{"id":15263,"date":"2025-12-12T18:37:24","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T01:37:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jesus-as-a-holy-rascal\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T19:33:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T19:33:41","slug":"jesus-as-a-holy-rascal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jesus-as-a-holy-rascal\/","title":{"rendered":"Jesus as a \u2018Holy Rascal\u2019?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Gospel
Gospel Images from the Bible New Testament \u2013 Mary and Joseph find young Jesus in the temple. (Adobe Stock Image, assisted with AI)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Manger scenes displayed around Christmastime usually feature an ox and an ass beside the infant Jesus. According to the Gospel of Luke, Mary placed her child in a manger \u2013 an animal feeding bin \u2013 \u201cbecause there was no room for them in the inn.\u201d<\/p>\n

No mere babysitters, the ox and ass harken back to Isaiah 1:3, a verse early Christians interpreted as a prophecy of Christ\u2019s birth. In some early artwork, these beasts kneel to show reverence \u2013 recognizing the swaddled babe, born in humble circumstances, as lordly.<\/p>\n

The canonical Gospels \u2013 the accounts of Jesus\u2019 life in the New Testament \u2013 make no mention of animals at the manger. Yet the motif appeared in fourth-century art and was popularized by the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, an apocryphal text not included in Scripture. Pseudo-Matthew, composed by an anonymous monk in the seventh century, includes many tales about Jesus growing up.<\/p>\n

After the birth narrative, the Bible is almost silent on his childhood. Yet legends about Jesus\u2019 early years circulated widely in the Middle Ages \u2013 the focus of my 2017 book. While the ox and ass detail is familiar to many Christians today, few know the other striking tales found in the apocrypha.<\/p>\n

Wonder-worker<\/div>\n

The Bible includes one famous scene from Jesus\u2019 youth: when 12-year-old Jesus stayed behind at the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, unbeknownst to his parents. Searching anxiously, they find him conversing with religious teachers, asking questions and astounding them with his answers. Fourteenth-century painter Simone Martini\u2019s \u201cChrist Discovered in the Temple\u201d portrays him standing before his parents with crossed arms \u2013 a stubborn youth, apparently unapologetic for days of worry.<\/p>\n

The apocryphal Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew \u2013 especially versions incorporating material from the earlier Infancy Gospel of Thomas \u2013 focuses on Jesus\u2019 childhood. Like the temple story, they show the boy as sometimes difficult and possessing wisdom that amazes and offends his teachers. More dramatically, the apocryphal legends depict Jesus exercising divine power from a very young age.<\/p>\n

Like the adult Jesus of the New Testament, this apocryphal Christ child often works wonders to help others. According to Matthew, Mary and Joseph take the infant Jesus to Egypt after an angel warns that Herod would kill the child. In Pseudo-Matthew\u2019s elaboration, Jesus, not yet 2, bravely stands before dragons emanating from a cave where his family rests.<\/p>\n

The dragons worship him and depart, while Jesus assures bystanders that he is the \u201cperfect man\u201d and can \u201ctame every kind of wild beast.\u201d He later commands a palm tree to bend so Mary can eat its fruit and miraculously shortens their desert journey.<\/p>\n

At times, Jesus is blamed for troubles. The 14th-century Tring Tiles, now in the British Museum, depict one of Jesus\u2019 friends imprisoned by his father in a tower. Christ pulls him out of a tiny hole, like a gallant knight rescuing a maiden. The father had tried to shield his son from Jesus\u2019 influence \u2013 understandable, since many legends show Jesus causing the death of playmates who angered him.<\/p>\n

In a story summarized as \u201cdeath for a bump,\u201d a boy runs into Jesus. He curses the child, who instantly drops dead \u2013 though Jesus revives him after Joseph\u2019s reprimand.<\/p>\n

In another tale, in an Anglo-Norman manuscript, Jesus takes off his coat, places it on a sunbeam and sits on it. Other children try to imitate him, but fall and break their necks. Jesus heals them at his parents\u2019 urging.<\/p>\n

Joseph admits to neighbors that Jesus \u201cwas indeed too wild\u201d and sends him away. The 7-year-old becomes apprenticed to a dyer, who gives precise directions for dyeing three pieces of cloth in separate vats. Once the master leaves, Jesus throws all the cloth into one vat \u2013 yet achieves the desired outcome. The master first thinks he has been \u201cruined by this little rascal,\u201d then realizes a wonder has occurred.<\/p>\n

Bond with animals<\/div>\n

These legends also show Jesus\u2019 power over animals. When he enters a lion\u2019s cave, cubs run around his feet, fawning and playing, while older lions stand at a distance and worship him. Jesus tells bystanders the beasts are better than they are because the animals \u201crecognize and glorify their Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n

These tales portray Jesus as haughty, conscious of his divinity and unhappy with those who treat him as a mere child. At the same time, he seems childlike, acting on impulse and ignoring elders\u2019 admonitions.<\/p>\n

His affinity for animals also makes him seem childlike. Strikingly, beasts in the apocrypha, beginning with the ox and ass, often recognize Jesus before humans do.<\/p>\n

The legends\u2019 insinuation that many Jews around Jesus were less perceptive than animals reflects medieval Europe\u2019s widespread antisemitism. In one fifth-century sermon, Quodvultdeus, bishop of Carthage, asks why the animals\u2019 recognition of Jesus was not a sufficient sign for the Jews.<\/p>\n

In the Bible, Jesus works his first miracle as an adult, at a wedding in Cana. The apocryphal tales, however, toy with the idea of the God-man revealing his power early. They suggest Christ\u2019s childishness distracted those around him, preventing them from concluding he was the Messiah. This allows the apocrypha to avoid contradicting the Bible\u2019s reference to Jesus as \u201cthe carpenter\u2019s son,\u201d the opposite of a wonder child.<\/p>\n

Each Christmas, modern Christians celebrate Jesus\u2019 birth, then quickly drop the theme of the Christ child. Medieval Christians, in contrast, were fascinated by tales of the Son of God growing up. Despite acting as dragon tamer, physician and magician, the young Jesus of the apocrypha largely flies under the radar, cloaking his divinity with boyish \u201crascal\u201d charm.<\/p>\n

The Conversation is an independent, nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts. The Conversation is wholly responsible for the content.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

says little about Jesus\u2019 childhood \u2013 but medieval Christians embraced tales of him as a trouble-maker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1220,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-christianity","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19565,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15263\/revisions\/19565"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15263"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}