What are the infancy gospels about the young Jesus?

Infancy gospels are a genre of religious texts that arose in the 2nd century and provide accounts of the birth and early life of Jesus. They belong to the New Testament apocrypha and are generally non-canonical in major modern branches of Christianity, and their origins are various and uncertain, according to [wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_gospels). They respond to a gap: in the New Testament, only Luke includes a childhood story, the account of the twelve-year-old Jesus with his parents, as [bibleodyssey.org](https://www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/infancy-gospel-of-thomas/) notes. [1] [2]

The Gospel of James, also called the Protevangelium of James, was most likely written around 145 AD. It expands on the infancy stories in Matthew and Luke and tells of the birth and upbringing of Mary herself. It is the oldest source to mention Mary's virginity not only before but during and after Jesus's birth, according to [wikipedia.org](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infancy_gospels). [1]

Scholars Markus Bockmuehl and Jacob Rodriguez say it includes popular traditions such as the names of Mary's parents, Joachim and Anna, and details such as Mary riding a donkey to Bethlehem and Jesus being born in a cave. The Biblical Archaeology Society describes it as an attempt to weave Matthew's and Luke's separate birth narratives together, with a clear theological agenda about the Virgin Mary. See [ora.ox.ac.uk](https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:ecffdff9-c630-46e0-9fae-41dd4b96776d/files/r44558g87d) and [biblicalarchaeology.org](https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/biblical-topics/new-testament/the-prequel-gospels/). [3] [4]

This text, also called the Paidika or Childhood Deeds of Jesus, is a loose collection of stories covering Jesus's life from age five to twelve. Scholars generally date it to the late second or early third century. The attribution to the disciple Thomas is false and was probably added later, and it should not be confused with the unrelated Coptic Gospel of Thomas ([bibleodyssey.org](https://www.bibleodyssey.org/articles/infancy-gospel-of-thomas/), [nasscal.com](https://www.nasscal.com/e-clavis-christian-apocrypha/infancy-gospel-of-thomas/)). [2] [5]

The stories show a child who both blesses and curses. At five he makes clay birds and turns them into living ones that fly away. The same day he curses a boy who drained a pool he had made. According to Tony Burke's summary, he withers one child's arm, kills another who bumps into him, and blinds villagers who criticize him, later restoring those he cursed. A teacher named Zacchaeus tries to correct him, but Jesus stuns him with a speech, and Zacchaeus declares he is "not of this world." Other episodes include raising a dead child, stretching a beam for Joseph, and saving his brother James from a snake bite. The text ends with a version of Luke's story of Jesus in the Temple at twelve. [2] [5]

Scholars differ on how to read the Thomas text. Some have dismissed it as crude and sensational. Bockmuehl and Rodriguez suggest it was aimed more at entertainment than religious edification, in contrast to the Protevangelium. Christopher Frilingos notes that more scholars now take it seriously, not as history but as evidence of what some early Christians wondered about, and he reads it as a family drama. [2] [3]

The text's original form is hard to establish. Versions survive in Greek, Syriac, Ethiopic, Latin, Irish, Georgian, Arabic and Slavonic. Burke notes that the familiar 19-chapter Greek form is more expanded than early translations, which lack chapters 1, 10, 17 and 18. [5] [2]