We used to think of Jesus and his Nazareth compatriots as essentially backward uneducated Galilean country folk who probably could not read or write and who were ignorant about the rest of the world. Although the town of Sepphoris was known of down through the middle-ages, it was not rediscovered and explored archeologically until the 20th century. It turns out that this town was and is located just four miles from Nazareth and was the major Roman city in Galilee during Jesus’ time.
Sepphoris was a small metropolis and significant in the Roman view of the land of Palestine. Recently conquered and rebuilt by the Romans during Josephus’ time in the final decades of what we call the pre-Christian era, this city sported a large theater, many business sites as well as a large marketplace. Indeed, it appears to have been rebuilt during the very years covered by the early chapters of the New Testament Gospels. In fact, it would seem likely that Jesus’ father Joseph, who was a carpenter, might well have been employed in the Roman rebuilding of this town. Perhaps even Jesus himself may have worked there as a carpenter during the years prior to the beginning of his preaching ministry.
I had a faculty colleague in the late 1960s who actually spent some summers doing archaeological work at Sepphoris. He, along with other biblical scholars, remain puzzled as to why there is no mention of this town in the Gospels. It would surely seem that carpenters, and other workers like Joseph, would have been employed in the rebuilding of this town, and yet it goes entirely unmentioned in the New Testament. After all, it was just an hour’s walk from Nazareth, and even Josephus the Jewish/Roman historian mentions this little city several times in his Jewish Antiquities.
Indeed, it seems very strange that in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ ministry, when he visits numerous villages around his home of Nazareth, there is no mention of Sepphoris. After all, the two towns were only about four miles apart. If indeed Jesus grew up in this immediate area, one would surely expect there to be some reference to this town, no matter how brief. A quick look at a map of the area in that time reveals that there were numerous towns and villages spotted all around the region northwest of the Sea of Galilee, many of which, such as Capernaum, Tiberias, and Cana, are referenced in the Gospels as having been visited by Jesus.
This geographic mystery concerning an important city being completely neglected in the Gospel accounts is paralleled by the by the absolute lack of any biblical references to Jesus’ early life, specifically the years between his birth and the beginning of his preaching ministry. There were, to be sure, other attempts to fill in the gaps concerning Jesus’ youth and upbringing, but these have all been set aside by biblical scholars as fanciful. They revolve around stories of how Jesus was able to bring his carved animals to life and beat his childhood friends at races. Apparently the Gospel writers deemed any details about Jesus’ early years to be superfluous to the story of his adult preaching and healing ministry.
Still, it remains puzzling that there is no biblical reference at all to any of Jesus’ life as a child or young man. Scholars conjecture that he began his public ministry around the age of 27 or 30. All things prior to those years are seen as this should be enough. irrelevant. We gain some insight into those years by extrapolating from his manner of speech and behavior during his public ministry, but such speculations yield very little. Perhaps for the purposes of conveying the meaning of his message and life these are sufficient. Nevertheless, I remain spiritually curious about the further details and extrapolations.
Without anything more to go on, I nonetheless enjoy speculating about want sort of person Jesus was simply as a person. I can imagine him arriving for work at Seppforis full of life and openness toward others, careful to cut the boards well and nail the nails straight, as well as enjoying the opportunity to contribute to his family ‘s wellbeing. The fact of the town of Sepphoris opens up this possibility.