Within a week of returning to Nazareth, Joseph had work as a carpenter. Joseph’s next door neighbor in Nazareth was Jacob the stone mason who was a business associate of Joseph. Jacob had a son, also named Jacob, who was near Jesus’ age. The boys quickly became playmates and best friends.
Jesus was in excellent health and full of excitement. His physical development was normal but his mental activity was a little unusual. He was full of questions about everything and he paid attention to the responsiveness of the answers he received. He declined to say his prayers as fixed recitations as he was taught. He insisted on saying his prayers as conversations with his heavenly Father in the same style that he conversed with his earthly father. This was shocking to persons outside the family who chanced to hear him describe his prayer / conversations. He was also unusual in that he wouldn’t fight with other children to hurt them or to retaliate for their injuries to him. Jacob became his protector against the bullies who took advantage of Jesus’ pacific nature.
Jesus was almost four years old (3 BC) when Joseph built a small shop near the village spring and the busy caravan rest stop, where he made yokes and plows and did leather and rope work. Thereafter, Jesus spent a lot of time at the shop watching his father work and listening to the conversation of the caravan conductors and passengers from everywhere. Nazareth was on busy caravan routes between the Mediterranean Sea to the west, the Persian and Egyptian cities to the north and south and the Babylonian, Indian and Chinese trade routes to the East. This exposed Jesus to a lot of cultural, social and economic variety. Mary and Joseph were careful to keep secret that Jesus was a child of promise.
Jesus’ brother James was born April 2, 3 BC. James was the first of five brothers and three sisters for Jesus. Jesus’ inner spirit (Thought Adjuster) arrived February 11, 2 BC. Jesus was 4 ½ years old and, like all children, unaware of this event. Jesus’ first of three sisters, Miriam, was born July 11, 2 BC. During the evening of July 12 Jesus had a long talk with Joseph about how various living things are born as separate individuals. Jesus was full of questions and as usual, Joseph was very good to deal fully and honestly with all his questions. Jesus enjoyed his baby brother and sister and helped Mary care for them
The roof of their home was a favorite place for Jesus to play. Mary placed sand boxes on the roof and Jesus used them to make maps and write. Jesus’ first language was Galilean Aramaic which he learned from his mother and other locals. But additionally he learned to speak, read and write Greek from Joseph and the caravan conductors and travelers. Aramaic was the local language. Greek was the language of the Roman Empire. Joseph used the Greek translation of Hebrew scripture to teach Jesus Greek. (The translation had been given to Jesus when the family departed Alexandria to return to Palestine.) Jesus had mastered both languages before he started synagogue school at age 7. In school he mastered Hebrew.
There were only two copies of the scriptures in Greek in all of Nazareth. This made Jesus’ home a popular place. Also, Jesus’ ability to read the Greek scripture and translate it into Aramaic made him a significant person among Jewish adults in Nazareth. In his sixth year Jesus assumed custody of this priceless manuscript.
Even at five years of age it was difficult to answer Jesus’ questions about physical or social events by telling him either that God or the devil was responsible. For a long time he was willing to accept this explanation for mental and spiritual phenomena. However he expected there to be known causes for physical and social occurrences.
The destinies of Jesus and John the Baptist were linked to each other but there was remarkably little contact between them. Most of the contact between them was when they were infants and while their parents counseled with one another in Bethlehem. When Jesus was five, Zacharias, Elizabeth and John visited with Joseph’s family for a few days in Nazareth. Jesus and John were next together at age 16 when they did some planning regarding their missions and some personal matters. Their next and last time together was when Jesus was Baptized and for a short time following. They never spent time together working out how to fit their careers together or how to achieve some mutual goal.
Jesus’ family was poor until Joseph became a builder when Jesus was six. Thereafter they were prosperous until Joseph died in a construction accident when Jesus was fourteen. Jesus made trips with his Father to neighboring towns where Joseph had business. Jesus was cheerful and lighthearted most of the time until Joseph’s death. Mary and Jesus raised doves on the roof of the animal shelter. They sold them and Jesus applied the proceeds to charitable purposes.
