Heritage, nurture and environment

Title: Boy Jesus: Growing up Judaean in turbulent times

Author: Joan Taylor

Pub: SPCK; 2025

ISBN: 978-0-281-08498-2

Price: £24.99 (hardback; e-book also available)

We do not learn much in the Gospels about the early life of Jesus but in Boy Jesus the erudite author Joan Taylor draws not just on biblical texts but also numerous early writings, modern scholarship and other sources to examine what Jesus would have experienced during his formative years.

Taylor begins by considering what it must have been like to be born in Bethlehem, a Jew, a Judaean and a descendant of David. To set the scene in Chapter 1, she draws on Jesus’ encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well and their different identities.

The experiences of the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt, their lives as refugees and their return to Galilee as immigrants would have engendered feelings of displacement, transience and precariousness. Taylor suggests that this is reflected in Jesus’ later teaching, as 'when he sets off on his mission, he seems to have consciously taken up the life of a displaced person “with nowhere to lay his head”. His mode was itinerant, looking for kindness,’ such kindness presumably having been shown to the refugee family in Egypt and on their return to Nazareth.

There is a great deal about Joseph in this book – far more than there is about Mary. A picture is drawn of Joseph the man, the carpenter, his ancestry, his ability to interpret dreams and act on them and about his parental responsibilities to protect, nurture and educate the child Jesus.

As the sub-title of the book says, Jesus grew up in turbulent times and the cruel, murderous deeds of Herod (who had a hatred of Bethlehem and anyone born of David’s line) and his successors provide a recurring theme. Even if not directly exposed to the atrocities, some of which make very uncomfortable reading, the community would have known about them, and talked about them, thus providing a backdrop to what it must have been like for a child growing up amid such turmoil and anxiety.

A detailed comparison of the birth narratives in Matthew and Luke is fascinating and considers some of the differences between them. As we know, the two versions can be combined to create a very satisfactory nativity play but Taylor proposes that Matthew was written from Joseph’s perspective and Luke from Mary’s.

Boy Jesus is not a long book but neither is it a quick read. It is one to take your time over and to reflect on. Highly recommended, especially for those interested in exploring the background of biblical narratives.

Tessa Briggs