This is considered the Church’s teaching…Christ was being a normal human…obedient to the Father’s will and his Parents…Joseph and Mary…by living in communion with God, Family, Jewish Faith, and his Nazarene Community…kinda like our lives are supposed to be. We can surmise the specific details of the hidden years …but we should not get carried away…stay in the in the three categories … normalcy, obedience and communion… that’s it in a “nutshell”…a very “holy nutshell” of course.

Pax Christi

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd Edition
The mysteries of Jesus’ hidden life

531 During the greater part of his life Jesus shared the condition of the vast majority of human beings: **a daily life spent without evident greatness, a life of manual labor. His religious life was that of a Jew obedient to the law of God,221 a life in the community. **From this whole period it is revealed to us that Jesus was “obedient” to his parents and that he "increased in wisdom and in stature, and in favor with God and man."222

532** Jesus’ obedience to his mother and legal father fulfills the fourth commandment perfectly and was the temporal image of his filial obedience to his Father in heaven**. The everyday obedience of Jesus to Joseph and Mary both announced and anticipated the obedience of Holy Thursday: "Not my will. . ."223 The obedience of Christ in the daily routine of his hidden life was already inaugurating his work of restoring what the disobedience of Adam had destroyed.224

533 The hidden life at Nazareth allows everyone to enter into fellowship with Jesus by the most ordinary events of daily life:

The home of Nazareth is the school where we begin to understand the life of Jesus - the school of the Gospel. First, then, a lesson of silence. May esteem for silence, that admirable and indispensable condition of mind, revive in us. . . A lesson on family life. May Nazareth teach us what family life is, its communion of love, its austere and simple beauty, and its sacred and inviolable character. . . A lesson of work. Nazareth, home of the** “Carpenter’s Son”, in you I would choose to understand and proclaim the severe and redeeming law of human work**. . . To conclude, I want to greet all the workers of the world, holding up to them their great pattern their brother who is God.225 [225 Paul VI at Nazareth, 5 January 1964: LH, Feast of the Holy Family, OR.]
​

534 The finding of Jesus in the temple is the only event that breaks the silence of the Gospels about the hidden years of Jesus.226 Here Jesus lets us catch a glimpse of the mystery of his total consecration to a mission that flows from his divine sonship: "Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s work?"227 Mary and Joseph did not understand these words, but they accepted them in faith. Mary “kept all these things in her heart” during the years Jesus remained hidden in the silence of an ordinary life.

 

[Skye_Ariel]

There is no information because there’s nothing to tell. He lived as a normal man doing normal boring everyday living. He had a job and worked and pretty much just blended in and lived quietly till His time came. That was His plan. He just walked in our shoes, lived our life and when the time was right He started His ministry.

That says a lot, because God could have had Him be born to someone rich where he lived a life of luxury till His time came, but He **chose **to live as a normal person and work a normal job, being a carpenter was a physical hard working sweating job. So that right there says a lot. So He knows exactly and literally how we feel after working all day at work.

 

[Ad_Orientem]

In conjunction with the above, there’s a hint in Matthew 13:55 / Mark 6:3, where the people of his hometown say, "Is not this the carpenter’s son?’ He was perceived as an ordinary, working-class guy.

As to St. John the Baptist, I think you may be confusing him with St. John the Evangelist. The former was beheaded during our Lord’s public ministry (Mt. 14:10); the latter took our Lady into his home after the Crucifixion (Jn. 19:26) and continued to preach the gospel. One account says his persecutors tried to boil him alive, to no avail (cf. Catholic Encyclopedia).

 

[Ridgerunner]

does anyone know if the RCC has any theory or doctrine or an iota as to what Christ may have been doing before his short public ministry ? We have a snipet of a meeting with elders in a temple an then nothing.

I have never heard anything that is definite, and maybe there is nothing out there to really give anyone a clear answer and there is really only speculation ?

Also would it be fair to say that the Romans or Roman government at the time of Christ had no real knowledge of Our Lords’ ministry until He was brought before Pontius Pilate . ?

