027 Jesus’ strange childhood: Infancy Gospel
Traversing the Strange World · Isaiah Danberry
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Show Notes
What was Jesus like as a child?
The Infancy Gospel of Thomas paints a wild, strange, and sometimes unsettling picture of the boy Jesus — performing miracles, showing flashes of divine power, but also acting with a temper that feels very different from the Jesus we know from the Gospels.
In this episode of Traversing the Strange World with Peace & Toodles, we explore:
- The origins of the Infancy Gospel of Thomas and why it was never included in the New Testament.
- The bizarre stories of young Jesus — from striking other kids dead to miraculously restoring life.
- How early Christians may have used this text, and why it was controversial.
- What it tells us about how people in the ancient world imagined the “hidden years” of Jesus’ childhood.
- The tension between a fully divine Christ and a very human child learning to grow.
Along the way, we dig into folklore, theology, and even the humor of imagining a toddler with god-like powers. Was this text a cautionary tale, an imaginative expansion, or just ancient fan fiction?
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