Hurlbut's Life Of Christ For Young And Old Part 6

CHAPTER 11

THE LITTLE Jesus must have been between two and five years old when he was brought to Nazareth, just coming out of babyhood and growing into a little boy; and Nazareth was his home for at least twenty-five years, all through his childhood, his boyhood and his young manhood.

Jesus was not the only child living in that little white house of one story and one room on the side of the hill. Soon another baby boy came, who was named James, who grew up to become a great man, and many years after wrote one of the books in the Bible, the Epistle of James. Then, one after another, came three more boys, Joseph and Simon and Judas.

When we read that name "Judas" we are apt to think of the wicked Judas, who sold the Lord Jesus for a few pieces of silver. But that was a different Judas. This Judas, like his brother James, long afterward wrote another book in the New Testament, the Epistle of Jude. Somewhere in the list of children were two girls--there may have been more than two, but the number and names of the girls have not been kept.

After a few years that little house must often have been crowded, with children coming one after another, and always a baby to be cared for.

And much of the time it was the shop where father Joseph did his work as a carpenter. The floor of brick or of clay was often littered with shavings and the workman's tools were on the table.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The child Jesus loved outdoor life, he knew the flowers that grew in the fields and the birds flying in the air.]

The house had very little furniture; no chairs, no bedstead with a mattress upon it, no stove and no pictures upon the walls. In one corner a little fire was lighted for cooking the meals, and the smoke went up through a hole in the roof, unless the wind blew it back into the room. They never made a fire to keep the house warm in winter, but when it was cold just waited for the sun to come out. Sometimes a snowstorm came, but the snow seldom stayed more than two or three days.

The children of Joseph never took a sleigh-ride and never coasted on sleds down the steep hills.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Jesus as a boy at the house of his father and mother]

If there was a table for their meals, it was very low, less than two feet high; and they sat around it on little cus.h.i.+ons, dipping their hands or pieces of bread into one common dish for food. Sometimes the table was just a round measure turned upside down; and sometimes the meal was served on the floor, as we serve meals on the gra.s.s at a picnic.

When night came, they unrolled some mats, which through the day were rolled up and stood against the wall, spread them on the floor and lay down upon them to sleep, throwing over themselves the long mantle which had been their outside garment through the day. When the door was shut, the house was dark, for its only window was a little hole in the wall; and they lighted it by an oil lamp, which stood either on a tall stand or on a little shelf.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Women grinding grain in Bible times]

But the house was used little in the daytime, for everybody lived out of doors, in the open court in front, in the streets and on the hills around. On pleasant days Joseph took his tools in the court and worked in wood. We are apt to think of Joseph as building houses, as in our time that is the chief work of a carpenter. But the houses were made of clay or rough stone, and the carpenter did very little work upon them.

His chief business was in making wooden plows, yokes for the oxen, the little tables, and the peck or bushel measure, which was to be found in every house, and was also used in place of a table.

One very useful article was either in the house or in the court--the hand mill for grinding grain, made of two round flat stones. Our flour comes to us from great factories, but in that land each family had its own little mill. They poured the grain into a hole in the upper millstone, and then turned the stone round and round by a handle until the grain was ground into flour. This was hard work, but it was always done by the women. Often two women helped each other to turn the handle of the upper millstone. Mary's arms often ached in making the flour needed for her large family. When her daughters grew strong, they helped her in this work.

When Jesus became a boy six years old, he was sent to school with the other boys. There were no schools for girls among the Jews, so far as we know. The school was held in the village church, which they called the synagogue. The teacher was always a man, and he was generally the janitor of the church, who kept the building in order.

The Jews had a pretty name for the village school. They called it "The Vineyard," as though the children were bunches of little grapes, growing up to ripen in the sun. In this vineyard-school there was only one book for study. That was the Bible. The Jews had only the Old Testament, for the New Testament had not yet been written. Each of the larger books was in a separate volume in the form of a long roll of parchment; that is, a sheet made of sheepskin which had been made smooth, on which the words were written. Several of the smaller books were written on one roll. In the school there was only one copy of the Bible for all the scholars, but each boy had a board and a piece of chalk, with which he wrote sentences from the Bible and then learned them by heart. When his text had been learned, each pupil cleaned off his board like a slate and wrote on it a new lesson. All the teaching in a Jewish school was in the Old Testament.

The copy of the Bible in the school was generally one that had been used in the church until it had grown old and worn out. When they obtained a new set of the books for the service in the church, they gave the old copies to the school.

