Pilgrimage Festival in the Fall
As you may know, Hebrew Pilgrimage festivals are when the Male members of the family were commanded to travel to the temple in Jerusalem to celebrate the associated feast. Often, many members of the family would have been in the party.
While there are seven total major feasts, only three were/are a Pilgrimage Feast: Passover, Pentecost/Shavuot, and Tabernacles/Sukkot. Only one of these is a Fall Feast. Feast of Tabernacles is the only Pilgrimage Feast in the fall. Is this the appointed time to travel? Go to God’s temple? I am not sure, but it is interesting that the other Fall Feasts are “left out”.
Jesus stayed behind at the temple to discuss scripture with the Rabbi’s when the family was returning home after a Pilgrimage Feast. Because His purpose was to reach out to the religious authorities of the Hebrews, it is logical to consider He would have done it at the first opportunity. An example: When Jesus healed a blind man He told the man not to tell anyone, except to go to the religious authorities and to tell them. Much of the Gospels relate Jesus teachings as testimony to the religious authorities, often in opposition to them.
He must be considered a young man to have any standing at all. Therefore he likely had become a bar mitzvah by the time He engaged the Rabbi’s in discussion. For a boy the traditional age is 13. The bar mitzvah ceremony is usually conducted the first Sabbath after turning 13 years of age. Whether Jesus had bee born earlier in the year or on Rosh Hashanah, Jesus would have reached this age on the pilgrimage at Feast of Tabernacles of His 14th year. So, the end of Feast of Tabernacles is the most likely time Jesus would have been “left behind” and was found speaking wisely to the Rabbi’s at the temple. Interesting?
GM