Jesus' Early Education 

Jesus was three years and two months old when the family returned to Nazareth from Alexandria, Egypt. On the way home to Nazareth, Joseph and Mary decided not to tell Jesus or anyone that he was a “child of promise.” And they were both very faithful in holding this secret. Not until 25 CE did Jesus learn about Gabriel’s announcement to Mary, and that revelation came from his cousin, John the Baptist.

On April 2, 3 BCE, the family welcomed James, the second-born child whom Jesus adored. Also, in July of this year, an intestinal virus spread throughout Nazareth. Mary became so alarmed that she bundled up her children and fled to the country home of her brother. They did not return to Nazareth for two months; Jesus greatly enjoyed this, his first experience on a farm.

Jesus’ fourth year was a period of normal physical and mental development. That summer, Joseph built a small workshop near a caravan lot where he made yokes, plows, leather goods, rope, and canvas items. When not at school, Jesus spent his time about equally between helping his mother with home duties and watching his father work at the shop, meanwhile listening to the conversation and gossip of the caravan conductors and passengers from three continents.

In his fifth year, Jesus made his first personal and wholehearted moral decision. When this occurs in human children, a divine gift of God comes to indwell him or her. This event occurred to Jesus on February 11, 2 BCE. Jesus was no more aware of the coming of this indwelling spirit of God than are the millions upon millions of other children who receive these divine entities who indwell their minds and work for the spiritualization and eternal survival of their immortal souls.

Jesus’ sister Miriam was born on the night of July 11. Jesus greatly enjoyed his little brother and his baby sister and was of great help to Mary in their care. He had a long talk with his father concerning the way various groups of living things are born into the world as separate individuals. The most valuable part of Jesus’ early education came from his parents in answer to his thoughtful and searching questions. Joseph was always willing to make an effort to answer them. From the time Jesus was five until he was ten, he was one continuous question mark.

On Jesus’ fifth birthday, August 21, Mary formally turned Jesus over to Joseph for further instruction, which was the practice of Jewish families on that day. Joseph assumed the direct responsibility for Jesus’ intellectual and religious education, but his mother continued in his home training. She taught him how to care for the vines and flowers in their garden. She also provided sandboxes where Jesus worked out maps and did much of his early practice at writing Aramaic, Greek, and later Hebrew. In time, he learned to read, write, and speak fluently in all three languages.

Jesus made normal mental and emotional progress this year. Had we witnessed it firsthand, we would have observed the growing up of an average, healthy, carefree, but exceedingly inquisitive child. He did, however, experience a stomach ailment, which was his first minor illness late in the year.

In his sixth year, with his mother’s help, Jesus mastered the Aramaic tongue, and his father began teaching him Greek. The textbook for the study of Greek was a copy of the Hebrew scriptures, which had been presented to them when they left Egypt. There were only two complete copies of the scriptures in Greek in all of Nazareth, and the possession of one of them by Jesus’ family made their home a popular place and enabled Jesus, as he grew up, to meet an almost endless procession of earnest students and sincere truth seekers.

The first great shock of Jesus’ young life occurred this year. He had believed his parents knew everything. Imagine his surprise when he asked Joseph the cause of a mild earthquake that had just occurred and heard his father say, “My son, I really do not know.” Jesus was stunned for some time after discovering his parents were not all-wise and all-knowing.

Mary’s cousin Elizabeth, with her husband and son John, visited the Nazareth family in September of this year. Jesus and John had a happy time during this short visit. While their parents talked over many things, including the plans for their sons, the boys played with blocks in the sandbox and, in other ways, enjoyed themselves in true boyish fashion. He and John did not meet again until John later baptized Jesus in 26 CE. However, this first meeting with John sparked an unusual interest in the history of Israel in young Jesus. He wanted to know the meaning of the Sabbath rites, the synagogue sermons, and the recurring feasts of commemoration. His father explained to him the meaning of all these seasons.

During this year, Joseph and Mary had trouble with Jesus regarding his prayers. He insisted on talking to God much as he would talk to his earthly father. This departure from the solemn and reverent modes of communication with Deity was disconcerting to his parents, especially to his mother, but there was no persuading him to change; he would say his prayers just as he had been taught, after which he insisted on having “just a little talk with my Father in heaven.”

When his brother James was old enough to help his mother with the housework and care of the younger children, Jesus made frequent trips away from home with his father to surrounding towns and villages. Jesus was a keen observer and gained much practical knowledge from these trips; he constantly stored up knowledge regarding people and the way they lived.This year, Jesus made great progress in adjusting his strong feelings and vigorous impulses to the demands of family cooperation and home discipline. Mary was a loving mother but a fairly strict disciplinarian. But Joseph exerted greater control over Jesus as it was his practice to fully explain the real and underlying reasons for family discipline. When the situation had been explained to Jesus, he was always intelligently and willingly cooperative with parental wishes and family regulations.

