A 'Holy' Terror: Jesus as a Child - Apocrypha Part 1

January 31, 2025  •  Leave a Comment

I’ve been reading a book I found at the library on apocrypha. (Biblical or related writings not forming part of the accepted canon of Scripture-Google dictionary.) 

None of these stories claim to be true, nor are they meant to be read that way, but it’s still fun to look at writings that tell these stories which were passed orally for long periods of time. 

While the three pieces about his birth were very interesting, so far my favorite section pertains to the childhood of Jesus. I’m going to paraphrase some highlights, many of which I’d read before but there were a few things that were new to me. I’m going to put them in my own words, combining the three passages into one cohesive story about a realistic portrayal of the God side of Jesus clashing with the very human child side.

So, let’s start when Jesus was about five years old. In these readings, Jesus is a ‘holy’ terror. On one particular Sabbath, which is a day that as a Jewish person he wasn’t supposed to be doing much, he sits beside a creek making clay birds. A fellow child sees him doing this, and goes and gets some adults because he knows the rules about keeping the Sabbath holy.

Joseph and some other adults show up, and Jospeh chastises Jesus for doing this on a day he knows he not supposed to be doing it. 

Jesus immediately cops an attitude about being told what to do, as he knows he’s God AND human. He claps his hands and the birds fly away. Yes, you read that correctly, the birds made of mud turn into real birds and fly off. 

The other child, the one who ratted him out, makes a kerfuffle about it, and Jesus withers him like he withered the fig tree as an adult. Literally. He kills the kid on the spot. He’s like, “I’m God and all knowing, don’t tell me what to do!”

Now, the adults are all freaking out. They ban together and have a meeting in the village and they confront Jospeh and tell him, “Hey, Joe, your kid can’t be killing our kids like this.” (It is written like this, which makes me think this wasn’t the first child the Lord had off’d impulsively.) They tell him that if he can’t control his child, he’s going to have to find somewhere else to live. 

Jospeh goes home and tells Jesus what is going on. Jesus doesn’t take it well. He thinks they shouldn’t be trying to control him, and that he’s more knowing than they are (just like a five year old) and he BLINDS EVERYONE WHO WAS AT THE MEETING.

Joseph and Mary eventually talk some sense into the child, and he does restore everyone’s vision and brings the withered child back to life. From here, a man decides Joseph and Mary need help raising this kid, so he offers to be Jesus’s teacher.

Jesus isn’t a very receptive student. He spends most of his first lesson speaking in parables and educating the teacher about life, mirroring much of the story of his sitting in the temple teaching the grown men when he is twelve. In this case, the teacher tries to bring it down to a simple level: let’s start with the ABC’s.

Jesus takes the letter A (in his language) and manages to teach a parable about the Holy Trinity. He says, “See how there are two marks parallel on the sides, and a slash that goes through the middle. Three pieces form one single letter, working individually and equally to form one letter.” 

The teacher has had it by the end of day one. He’s like, “Joseph, this child is God, and there’s nothing I can teach him. I don’t know what to tell ya, big guy.”

By the time he’s six, he’s seemed to calm down a little bit, but his troubles still exist. He’s playing on a roof one day with some friends, and a kid falls off the roof and dies. It isn’t Jesuses fault, but everyone on the ground who finds the kid thinks Jesus did it. Jesus jumps off the roof and gets angry. He’s all like, “How dare you accuse me of doing the things I’ve been doing! But this time I really didn’t do it!”

Basically, in an effort to prove them all wrong, he resurrects the kid in front of everyone, and all who witness this, along with a little speech shaming them for doubting him even though he’s been known to do those exact things before, they all then believe and worship him. 

That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far in my little journey with kid Jesus. I find the portrayal to be highly plausible. Yes, I know he’s sinless and perfect and all of that. But you have to admit, the idea of a child taking a little while to grow into his God powers and to learn how not to just wipe out humanity out of irritation seems like it could be true. lol (I’m looking at you, flood story.)

Would anyone be interested in reading more of my write up’s of this book? I’m loving it so far, and I am enjoying putting my own little comedic spin on the stories. I love Jesus. I also think I love little fictional murderous Jesus a bit, too. 

 


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