An I am just assuming Pilate was a roman official, So thus the Jewish people at that point in time who claimed or might have, that Christ would be a threat to the Roman gov, and thus bring trouble to the Jewish people would not really have been accurate or just flat out wrong.

My thought is that if the Roman gov during this time in history did infact get wind of Christ, that someone in the Roman gov would have written about it / there would have been some kind of documentation that would or could have been preserved.

Lastly, with John the Baptist, After John baptised Christ, did John follow Christ, or did he continue preaching and baptising across the land, or did he follow Christ and then after the Crucifixtion moved on to proclaim the Truth and thus ended up a martyr. ?

Then back tracking more to Pilate, we know Christ said that an poorly paraphrasing here, that between Pilate and Judas, Judas had the greater sin, all indications show that Pilate wanted nothing to do with crucifying Christ, tried to release Him an was pressured into not doing so, so is there any chance that perhaps Pilate could have been forgiven, or is there anything in history of Christ coming back to talk to Pilate ?

Sorry for the poor spelling, these are just some random thoughts i have had recently an i am sure they have been answered to some degree here before but not really sure how to search it, if anyone has links that are here on the form an can post it here i would appreciate it.

or any insights in general.

Lots of stuff here.
First, the bible tells us that after Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple teaching the elders, he returned home and 'was subject to them". One assumes that’s literally true; that he acted as a young Jewish man at the time would have.

Roman rule was pretty pervasive in certain ways, not at all so in others. It didn’t put up with rebellions or tax evasion, but pretty much left subject peoples to their own cultures and structures otherwise. I expect some Romans there knew about Jesus. After all, it’s a pretty small place. But if he posed no threat, which He didn’t, they probably paid no significant attention to it. There were a lot of religions in the Roman world, some pretty strange, and the Romans just left them alone. There is nothing in anything Jesus is said to have said or done that would have caused the Romans to think of Him as a threat to their rule or to their taxation. Some people in our own era like to think of Jesus as some kind of secular revolutionary, but there’s really no evidence for that, and as far as we know, there wasn’t any back then. Plainly put, Jesus just wasn’t somebody they would have thought important enough to record anything about.

The Romans didn’t like insurrections, and that’s for sure. But Jesus didn’t cause one. Even His entry into Jerusalem would have meant little to Rome. After all, masses of Jews crowded into Jerusalem regularly, and while I’m sure the Romans paid attention to that, they wouldn’t have done anything about it unless some kind of conflict broke out. They put up with masses of Greeks assembling for the Olympic games, but didn’t do anything about that either, though I’m sure they watched over it for signs of rebellion. But upon seeing none, there is no reason they would have recorded what were to them the non-events.

 

[john78]

ty for the replies

 

[aspirant]

My thought is that if the Roman gov during this time in history did infact get wind of Christ, that someone in the Roman gov would have written about it / there would have been some kind of documentation that would or could have been preserved.

When I read the gospel accounts, I get the impression that Pilate considered Jesus inconsequential in terms of posing direct threat. (Also, inconsequential in the sense that Pilate generally treated Jews with contempt.)

After John baptised Christ, did John follow Christ

There are some stories about John after Jesus’ baptism.

John sent some of his disciples to Jesus to answer their question “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (see Luke 7, for example).

did he follow Christ and then after the Crucifixtion moved on to proclaim the Truth and thus ended up a martyr. ?

John was thrown in prison and beheaded because John told Herod it was unlawful to marry his brother’s wife (see Matthew 14, for example).

all indications show that Pilate wanted nothing to do with crucifying Christ, tried to release Him an was pressured into not doing so

John’s gospel, at least, portrays Pilate as a man who didn’t really care whether Jesus lived or died but used threats to release Jesus as part of his assertion of power over the Jewish leaders. Pilate & the Jewish leaders bickered back and forth about who could get the upper hand but, eventually, they come to an agreement and Pilate has Jesus killed.

is there any chance that perhaps Pilate could have been forgiven, or is there anything in history of Christ coming back to talk to Pilate ?

I think there are some people who believe Pilate later repented and became a Christian, but the ancient historical records portray Pilate as a generally horrible guy.