Jesus fell down the steps to the roof-top sleeping room when he was six and was injured. It happened during a surprise out of season dust storm. The question arises why this was not prevented by Jesus’ super-mortal and angelic caretakers. The reason given is that material accidents, common place physical occurrences, are not arbitrarily interfered with by celestial personalities. Even in special circumstances, these beings can only act in obedience to the specific mandates of their superiors.
Joseph, Jesus’ second brother was born Wednesday morning, March 18, AD 1.
Shortly before Jesus was to start school at age seven, Zacharias encouraged Nahor, a scout for one of the elite rabbinical academies in Jerusalem, to come to Nazareth to interview Jesus and recruit him to attend the Jerusalem academy. Mary was in favor of it as something the Messiah should do (resume enhancement). Joseph was opposed to Jesus going away from home at such a young age and he did not share Mary’s view of Jesus as a political leader. Nahor suggested that Mary and Joseph let Jesus decide and they agreed. Jesus wasn’t committed to either course of action so he consulted his trusted advisors, Mary, Joseph, Jacob the stone mason and his heavenly Father. He reported back after two days saying that while he was not entirely sure what his heavenly Father had said to him, he was persuaded that he should stay in Nazareth where the people who truly loved him could continue to guide him. Joseph, Mary and Jesus all assumed that Jesus would one day go off to an elite school for theological education. Due to extreme poverty following Joseph’s death, it never happened. Jesus never had earthly educational credentials. His entire formal education was the standard six years of synagogue school in Nazareth.
Among the elite in Jerusalem, Galilee in general and especially Nazareth were viewed as backward and theologically inferior to what was available in Jerusalem. The common derisive statement was that nothing good could come out of Nazareth. Nazareth was more gentile than Jewish. Jews in Nazareth were more relaxed about how they applied Jewish law. In Nazareth Jews didn’t concern themselves about contaminating themselves by social and commercial contact with gentiles. Nor were they concerned about walking to go somewhere on the Sabbath. They were notorious for being loose in their observance of the many Jewish laws.
Jesus started school at age seven as was the Jewish custom. He already spoke, read and wrote Aramaic, the language of Galilee and Greek, the language of the Roman Empire. In school, he learned Hebrew. School at that time consisted of three years of studying the basic rules of the Book of Law in Hebrew followed by three additional years of memorization of the deeper teachings of the law by the method of repeating after the teacher. There were no text books. The chazzan would utter a statement (in Hebrew) and the students would repeat it in unison after him. There was no science, no math and no language skills formally taught; only the law. However when Jesus was seven he met a math teacher from Damascus and developed an interest and skill with numbers, distances and proportions.
Jesus was a good but not unusual student in the early part of his schooling. Still he was in the more progressive third of his class. This qualified him for exemption from class for one week each month which he usually spent with his fisherman uncle near Magdala on the west shore of the Sea of Galilee or with his farmer uncle five miles south of Nazareth.
Jesus received his moral training and spiritual culture in his home. Much of his intellectual and theological education came from the chazzan. But his real education for the actual test of grappling with the problems of life he obtained by mingling with his fellows. In this way he was highly educated. When he was nine he learned to milk the family cow and care for the other animals. He learned how to make cheese, weave, operate a loom and how to draw. Jesus was always full of searching questions and in this way advanced his own learning. Joseph habitually took Jesus for Sabbath afternoon walks and taught him reverent and sympathetic contact with nature.
Since Jesus hung out near the village spring. he got acquainted with the people who were frequently there including the women and girls of the town who came to fetch water. Nathan the potter set his wheel near the spring and Jesus and Jacob learned from him how to make pottery. Jesus had an unusual liking for everything musical and when he was seven he bartered dairy products from the family cow for harp lessons. By the time he was ten he was an accomplished harp player with skillful interpretations and improvisations.
Jesus’ formal education was not special but his interest in the things people thought and did and his habit of asking searching questions served to make him highly educated, self-educated. Much of what he was interested in and became accomplished with required lots of practice and concentration. Playing the harp well, making pottery, weaving, making cheese, drawing and learning to understand the leading of his Heavenly Father require a lot of hours of practice. He used his young years to pursue these interests thereby qualifying himself to be the greatest spiritual teacher we have ever known.