After the nativity stories in Matthew and Luke, the canonical gospels have precious little to say about the life of Jesus between his birth and the beginning of his public ministry as an adult. The infancy gospel of James and the infancy gospel of Thomas (not to be confused with the more important sayings gospel of Thomas) attempted to fill in some of the details with mixed results. Although both texts were left out of the New Testament, their narratives have had a significant influence on Christian tradition and doctrine and episodes from these apocryphal sources even found their way into the Quran. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will review both texts in light of our sources for these “lost years” of Jesus’ life.

Keywords relevant to this lecture: Infancy Gospels, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Childhood of Jesus, Apocrypha, Apocryphal Gospel, Christianity lecture, religion lecture, religious studies, Judaism lecture, biblical scholarship.

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