What age did Jesus visit the synagogue?

Answer 1

A:Luke 2:41 suggests that Mary and Jospeh took Jesus to Jerusalem each year after his birth for the Passover, when they would have visited the Temple. When he was twelve (Luke 2:42-46) they lost him on the return journey, but found him in the Temple. It is most unlikely that that there was a synagogue in Jerusalem, and scholars are divided on whether there might have been any synagogues in Galilee when Jesus was a child. If there were synagogues in or near Nazareth at that time, Jesus would have visited it whenever possible.

Matthew's Gospel tells a different story about the early years in the life of Jesus. In this story, Bethlehem was the home town of Joseph and Mary, but they fled from there to Egypt out of fear of King Herod, who wanted to kill Jesus. After Herod died, presumably some years later, they began the return journey to Bethlehem but, being warned about Herod's son and successor, Archalaus, in a dream, turned aside and travelled to Galilee where they settled in a city called Nazareth. In this story, the young family could not have travelled to Jerusalem until after Archelaus was eventually deposed and Jesus was quite a few years old. However, there were synagogues in Egypt when Jesus was a child, and no doubt he would have visited these whenever possible.

Answer 2

Jesus was 12 years old in the Temple scene in Luke Chapter 2. However, he did not have a Bar Mitzvah because the Jewish ritual of Bar Mitzvah only began in the 1300s.