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What happened when Mary and Joseph found 12-year-old Jesus in the Temple?
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Mary
Madonna and Child, oil and tempera on panel by Antonello da Messina, 1475; in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
According to the Gospel According to Luke, which provides the only canonical account of this event, Mary and Joseph traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover festival when Jesus was 12 years old.12
After the festival concluded, his parents began their journey home, only to realize after a day's travel that Jesus was not among their company. They returned to Jerusalem to search for him and eventually found him in the Temple, where he was sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. The narrative portrays Jesus as being precociously learned, and his presence in the Temple discussing matters with the scholars is a unique detail found exclusively in Luke's Gospel.12