Educating Jesus

Around 1 ad a 14-year-old Jewish Arab girl called Maryam, almost certainly in Nazareth in Galilee, gave birth to a son, Yeshua, (Joshua, Greek Iêsous, Latin Iêsus, Jesus). Typically of any such peasant family — the more the merrier — she added four more sons and at least two daughters to the tally. Some 30 years later, while he was being baptised in the Jordan, her first son heard a voice from heaven and his mission began. But what had he been doing in the meantime?

The Old Testament is full of advice about how to bring up a child. There may have been schools at this time, but the main responsibility fell on the family and community. Deuteronomy was the key text. There God’s law (tôrâ) made clear what sort of life the children of Israel should live and the teaching that would help them on the way. They were to understand the rules, the Ten Commandments, the covenant between themselves and God, and repeat and ask questions about the stories behind them (‘What does the Passover mean’?). There true understanding lay.

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Two priorities emerged: first, to learn the fear of the Lord. This meant keeping the law and the commandments: from regular reciting, learning, praying, questioning within the family — adults and children alike — to attendance in the gathering-place (Greek sunagôgê, synagogue) where communal reading (also common market days) and teaching took place (worship was reserved for the Temple in Jerusalem). Second priority: teaching the children to honour parents and pay close attention to them. This was not mindless obedience but mutual, growing understanding between parent and child.

Other books also came into play. Proverbs was rich in advice: ‘Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will bring delight to your soul’; ‘train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it’.