Many individuals may begin to wonder about some of the less well-known details regarding Jesus’ life. We’re curious in his appearance, the clothes he wore, his height, and the meals he ate. These are reasonable issues to ponder as we study Jesus’ humanity. One question frequently arises because we want to know how valuable it is in comparison to our own lives. When Jesus died, how old was he? Was he a kid? Was he a senior citizen? Was he at the peak of his powers? Was he frail as a result of his age and the stresses of a long life?
It helps us to be able to identify in some way with Jesus at this moment. His humanity cries out to us from death’s door as we consider our own mortality.
In these moments, remember the resurrection. It also belongs to you. Jesus was roughly 33 years old when he was crucified, according to scholars.
How Do We Determine Jesus’ Age?
There are no scriptures in the Bible that tell us how old Jesus was when he died. What we do have are scriptures that tell us how old Jesus was when he completed specific tasks, as well as his religious community’s cultural expectations for life milestones. When it comes to his death, the ones to keep an eye out for are when he started his ministry and how long he was in it till he died. We’ll need to know when he was born first. This was thought to be between the years four and zero BC. According to Luke 3:23, Jesus was around thirty years old when he began his ministry (26-30 AD) and stayed for three years, putting his death between 29 and 33 AD. Circumcision, Temple redemption, Bar-Mitzvah, and reaching majority age would have all been significant events in Jesus’ life (20 years old).
What Were Some Milestones in Jesus’ Childhood?
When attempting to calculate Jesus’ age, Hebrews 4:15 explains something about him that we must examine. He didn’t have any faults. According to the Law of Moses, he was flawless in the context of his Jewish upbringing. If he was perfect according to Moses’ Law, this indicates that the Law’s expectations for communal life were satisfied successfully. This implies that if we look closely, we can track some of his major milestones and create a rough chronology of his existence. Here are some of the ones found in the Bible:
Circumcision at the age of eight days (Luke 2:21). In the Mosaic Law, all males were compelled to do this. Circumcision is a sign of the promise as well as the introduction of a male infant into the Jewish religion. It is a mark of God’s covenant with Abraham. A boy cannot be a member of this religious group unless he has undergone ceremonial circumcision. Presentation in the temple (Luke 2:22). The cleansing rite, was done forty days after birth. This served a variety of functions. The ceremony that pronounced the kid (Jesus) pure after coming into touch with his mother’s blood at birthing was the first.
After the uncleanness generated after childbirth, this was also the ceremony that declared the mother (Mary) to be ritually clean. This was also the redemption ritual because Jesus was the firstborn male. Because all firstborn male kids (human or otherwise) are due to the Temple, his family purchased the firstborn male by sacrifice (redemption). At the age of twelve, he began teaching at the Temple (Luke 2:41-51). This was a year before the Jewish Bar-Mitzvah age (Son of the Commandment).
Jesus stands with the teachers in the Temple and educates them although he is still considered a kid and his father is still accountable for his moral acts. This is significant because it demonstrates that Jesus possessed understanding much beyond that of the most educated of the Jewish faith even before he was regarded accountable for himself or before he could participate in religious rites. When the Magi came to visit, I was two years old (Matthew 2:16). Another event in Jesus” life had nothing to do with his religious or moral upbringing.
The Gospel of Matthew provides us with the data we need to figure out additional particular age facts about Jesus’ life. Herod despatched his soldiers to Bethlehem to murder every infant under the age of two, based on what he learned from his discussion with the Magi. As a result, we know that Jesus was two years old when the Magi adored him.
We may also assume that Jesus’ family spent the two years following his birth in Bethlehem. While Jesus was born in a stable, it’s likely that the family had migrated to a different location.
Do We Know What Jesus Was Doing as a Young Adult?
While there are no passages that characterize Jesus from the age of twelve to full manhood, the Bible does provide us with some suggestions as to what he was up to. The individuals who wrote Mark 6:3 were not depicting Jesus in a good light, but they were reporting something they knew about him. These are the folks who have known him since he was a child, and they refer to him as “the carpenter.” We also know from previous scriptures that Jesus’ father Joseph was a carpenter by trade, and it would have been expected of him to learn his father’s skill and carry on the family business.
Another factor to examine is that Jesus lived near the Herods (Kings of Israel/Judea/Palestine) who were engaged in large-scale construction projects during the period. It’s not out of the question that Jesus worked on some of these projects as a young man because they required a lot of labour to finish. Many academics have speculated for years that Jesus may have been a member of the Essene movement as a young man. Dr. Simon J. Joseph goes into much detail about this here. There have been several debates over the legitimacy of this concept and its implications for the Christian religion. The Essenes are not mentioned by name anywhere in the Bible.
However, there is a reason why some academics have recommended this. In particular, Jesus’ teachings address some of the same worries that the Essene society had about the end of days and community life. The Pharisees, Sadducees, High Priest, Sanhedrin, and Roman invaders were all shared adversaries. The fact that Jesus did not marry adds to the argument’s strength.
Furthermore, Luke 22:7-13 offers a lot of room for interpretation. Carrying water was considered a woman’s work in Jesus’ day. The disciples were instructed to follow a man bringing water by Jesus. Slaves may be assigned to this chore if a family had slaves, but it usually fell to women. Men would only bring the water if there were no women in the house. According to this report from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Essenes were known to be present in Jerusalem at the time, and they resided in dwellings divided by gender. The guys would have gotten their own water in the male homes.
