"The lost years"

[eggsbenedictine]

What is the churches position on the “lost years” of Jesus, from approximately ages 12 - 30? I have been doing a lot of reading into it, and there are many different theories, but most that point to him being in India during that time.

 

[pianistclare]

Never heard that one.
I’ve always believed that he was living a quiet life with his mother Mary after the death of his foster-father, St. Joseph. Being the best son he could be…studying in the temple…waiting for his mission to begin in earnest.
I’ll be interested to see what the scholars here have to say.
Peace.

 

[George_Stegmeir]

I have never heard of the Catholic Church having a position of the so-called “Lost Years” in the life of Christ.
Personally, I do believe that any report of the “Lost Years” is nothing but myth and conjecture.

 

[Todd977]

54 and coming to his hometown he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? … Where then did this man get all these things?” 57 And they took offense at him. (Matthew 13:54-57)

The reaction of the people in his hometown suggests to me that they knew nothing about Jesus taking an extended trip to India during “the lost years.”

 

[St_Redemption]

Never heard that one.
I’ve always believed that he was living a quiet life with his mother Mary after the death of his foster-father, St. Joseph. Being the best son he could be…studying in the temple…waiting for his mission to begin in earnest.
I’ll be interested to see what the scholars here have to say.
Peace.

I don’t know that He needed to study. Maybe He did. Just speculating

 

[steymard]

The Catechism teaches that Jesus lived and worked quietly in Nazareth, obedient to his parents. Note that it references and explains the verse that described Jesus’ life after his finding in the Temple at age 12.

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 labour. His religious life was that of a Jew obedient to the law of God, **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 favour with God and man.”

532 Jesus’ obedience to his mother and legal father fulfils 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. . .” 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.

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.

Maybe he took a trip. But all the evidence we have suggests otherwise.

 

[PJM]

=eggsbenedictine;11803004]What is the churches position on the “lost years” of Jesus, from approximately ages 12 - 30? I have been doing a lot of reading into it, and there are many different theories, but most that point to him being in India during that time.

First: they weren’t "lost.: It was Divine Providence at work.

Second: your theory does not seem to be biblically grounded.

Lk. 2:46-52 "] And it came to pass, that, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his wisdom and his answers. [48] And seeing him, they wondered. And his mother said to him: Son, why hast thou done so to us? behold thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing. And he said to them: How is it that you sought me? did you not know, that I must be about my father’ s business? [50] And they understood not the word that he spoke unto them.

And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject to them. And his mother kept all these words in her heart. And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men.

From this account it would seem that Christ remained HOME until called by God the Father THROUGH His Mother Mary at Cana to His Ministry.

Jn. 2: 1-5 "And the third day, there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee: and the mother of Jesus was there. And Jesus also was invited, and his disciples, to the marriage. And the wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him: They have no wine. And Jesus saith to her: Woman, what is that to me and to thee? my hour is not yet come. His mother saith to the waiters: Whatsoever he shall say to you, do ye."

God Bless you,
Patrick

 

[pianistclare]

I don’t know that He needed to study. Maybe He did. Just speculating

Jesus was humble. Obedient to his parents. He most likely did everything a good Jewish boy should do. Including studying his faith.
Christology is a fascinating subject that speaks to this.
Peace to you!

 

[Chatter163]

The Church does not have “positions,” as political parties do; she has teachings. She does not, however, have a teaching on this subject. There are a number of apocryphal writings (though I certainly would not say that “most” of them place Our Lord in India), but none of them are recognized as authoritative by the Church–only scripture, as in Luke 2:52, which says, “And Jesus advanced in wisdom, and age, and grace with God and men.”

 

[HelenRose]

Why India?

I am sure that if He went any where it would have been to the Temple in Jerusalem. Which, in fact, he did at least once in His life. That would have been the source of His study. He certainly would not need to study under some guru in India.