Jesus’ Age 12 Visit to the Temple

Jesus stayed behind at the temple when he was age 12. This is the only fixed event in his life (besides his birth) when we know his age with certainty. He explained to his mother that if she (and we) knew him we’d know he had to be in his "father’s house." This was the reason he had to stay behind in this particular year. If we can figure out the riddle we’ll know the specific year of this visit and that year will also fix the year of Jesus’ birth.

Background

There are two times in Jesus’ life when we know how old he was when he did something. The first time is when he was an infant. The second we look at here, when he stayed behind at the temple when he was age 12. Of course age 12 means Jesus’ 12th year, as all ancient ages count the first year of life as the 1st year. (This is not like modern westerners count life lengths today.) If we can fix the year of this visit at the Temple we can back up to Jesus’ first year, and fix the year of Jesus’ birth.

This is the only direct concrete Bible reference when Jesus is of significant age. The following is the relevant text.

This passage not only provides Jesus’ age, but it also provides as many clues as we’re going to get for figuring out what was so special about this year, and this visit to the temple. Here are some of those clues.

• Jesus was not in the habit of staying behind. The family went to Passover every year, and if Jesus was in such a habit the family would have looked for him and not have presumed him in their company. Something was special about this year, and no previous year, that caused him to stay behind.

• The sense of the comment that Jesus would remain subject to his parents suggests Jesus would not stay behind in future years either, at least not until he was of age and no longer in the house of his parents. His 13th and following years were not special enough to stay behind.

• When they confronted him, his answer basically said if you knew me, you’d know that Jesus had to be in his father’s house.

This last line is the key. Jesus was not talking about his own mother and father’s house, but the temple, where his mother found him. This was his answer to why he was there, and this is also the answer as to why it was only at age 12 that he would do such a thing. Something, in that year, must have been so special that he would disregard his parents and their authority over him and remain behind in Jerusalem to stay at the temple.

But what?

The Ten-Fold Jubilee Temple Pattern

The first reference to the temple occurs in the year 9001 AA (or very late 9000 AA) when Jacob has a dream of a ladder to heaven. (We established this date when we worked through the original Bible Chronology in the Abraham To The Exodus article.)

Jacob calls the place Bethel, meaning house of God, sets up a stone there and marks the point in chronological time. The specific encounter is not given day-accurately. Indeed, it either occurred near the end of the year 9000 AA or in the first month of the year 9001 AA. For our purposes here it is good enough to put the event somewhere near the start of the year 9001 AA.

It should go without stating that the year 9001 AA is the first year in the 10th Millennium from Adam. The first day in that millennium is 9001-01-01 AA. Another way to state this date is as the start of God’s day 10 in his dealing with Adam’s race.

The following date report is more precise than we can actually date Jacob’s dream, but it does provide a starting point for considering the date of the dream. This date report puts the event at 1986 years before Christ, computed with a year 0, as indicated with the modern NS Gregorian calendar.

None of the old Roman dates are valid in this period. If the most restrictive Roman Era calendar is used this date could be stated as far back as 2265 BC, a difference of about 400 years just from different statements of the calendar. In other words this is in an unstable era for Rome, but it is stable from the perspective of the Bible and it is stable day-accurately to the modern period, so the days-by-number are valid in the following report.

Mount Sinai

The Ancient Israelites departed Egypt and after several months of wandering in the wilderness eventually had an encounter with God himself at Mount Sinai. This meeting happened in the 3rd month, and began at the 60 day mark from the Exodus from Egypt. The following is the date report for the assembly at the base of the mountain. Moses and the rest would ascend the mountain for a meal across the following days.

Within a few month tolerance this is 500 years after Jacob’s dream of a ladder to heaven. It is starting to establish a pattern. Temple events, or house of God events, happen on a 500 year, or Ten-Fold Jubilee pattern. This event is exactly in the middle of God’s day 10 in his dealing with the affairs of Adam’s race.

Solomon’s Temple

After another 500 years, another Ten-Fold Jubilee, Solomon dedicates his temple. The dedication of Solomon’s temple and palace likely occurred in the year 10000 AA, leaving the first day of 10001 AA as the start of another Ten-Fold Jubilee pattern at this period.

The year 10001 AA is the important year here because it starts God’s day 11 in his dealing with the affairs of Adam’s fallen race.

Ezra and the Second Temple

Ezra’s Second Temple stories land in a 20 year period that ends with the decree to restore and rebuild Jerusalem’s walls in the year 10499 AA. The start of the next Ten-Fold Jubilee begins at 10501 AA on a date indicated here.

Note how the Roman calendars are converging because the distance back is going down and the variation between ways of stating the Roman calendar are reduced. This is the middle of God’s day 11 in his dealing with the affairs of Adam’s race.

Jesus’ Era Temple Cycle

The Ten-Fold Jubilee pattern continued during the life of Jesus. It only occurred one time while he was on earth. The theoretical date would have been 500 years further on from the previous dates.

The following is the date report for 11001 AA, the start of the next Ten-Fold Jubilee in this period. Note at this point the AUC dates for the period are valid, indicating the date was used by people alive at the time.

The OS year labeling system was also valid, but unknown, and it identifies the year of this date as what today we call the year 12. Notice also that only the NS calendar disagrees as to the day of the month for this date. As far as the rest of the Roman world was concerned this new Ten-Fold Jubilee began on 22 July in 12 AD. This date was the very first day in God’s day 12 in his dealing with the affairs of Adam’s fallen race.

This pattern of Ten-Fold Jubilee dates that started with Jacob at Bethel had only one place in the life of Jesus when he could celebrate on the cycle in public. It was here, near 12 July in 12 AD.

