Did Jesus Christ have a Bar Mitzvah?

Answer 1

Answer 1

Jesus was Jewish past thirteen years of age, which must have meant he had one, but no-one can know for sure.

Answer 2

In Judaism, every Jewish boy is a bar mitzvah ("son of the commandment") at age 13. The modern bar mitzvah ceremony with a party, etc didn't come about until the mid-1900's. Historically, the Jewish boy would simply attend services and read from the Torah on their birthday. Based on the Christian Bible, Jesus had a Jewish mother and therefore would've been a bar mitzvah.

I suppose Jesus' Lessons with the priests in the Temple at Jerusalem, would have been the closest thing to a Bar Mitzvah ceremony.

Answer 3

Bar Mitzvah has two meanings: the coming into adulthood for every Jewish man and the celebration of that event through reading Torah and Haftarah before a Jewish congregation. Since Jesus was brought up in a Jewish household and considered himself Jewish, he certainly came into adulthood as a Jew. However, the celebration of the Bar Mitzvah is a product of the 13th century and therefore Jesus would not have done anything close to what people consider a Bar Mitzvah celebration today.

Answer 2

Nothing.

The Bar Mitzvah as a celebration in the synagogue of a young Jew becoming a man was only developed as a practice in the late 12th and early 13th centuries in medieval Europe. Prior to that point the Rabbis had only defined the concept of a Jewish adult (against a Jewish child) in the 9th century, so even the concept of exact timing of Bar Mitzvah would have been non-existent. Finally, the Bar Mitzvah is an outgrowth of the synagogue-ization of Judaism, which required communities to develop around a synagogue as the source of Judaism in a given community. Jesus liked in the time of the Great Temple (בית המקדש) when local shrines in any given region were run by the Priests (כהנים) and not by the individuals of that community. Therefore, identifying yourself as a man capable of performing the duties requisite to help maintain the community would have been unnecessary.