Boy Jesus

ISBN: 978-0-281-08498-2
Publisher: SPCK (2025)

Few people have tackled the question of what Jesus birth, early life and childhood might have looked like through the lenses of what the New Testament tells us and the growing knowledge that comes from the mix of other early writings and the ever-growing archaeological studies. Joan Taylor has produced an outstanding book that carefully goes through all the background of being a Jew, Judahite, Judaean; being in the line of the seed of David and the situation in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus' birth. She then moves on to look closely at Matthew's birth narrative, then Luke's. She returns to Matthew and the story of the flight into Egypt. Then she looks deeply into the return to Nazareth; what it was like to grow up in the Galilee region and finally taking a look at Luke's story of the twelve year old Jesus' visit to Jerusalem.

For a book so full of careful biblical, literary and archaeological studies and research the whole book is thoroughly readable. At times it feels like an adventure story. The whole is helped enormously by the author's own sketches and maps alongside other illustrative plates.

Readers will respond in a wide range of ways. There will be surprise for some at her conclusion at the overall reliability of Matthew's birth narratives. This alongside her argument for Luke's birth narrative account being very late indeed. Personally I hold to a much earlier date for both gospels. However I found her insights and arguments very enlightening to the background as a whole. It is though the detailed background she gives to Herod the Great and his successors and the political machinations of the whole era; to Herodion and the community of Bethlehem; to Egypt around 4BC and then to the Galilee region for the early years of Jesus' life that offer so much colour and potential understanding to the world in which the hidden years of Jesus occurred.

This is not a work of theology so exploring the many potential theological implications of what Joan Taylor describes is not contained within the book. However I think her work will impact theologians if they take her reasoning seriously. It is not a work of Child Theology but for those of us engaged in Child Theology perhaps it might wake us up to reflect more fully than perhaps we have done on the implications of the birth narratives, and the small windows into Jesus' as a child that we are given. Have we reflected enough on what it meant to be the oldest sibling, or to have been bereaved, probably, in what we call the teenage years (fully adult years for Jesus)? How might all the work that Taylor undertakes here on the impact of being identified as a Judaean, of the seed of David, and a refugee on Jesus own development and understanding for him what it meant to be fully human, and divine?

This book is a tour de force. It deserves to be widely read and taken deeply seriously even if we may not always agree with all of its proposed conclusions.

Reviewed by: Paul Butler