Gospel: One of my favorite passages in the NT is today's: "The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him" (Lk 2). This is the beginning of Jesus's "hidden life," in Nazareth. The only thing we read about him in the Gospels... 
...during this period is his teaching in the Temple, at age 12. Otherwise, his life in Nazareth is "hidden." Jesus leads a normal life, eventually becoming a "tekton" (carpenter, craftsman, builder). But it is here that Jesus's life most powerfully intersects with our own...
...in its ordinariness and hiddenness. Of course there are many things we can know about daily life in first-century Nazareth. (I speak about them at length in my book "Jesus: A Pilgrimage.") But we long to know more about *his* life! So why wasn't more written about this?..
One reason is that the writers of the Gospels were more interested in his public ministry. Another, as the Rev. John Meier says in "A Marginal Jew," is that, other than his teaching in the Temple, probably not much happened (despite what some of the apocryphal Gospels say)...
Jesus's life in Nazareth, says Meier, was probably "insufferably ordinary." Just like our own.
Image: From "Nazareth Village," a reconstruction of daily life in first-century Nazareth, located in Nazareth.
Image: From "Nazareth Village," a reconstruction of daily life in first-century Nazareth, located in Nazareth.
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