Much of his spare time – when his mother did not require his help – was spent studying the flowers and plants by day and the stars by night. He was fond of lying on his back and gazing up into the starry heavens long after his usual bedtime.

This was an eventful year in Jesus’ life, including the birth of his brother Joseph on March 16. This was the age when Jewish children were supposed to begin their formal education in the synagogue schools. Jesus was eager to begin school life; he was already a fluent reader, writer, and speaker of two languages, Aramaic and Greek. Now he would learn much more of the Hebrew language. For three years, he attended the synagogue school where the only course of study was the scriptures. There, Jesus became a master of Hebrew, and he would often be asked to read the Hebrew scriptures on the Sabbath in the Nazareth synagogue.

This year, in addition to his formal schooling, Jesus mingled freely with the caravans when they stopped at the village spring for rest and nourishment. Being a fluent speaker of Greek, he had little trouble conversing with most of the caravan travelers and conductors.

Jesus received his moral training and spiritual culture chiefly in his own home. He secured much of his intellectual and theological education at school. But his real education, the ability to grapple with the difficult problems of life, he obtained by mingling with others. It was this close association, with young and old, Jew and gentile, that afforded him the opportunity to know humans. Jesus was highly educated in that he thoroughly understood people and devotedly loved them.

Throughout his school years, Jesus was a brilliant student, having the great advantage of being fluent in three languages. He learned much and derived great inspiration from the Sabbath sermons in the synagogue. It was customary to ask distinguished visitors to address the worshipers. As Jesus grew up, he heard from many great thinkers of the entire Jewish world and many who were not orthodox Jews since Nazareth was a liberal center of Hebrew thought and culture.

It became a habit for Joseph to take Jesus out for walks on Sabbath afternoons. One of their favorite hikes was up a nearby hill, from which there was a panoramic view of all of Galilee. From four directions, Jesus could observe the caravan trains making their way in and out of Nazareth. When they did not climb the hills, they strolled the countryside and studied nature in her various seasonal moods. Jesus’ earliest training, aside from home and school, had to do with his reverent and sympathetic contact with nature. This year, Jesus learned to milk the family cow and care for the other animals. During this and the following year, he also learned to make cheese and to weave.

Jesus was a diligent pupil and, during his eighth year, belonged to the more progressive third of the class, doing his work so well that he was excused one week each month. This week, he usually spent time either with his fisherman uncle on the Sea of Galilee or on the farm of another uncle near Nazareth. About this time, Jesus met a teacher of mathematics from Damascus, and learning some new techniques with numbers, he spent much time studying math. He developed a keen sense of numbers, distances, and proportions.

This year, Jesus arranged to exchange dairy products for lessons on the harp. He had an unusual liking for everything musical. By the time he was eleven, he was a skillful harpist and greatly enjoyed entertaining family and friends with his extraordinary interpretations and improvisations.

While Jesus continued to make progress at school, everything did not run smoothly for either parents or teachers. He persisted in asking questions concerning science and religion, particularly regarding geography and astronomy. He never ceased to ask such intelligent but perplexing questions. This year, Jesus himself began teaching; he taught his brother James the alphabet. He also acquired another brother, Simon, who was born on April 14.

In February, Nahor, a teacher at the Jerusalem Academy of rabbis, came to Nazareth to observe Jesus. At first, he was somewhat shocked by Jesus’ frankness and unconventional manner of relating himself to things religious. Nahor attributed this to Galilee's remoteness from the centers of Hebrew learning and culture. He advised Joseph and Mary to allow him to take Jesus to Jerusalem, where he could have the advantages of education and training at the center of Jewish culture. Mary was half persuaded to consent; she was convinced her eldest son was to become the Messiah, the Jewish deliverer. Joseph hesitated as he believed that Jesus was to become a man of destiny and would fulfill some great mission. But the more he thought about Nahor’s advice, the more he questioned the wisdom of sending his son to Jerusalem.

Because of this difference of opinion between Joseph and Mary, Nahor requested permission to lay the whole matter before Jesus. The boy listened attentively and then talked with his parents and a neighbor. Two days later, he declared that he did not feel competent to assume responsibility for such a decision. He did not feel strongly one way or the other, and given the whole situation, he finally decided to “talk with my Father who is in heaven.” While he was not perfectly sure about the answer, he rather felt he should remain at home “with my father and mother,” adding, “They who love me so much should be able to do more for me and guide me more safely than strangers who can only view my body and observe my mind but can hardly truly know me.” They all marveled, and Nahor went back to Jerusalem.

These are the little-known years of Jesus’ early life, years that served as a solid foundation for the greatest man who ever lived, Jesus of Nazareth, a son of man and the “only begotten” Son of God.