You can see in that same land now a school of children just like those in the time when Jesus was a boy. The children sit on the floor in a circle, the teacher being one of the ring. When they repeat their verses in learning them, all are talking aloud at the same time, so that the school is very noisy. We could not study in such a din, but they do not seem to mind it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Roll of book]

School was not very hard in that country. Our children have one holiday in each week, free from school, but in the school where Jesus was taught, they had two holidays in every week, besides the sabbath. In addition to these holidays there was a long recess of three hours in the middle of each day, and no school at all if the day was very hot.

When Jesus was a small boy he was taken by father Joseph to the church, which you remember they called the synagogue. The men and boys sat on the floor upon rugs or mats, while the women and girls were in a gallery, looking down upon them. All the men and boys wore their hats in the church. Their hats were turbans of cloth wrapped around their heads.

But each one as he entered the door slipped off his shoes or slippers, and was barefooted in the church at the hour of wors.h.i.+p. If at the hour of wors.h.i.+p you go to a Mohammedan church in that country--which they call a mosque--you will see all the shoes standing outside the door.

In the church they had no minister to lead the service and to preach a sermon. The men took turns in charge of the wors.h.i.+p. One read from one part of the Old Testament, another from another part. If they found a boy who was a good reader he was often called upon to read the Bible in the church service. They had prayers, always read from a book; they sang together from the Psalms; and whoever wished to speak could do so.

But we are not to think of the child Jesus as always at school or at church. He was a strong, hearty, healthy boy. He loved outdoor life, he knew the flowers that grew in the fields and the birds flying in the air. He played with other boys and knew all their games. Two of these games he once happened to mention long after, while he was teaching. One game was the wedding, when they sang and danced; the other was the funeral, when they cried with loud voices, making a mournful wail. We know, too, that in those times the boys played ball and marbles, and a game somewhat like ten-pins.

Jesus was not a lonely boy, living apart. He was always fond of having others around him. When he was a man, traveling and teaching over all the land, he had his twelve chosen friends who were always with him, and we may be sure that as a boy he liked to be with other boys, and in turn was liked by the boys of his village.

We may be sure, too, that he grew up a good boy; one who always tried to do right, at home, at school, or in play. At home he would help Joseph in his shop and his mother in her work or in caring for the smaller children; in school we know that he learned his verses in the Bible, because in after years he could always call them to his mind and speak them; and in play he was always fair and good-hearted and willing. We are told that he grew in knowledge and in the favor of G.o.d and of all people. In other words, he was a boy that everybody liked.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The citadel of ancient Bethshean, in the Jordan valley, twelve miles south of sea of Galilee]

The Boy Lost and Found

CHAPTER 12

JESUS STAYED at the school in the village church until he was twelve years old. By that time he could read and write and could also repeat many verses. But as his reading book and spelling book and copy book and memory verses were all in the Bible, and as he heard long readings from its books at the church service, we may be sure that he knew quite well all the best things in that best of all books, the Bible. One proof of this is that in later years, when anyone tried to puzzle him with a hard question, he often answered promptly with a sentence from the Bible.

A Jewish boy generally left school at the age of twelve, unless he wished to become a rabbi, which was the name among the Jews for a teacher of their law. If that was his wish or the purpose of his parents, he was sent up to Jerusalem to study in the college held by the scribes or teachers in the Temple. Saul of Tarsus, a boy about four years younger than Jesus, whom we know as Paul the Apostle, was a student in the Temple college, but Jesus was not. While the young Saul was studying in Jerusalem, Jesus as a young man was working in the carpenter shop at Nazareth.

When Jesus was twelve years old he was taken on his first journey from Nazareth up to Jerusalem to attend the great feast of the Pa.s.sover.

Three great feasts were held during the year. The feast of the Pa.s.sover was in the early spring, and kept in mind the great day when the Israelites went out of Egypt, no longer slaves but free men. The feast of the Pentecost was held in the late spring, just fifty days after the Pa.s.sover--the word "pentecost" meaning "fifty days"--and reminded the people that fifty days after their fathers went out of Egypt, G.o.d gave them their law amid lightning and thunder on Mount Sinai. The feast of the Tabernacles, or "feast of tents" (for that is the meaning of the word tabernacles), was held in the fall; and at this time the people built for themselves huts of green branches, ate in them and slept in them for a week, to show the outdoor life of the early days in the wilderness, while they were marching to Canaan, the Promised Land. These three great feasts were held in Jerusalem, and from every part of the land the people came up to the city to attend them.