What Kept Jesus at the Temple?

Scripture is clear that Jesus never did anything in secret. Jesus did hide his public actions and speech through what the Bible calls parables. Today we would more likely call what Jesus did "riddles" since the process of solving Bible parables is closer to solving riddles.

The story of Jesus remaining behind at the temple is one such riddle, a riddle we are drawn into just like Jesus’ mother. Recall that the primary key for understanding all such riddles is the principle of reduction used to compose the Bible. Every detail not needed has already been eliminated. Nothing remaining in the Bible’s text is extra. It matters that Jesus was age 12, otherwise it would have been eliminated. It also matters that Jesus had to be in the Temple, no other place would be important to this story.

These two clues are in fact a match to the Ten-Fold Jubilee Temple pattern we explored already. As with all other scripture, days and years are equivalent for prophetic and riddling purposes. Jesus being age 12 is like 12 days, just as easily as 12 years. And, every time Jesus does anything, if we are told the number of days, Jesus is operating with a meaning of 1000 year long millennium days of God the father in view.

Why did Jesus stay behind at the temple? At age 12? Because every 500 years, on the Ten-Fold Jubilee, there has been a temple "visitation" and this time was to be no different. We know Jesus, he is habitual, and in this case his habit is to appear to someone at the temple. This particular visit is the 12th day visit, a visit on a pattern that began at Jacob 2000 years before.

The key detail is that it took 3 days to find Jesus at the temple. This visit is the start of the 3rd day from the 1st day of the 1st visit with Jacob and his dream.

Picking the Exact Passover

The date report given above puts the theoretical first day of the new millennium at 12 July in 12 AD. Passovers happen in March. Which Passover would have been the target Passover when Jesus needed to stay behind?

The two candidates are the two Passovers on either side of the July 12 AD, date. In other words, Jesus had to have stayed behind in March of 12 AD, or in March of 13 AD in order to keep the Ten-Fold Jubilee pattern.

Of the 4 earlier Ten-Fold Jubilee pattern dates we looked at, 3 of them had dedication events Before the indicted Ten-Fold Millennium date, while 1, the Exodus case, saw the event happen 60 days later. This pattern suggests the indicated Passover is the one at March, 12 AD.

Another detail, one we look at in detail later, suggests Jesus was born in 1 AD. If the March 13 AD Passover was indicated, then Jesus would have been born in 2 AD, a date excessively far future and hard to reconcile with other dates.

The Passover that Jesus attended when he was 12 years old, was the last Passover in the old millennium, held at March 12 AD. This date fixes the year of Jesus’ birth around the year 1 AD. A date we’ll confirm in another article.

Before looking at the other dates around the life of Jesus, let’s explore this Ten-Fold Jubilee cycle a little more. At this point there were 5 places in Scripture where there had been a New Temple, or visit to a heavenly temple, and a visitation of Jesus with men. What would the pattern be if it continued into future years?

Future Passovers

There is reason to believe that the 500 year marks would remain important times for new temples or other "visitations" all the way to the end of the age. The following summarizes the future dates.

Notes On Future Temples

• 511 AD Appears to be St. Sophia’s cathedral built at Constantinople. The name of the building is takes on a Christianized, post resurrection, form and the purpose of the building is to praise Jesus. This is consistent with the Bible’s purpose for an Old Testament temple. St. Sophia’s still stands, but has been converted into a Mosque. It was constructed over a more than 20 year period, future from this date.

• 1011 AD Appears to be the Haggai Sophia’s Cathedral built in Kiev. Again, a Christian structure that becomes the center for an entire Christian tradition. Kiev would be known as the Jerusalem of Russia and the construction of this Cathedral marked the conversion to Christianity of the Russian peoples, over the 20 years previous.

• 1510 AD Appears to be the rebuilt St. Peter’s Basilica at Rome, Italy. The old cathedral, St. Peter’s Church, that stood at the same location from the early 300s, was torn down about 1490. That older structure was itself a prophetic structure, started in the early 300s with the general conversion of Rome to Christianity. The new Basilica would be started at the time of Luther’s visit about 1510 AD, though it would take 125 years to complete. The money raising needed for such a large structure lead to the church at Rome selling indulgences, a major sin. This call to build the Ten-Fold cathedral became a trap. Luther’s radical impact on the Christian world was so strong he may have been prophetically walking out a visitation similar to Jesus in 12 AD.

• 2010 NS was matched with the November 4, 2009, announcement of national government approval to build Shanghai Disney. Theme parks generally replace temples in modern secular society. They are the modern destination for pilgrims on Holy Days. Disney movies are a secular replacement for traditional religion, which is a topic for another time.

  When this article was first written years before 2010, I fully expected fulfillment in Jerusalem. The group of us looking for this fulfillment at the time were quite surprised. The Disneyland park in Anaheim California does have a massive prophetic map, beyond the scope of this website, that maps to scripture in remarkable ways. That such a place would be built in China is a remarkable fulfillment event. This may foreshadow China's rise to world dominance across the next century, as the previous temples did in their times too.

  This Disney park also mocks temples in the general case, which is also beyond our scope here. As nothing related to temple building happened in Jerusalem for more than 10 years after this date, it is safe to say any future temple there is NOT on the 500 year cycle.

Summary

This article provides the argument for why Jesus stayed behind at age 12. The flow of history was interesting into day 12 from Adam, where days are 1000 years log. This was a prophetic match to his own age, and the only time when it was important to do this.

This is tentative, but it also fixes his birth year at year 1 AD. This would suggest the historically known year numbers for the era were correct. With a little more study we can fix the exact date, a study we turn to next.