The Birth and Childhood of Jesus

The Birth and Childhood of Jesus

122:7.4 Joseph and Mary were poor, and since they had only one beast of burden, Mary, being large with child, rode on the animal with the provisions while Joseph walked, leading the beast. The building and furnishing of a home had been a great drain on Joseph since he had also to contribute to the support of his parents, as his father had been recently disabled. And so this Jewish couple went forth from their humble home early on the morning of August 18, 7 B.C., on their journey to Bethlehem.

Their first day of travel carried them around the foothills of Mount Gilboa, where they camped for the night by the river Jordan and engaged in many speculations as to what sort of a son would be born to them, Joseph adhering to the concept of a spiritual teacher and Mary holding to the idea of a Jewish Messiah, a deliverer of the Hebrew nation.

Bright and early the morning of August 19, Joseph and Mary were again on their way. They partook of their noontide meal at the foot of Mount Sartaba, overlooking the Jordan valley, and journeyed on, making Jericho for the night, where they stopped at an inn on the highway in the outskirts of the city. Following the evening meal and after much discussion concerning the oppressiveness of Roman rule, Herod, the census enrollment, and the comparative influence of Jerusalem and Alexandria as centers of Jewish learning and culture, the Nazareth travelers retired for the night’s rest. Early in the morning of August 20 they resumed their journey, reaching Jerusalem before noon, visiting the temple, and going on to their destination, arriving at Bethlehem in midafternoon.

(The inn was overcrowded, and Joseph accordingly sought lodgings with distant relatives, but every room in Bethlehem was filled to overflowing. On returning to the courtyard of the inn, he was informed that the caravan stables, hewn out of the side of the rock and situated just below the inn, had been cleared of animals and cleaned up for the reception of lodgers. Leaving the donkey in the courtyard, Joseph shouldered their bags of clothing and provisions and with Mary descended the stone steps to their lodgings below. They found themselves located in what had been a grain storage room to the front of the stalls and mangers. Tent curtains had been hung, and they counted themselves fortunate to have such comfortable quarters.

Joseph had thought to go out at once and enroll, but Mary was weary; she was considerably distressed and besought him to remain by her side, which he did.

The Birth of Jesus

All that night Mary was restless so that neither of them slept much. By the break of day the pangs of childbirth were well in evidence, and at noon, August 21, 7 B.C., with the help and kind ministrations of women fellow travelers, Mary was delivered of a male child. Jesus of Nazareth was born into the world, was wrapped in the clothes which Mary had brought along for such a possible contingency, and laid in a near-by manger.


122:8.7 These wise men saw no star to guide them to Bethlehem. The beautiful legend of the star of Bethlehem originated in this way: Jesus was born August 21 at noon, 7 B.C. On May 29, 7 B.C., there occurred an extraordinary conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the constellation of Pisces. And it is a remarkable astronomic fact that similar conjunctions occurred on September 29 and December 5 of the same year. Upon the basis of these extraordinary but wholly natural events the well-meaning zealots of the succeeding generation constructed the appealing legend of the star of Bethlehem and the adoring Magi led thereby to the manger, where they beheld and worshiped the newborn babe.  In the absence of printing, when most human knowledge was passed by word of mouth from one generation to another, it was very easy for myths to become traditions and for traditions eventually to become accepted as facts.


Birth and Infancy of Jesus 
Joseph and Mary 
Gabriel appears to Mary 
Gabriel's announcement to Mary 
Joseph's Dream 
Jesus' Earth Parents 
The Home at Nazareth  
The Trip to Bethlehem
The Birth of Jesus
The Presentation in the Temple 

Herod Acts 
The Early Childhood of Jesus 
Back in Nazareth 
The Fifth Year (2 B.C.) 
Events of the Sixth Year (1 B.C.) 
The Seventh Year (A.D. 1) 
School Days in Nazareth

His Eighth Year (A.D. 2) 
The Later Childhood of Jesus 
Jesus' Ninth Year (A.D. 3) 
The Tenth Year (A.D. 4) 
The Eleventh Year (A.D. 5) 
The Twelfth Year (A.D. 6) 
His Thirteenth Year (A.D.7) 
Jesus at Jerusalem 
Jesus Views the Temple  
Jesus and the Passover  
Departure of Joseph and Mary
First and Second Days in the Temple 
The Third Day in the Temple 
The Fourth Day in the Temple 
The Two Crucial Years 
His Fourteenth Year (A.D. 8) 
The Death of Joseph 
The Fifteenth Year (A.D. 9)  
First Sermon in the Synagogue 

The Financial Struggle 
The Adolescent Years  
The Sixteenth Year (A.D. 10)  
The Seventeenth Year (A.D. 11) 
The Eighteenth Year (A.D. 12) 
The Nineteenth Year (A.D. 13)  
Rebecca, The Daughter of Ezra 
His Twentieth Year (A.D. 14) 

PRODUCT DETAILS

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: The Jesus Books, Publishers 
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1461005701
• ISBN-13: 978-1461005704
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches

The Birth and Childhood of Jesus #1 of a Series from “The Life & Teachings of Jesus”