Jesus growing up in Nazareth

Aleta Spence

Jewish families greatly loved their children. When Joseph was directed by an angel to take his family to Egypt, he and Mary traveled many days to keep the child Jesus safe from harm. Children also loved and obeyed their parents. And they learned that listening to God was very important. They heard many stories from the Hebrew Scriptures about people who listened to God—about Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebekah, Jacob whose name was changed to Israel, Moses the great leader, and Deborah the judge. They also heard about the prophets who said that a Messiah, or Saviour, was going to come.

The Bible tells us that Jesus had brothers named James, Joses, Juda, and Simon and that he had sisters (see Mark 6:3). Parents like Mary and Joseph would have wanted their children to be wise, and that meant knowing about God. As mother of the family, Mary would have started teaching her children about God when they were little. Joseph would have been expected to train his sons to behave well and to help him with his carpentry work in the farming community of Nazareth.

Nazareth had a synagogue or meeting place where Jews gathered for meetings and to worship God. Synagogues usually had a school where boys learned to read and write in Hebrew. Children would begin by learning the sounds of letters and memorizing words from the Scriptures so they could say them out loud. Words that were often heard in the synagogue, especially on the Sabbath, can be found in Deuteronomy (see 6:4–9). These six verses are called the Shema. They begin this way, "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord." In Hebrew shema means "hear," which is the first word of these verses that were heard in many synagogues and in the Temple in Jerusalem.

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