Christianity’s First Family

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Apocryphal stories about the childhood of Jesus made headlines this year. Although unfamiliar to most readers of the New Testament, such childhood stories can be found in an early Christian text known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This past spring, two scholars, Lajos Berkes and Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, published an ancient manuscript of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (see “Early Infancy Gospel Discovered”). This fragmentary manuscript contains several lines of text that align closely with other, much later manuscripts of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (henceforth, Infancy Gospel). Lamentably, the provenance of the manuscript remains a mystery, but Berkes and Macedo believe it is an authentic artifact. They date the fragment to the late fourth or early fifth century.

The publication of the manuscript is important for at least two reasons. First, the language is Greek, and second, the date of the fragment makes it the earliest copy of the Infancy Gospel in any language. The language of the manuscript corroborates the scholarly consensus that the Infancy Gospel was written originally in Greek, while its date lends support to the view that the Infancy Gospel was in circulation prior to the fourth century. It seems likely, in fact, that the Infancy Gospel was written as early as the second century, when allusions to a childhood story about Jesus and a teacher crop up in the work of Irenaeus as well as in the anonymous Epistle of the Apostles. This evidence puts the Infancy Gospel within shouting distance, chronologically speaking, of the New Testament Gospels.

A first encounter with the stories in the Infancy Gospel can be unsettling. In one episode, a five-year-old Jesus curses another child, who promptly falls over dead. Understandably, more than one religious commentator went online to respond to the news about the ancient manuscript of the Infancy Gospel, denouncing it as unbiblical and heretical.

Authoritative statements about the Christian Bible and Christian theology, however, do not emerge until long after the year 150, the likely date of the gospel’s composition. From that vantage point, no ancient Christian could have foreseen a canon of the “New Testament” like the one found in most Christian Bibles today. I do not make this point to argue for the historical reliability of the Infancy Gospel. I do not know of any scholar who believes that its childhood stories about Jesus are historically reliable. Nor do I mean to suggest that all early Christians welcomed childhood stories about Jesus; clearly some authorities rejected such stories. No, the point is that the Infancy Gospel, like every other ancient Christian source—whether it is ultimately included in the biblical canon or not—is precious evidence of what mattered to at least some early Christians.

If some early Christians told childhood stories about Jesus, they must have had reasons to do so. Why? One reason has to do with demonstrations of power. The newly published fragment contains a section of the first episode in the Infancy Gospel. In it, a five-year-old Jesus plays by a stream and shapes figures from the mud. The clay toys are sparrows, which Jesus suddenly brings to life, clapping his hands and shouting “Fly away!” Dirt models one moment, living creatures the next—if readers see shades of the creation of Adam in Genesis, it’s not a fluke.

Now, not all of Jesus’s wonders cast a good light on his childhood. On the same day of Jesus’s miracle of the birds, he curses and harms another boy for draining a nearby pool of water. And in a later episode, Jesus causes members of his village to go blind, only later showing mercy and restoring their sight.

This is generally the way things go in the Infancy Gospel. The child Jesus blesses and curses. And this brings us to a second reason for why childhood stories about Jesus mattered to early Christians. It is because they place this strange child at the center of family life.¹ Readers of the New Testament may recall that there is only one childhood story about Jesus in the entire Christian Bible, and it too is a story of household tension. In it, Mary and Joseph lose track of their 12-year-old son. They eventually find him in the Temple, amazing the teachers there with his understanding (Luke 2:41–52). Note Mary’s reproachful words to the youth: “Child, why have you treated us like this?” (2:48). Jesus’s reply about being “in my Father’s house” leaves the parents perplexed: “But they did not understand what he said to them” (2:49–50). Is this the episode that inspired early Christians to spin more childhood tales?

Interestingly, this same episode is retold with minor differences as the conclusion to the Infancy Gospel. Between the opening avian miracle and the conclusion in the Temple, the gospel’s stories time and again focus on the relationships between Jesus and members of his household. When a poisonous snake bites his brother, James, Jesus heals him. When Mary sends Jesus to the well, the water jar breaks, but Jesus spreads out his cloak and miraculously collects the water. He returns to Mary with the water and she is amazed by what Jesus has done.

Perhaps most striking is how the Infancy Gospel raises the profile of Joseph. In a poignant moment, Jesus helps Joseph with his work as a carpenter, miraculously lengthening a wooden board. But Jesus and Joseph also fall into conflict. Much of the tension comes from Joseph’s persistence in seeking out an education for his son. The “schoolhouse” stories depict the child Jesus as an obstreperous pupil. Jesus, like a juvenile Mr. Spock, overwhelms one teacher with his superior intellect. In a different episode, Jesus curses another teacher after suffering corporal punishment. Joseph must deal with the fallout. He instructs Mary not to let Jesus leave the house because of his temper. Joseph even pinches Jesus’s ear in frustration and receives in return a stern warning from Jesus. Joseph finally finds a teacher who seems to have picked up on how to “teach” the extraordinary child—he doesn’t. The teacher instead yields the floor and praises the wisdom of the boy, emerging unscathed.

All these stories showcase the life of Christianity’s “first family.” The early Christians who told and listened to such stories wondered what it was like for Mary and Joseph to parent an extraordinary child. In imagining these scenes, I wonder whether early Christians may have seen a dim reflection of their own experience. Family members and friends do not have to wield supernatural power to leave us at a loss. Why is it that the people to whom we are closest, the ones we think we know best, can nevertheless say or do things that utterly confound us? How often do our most intimate relationships leave us perplexed? If these questions animate the stories of the Infancy Gospel, then the text is not only about the household of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. It is also about the restless hearts and minds of early Christians.

Apocryphal stories about the childhood of Jesus made headlines this year. Although unfamiliar to most readers of the New Testament, such childhood stories can be found in an early Christian text known as the Infancy Gospel of Thomas. This past spring, two scholars, Lajos Berkes and Gabriel Nocchi Macedo, published an ancient manuscript of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (see “Early Infancy Gospel Discovered”). This fragmentary manuscript contains several lines of text that align closely with other, much later manuscripts of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas (henceforth, Infancy Gospel). Lamentably, the provenance of the manuscript remains a mystery, but Berkes […]