Christ Child in the Temple / Among the Doctors 

Basic Info

Luke 2:41–50

When Jesus was 12, Mary and Joseph took him to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. After the festival, they started the journey home. They didn’t notice that Jesus wasn’t with them until they had been traveling for a day. Today that seems impossible to us, but Mary and Joseph would not have traveled together. Mary would have been with the women, and Joseph would have been with the men. Mary would have thought that Jesus, at 12, was feeling like a man and traveling with the men. Joseph would have thought that Jesus was feeling like a tired child after the big festival and thus traveling with the women.

After several days of looking, Mary and Joseph found Jesus hanging out in the Temple, sitting and conversing with the teachers (the artworks usually refer to these men as doctors, like PhDs today). Mary asks him why he did this to them. Jesus looks at the situation from a completely different perspective (like so many tweens and their parents) and asks Mary and Joseph why they wouldn’t have known to look for him in his Father’s house. The artworks sometimes include Mary and Joseph but more often do not.

What to Look For

• The kind of authority with which Jesus is depicted (teaching them, engaging in a back-and-forth wherein each is challenging the other, or learning from them)
• The postures and attitudes of the teachers toward Jesus (scoffing, listening, amazed, agreeing, disagreeing, etc.)
• The groupings of teachers in relationship to Jesus (with him, against him, backing him up, talking at cross-purposes, etc.)

Questions to Focus a General Interpretation

The theme of Christ among the doctors implicitly raises the question about how Jesus’ divinity interacted with his humanity. Does the artwork lean toward emphasizing the all-knowing divinity of Jesus the Christ or the still-awakening, still-learning human boy who knows he is a bit different but doesn’t quite grasp his divinity yet?

And how are the doctors treating him? Are they displaying intelligence and an honest commitment to open dialogue? Are they indulging a precocious young man? Can they see something special in him, or are they closed to his message as the scribes and Pharisees are often depicted?

Questions to Guide a Personal Interpretation

What are the hot-button religious topics of our day? Are the doctors in the painting modeling an openness to Jesus’ message, or are they humoring him? How attentive are you to his true message on the topics of our day?

Questions to Suggest a Historical Interpretation



What was going on in the artist’s time and place that might influence whether Jesus was depicted as more divine or more human in this artwork?

What were the religious controversies of the artist’s day? Might the artist have been using the doctors to symbolize the various sides of hot-button religious issues? Which are with Jesus and which are against?