It was a great event when the boy Jesus for the first time went on this journey to Jerusalem. The younger children were left at home, under the care of some friend, for a boy did not begin attending these feasts until he was twelve years old. Of course, Joseph and Mary knew all about this journey, for they had made it many times. They went in the caravan or company from Nazareth, following the road that Joseph and Mary had taken on their way to Bethlehem, twelve years before. As they journeyed, Mary seated on the a.s.s, Joseph and the boy Jesus walking beside her, they would talk about the places which they pa.s.sed, and the stories of old times told about them. Jesus knew all those stories, for every Jewish boy had heard them, over and over.

As they paused on the top of the hill beside Nazareth, below them was spread out the great plain of Esdraelon, and they would say, "That mountain by the Great Sea on the west is Mount Carmel, where Elijah built his altar and made his great offering, when in answer to his prayer the fire came down from heaven and burned up the bullock laid on the altar. Do you see that road running across the plain? On that road Elijah ran in front of King Ahab's chariot, after the long drought, when the rain was coming. And then, this plain! Over it from Mount Tabor, there on the left, Deborah and Barak chased the flying Canaanites across the plain. Do you see that second mountain beyond Tabor? That is Mount Gilboa; and at its foot Gideon with his brave three hundred frightened at night the Midianite host and won a great victory."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mount Tabor and the plain of Esdraelon]

They went down into the Jordan valley and walked southward by the Roman road, following the Jordan River. At one place the mountains on either side came down close to the river, and there was barely room for the road between the foaming stream on one side and the steep rocks on the other.

"Look," said Joseph, "this is the place where the waters rose up and stood in a heap when our fathers under Joshua were about to cross the river, thirty miles below."

They crossed a brook which fell into the river; and Joseph said, "Do you see this brook? Up there among the mountains was the place where the prophet Elijah was fed by the ravens; for this is the brook Cherith."

They came to the place just above Jericho where under Joshua the Israelites walked across the dry bed of the river, the holy ark carried by the priests in front and the people following in a long procession.

There the river is very wide and quite shallow, so that people walk across, except in the early spring, when it is swollen by the rains and the melting snow on the high mountains far to the north.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Temple of Herod restored by Fergusson. The covered portico on the left is the royal porch extending along the southern side of the Temple area. The colonnade running from left to right is Solomon's porch extending across the eastern side of the area. The courts were much larger than as here shown.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: At last his parents found Jesus in the Temple, the center of a company of learned scholars; he was asking questions of them and they were asking questions of him, while all around were people listening and wondering at this boy's deep knowledge of the truth.]

There they would point out across the river Mount Nebo, where Moses stood looking upon the land and then all alone lay down and died. They stopped for a rest at Jericho, where were stories to tell of the walls that fell down when the Israelites marched around them, and the priests blew their ram's-horn trumpets. Perhaps they stopped and drank at the great spring near Jericho where the water was made pure by Elisha the prophet. And after a climb up to the mountains, at the end of six days or a week, they came to Jerusalem, the end of their journey, and the place called by the people "the holy city."

And then, there was the splendid Temple of G.o.d! How the boy's heart was stirred as he walked over the bridge leading from Mount Zion to Mount Moriah! They went into the great outside court, the court of the Gentiles, the only place in the Temple where foreigners were allowed to enter; and the boy Jesus was shocked to see that it had been turned into a market, where cattle and sheep and doves were sold, and where tables stood around for the men who changed foreign money into Jewish shekels.

Over the eastern wall and the Golden Gate, they saw the Mount of Olives, then covered to the top with vineyards and olive trees and gardens. They climbed up a flight of steps and pa.s.sed through a gate called "the Beautiful Gate," into a smaller court, like the outer court open to the sky. This was named "The Court of the Women" because from its lattice-covered gallery the women looked down on the altar and the services of wors.h.i.+p. Jesus noticed that in this Court of the Women were many cla.s.ses of young men studying, seated in a circle, listening to their teachers. How he longed to sit down among them and listen to these wise scholars; for though only a boy, he had thought deeply on many things which he had read, and many questions had come to his mind which he greatly desired to have answered. He saw the sacrifice offerings laid on the altar and burned, while trumpets sounded and censers of incense were waved and the priests chanted the psalms of David.

While the family were in Jerusalem they found friends with whom they stayed, and in their house the Pa.s.sover feast was eaten. It was a very simple meal, just a roasted lamb, some vegetables and bread made without yeast, in thin cakes, like soda biscuit, only larger. They ate the meal lying down on couches around the table, their heads toward the table, their feet away from it. It was the custom or rule of the Jews, at this feast, to have the story of the first Pa.s.sover. Perhaps Joseph said to Jesus:

"My son, you know what took place when this pa.s.sover was eaten for the first time. Tell us the story."

[Ill.u.s.tration: David street, Jerusalem, looking toward Olivet]