Jesus: The Untold Years

Thousands have written about Jesus Christ, the best-known figure in history. Aside from the New Testament words recorded by the people who knew him, his life is a mystery. Theologians and scholars of multiple disciplines have given us learned insight.

Speculators have him married, traveling to Gaul and China and one casts him as a Japanese rice farmer. What about his boyhood years, the trials of a teenager, education, a boy mourning the death of his grandparents and later suffering the loss of his earthly father? How do you run a carpentry business? What about the challenges of a young human Jesus growing into his divinity? "Jesus: The Untold Story" suggests some answers. Simon Peter is the opening chapter narrator, and one gets the sense that he and Mary, Jesus' mother, are not on the best of terms. Then Mary becomes the narrator, and her discussion with Jesus is laden with foreboding. The story then goes back to Egypt where the Holy Family has lived for nearly four years. Joseph learns that Herod the Great has died, and they head back to Nazareth.

However, the Herod paranoia and power hang over much of their life thereafter. It's an adventurous trip home but good friends and Jesus' recall about a dog's habits are key.

Once back in Nazareth, Jesus deals with the usual elements of growing up in First Century Galilean culture - education of the Hebrew Scriptures, making friends, playing games and doing chores. He suffers the death of grandparents and later the demise of his earthly father. His teen years involve running in relays, more studying of Jewish Scripture and learning the rudiments of carpentry. While training for a race at nearby Nain, he meets a girl from Synagogue. That and a growing sense of his divine destiny created new challenges. After Joseph died, the son of a carpenter had a business to run. As his ministry progressed, there were not only disappointments in developing his kingdom on Earth - such as real love for one's brother and forgiveness - but the arguing among his disciples. In the end, there is the anguish of the unknown. Mary prays that the final days will not be the horror that she imagines. She accepts Simon, renamed Peter, as the leader of the Apostles, the Rock.