The boy of Nazareth

The whole story

Nazareth was a small village in the hills of lower Galilee, so little thought of that Nathanael asked, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). There the angel Gabriel had come to Mary, and there Jesus grew up as the son of Joseph the carpenter, and learned his trade.

At twelve he went up with his parents to Jerusalem for the Passover and stayed behind in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, hearing them and asking them questions. When they found him after three days, he said, “wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” (Luke 2:49). He went home with them and was subject unto them.

Later, in the synagogue at Nazareth, he read from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me” (Luke 4:18), and the town rose up and led him to the brow of the hill to throw him down. The Basilica of the Annunciation, finished in 1969, stands over a cave honored as Mary’s home, and excavations nearby have found houses of Jesus’s time.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man.

Luke 2:52, KJV

Where it happened

Nazareth.

Nazareth, in the hills of lower Galilee.

Every story stands at its place on the Worldwide Watch map: the Bible’s world, on the map.

Sources and editorial method

Research and editorial references used for this page include:

• The King James Bible, as published by bible-api.com
• The Book of Enoch, translated by R. H. Charles (1917), Project Gutenberg

Every story is told from the King James Bible, and from the Book of Enoch in R. H. Charles’s translation (1917) where a story names it. Every quotation was checked word for word against those texts. Where a place is not known, the page says so. The paintings and the narration were made for the house.