How old was Jesus before he died on earth?

As we approach Easter, many people may start to wonder about some of the lesser considered facts of the life of Jesus. We wonder what he looked like, what clothes he wore, how tall he was, what food he ate. These are natural questions that we can have as we consider the humanity of Jesus, especially as we approach the day of his death.

One question arises very often because we want to know its value compared to our own life. How old was Jesus when he died? Was he young? Was he old? Was he in the prime of his life? Was he weakened by age and the cares of long life? It helps us to be able to identify in some way with Jesus at this moment. His humanity cries out to us from death’s door as we consider our own mortality.

Never forget the resurrection in these moments. It belongs to you as well. Scholars have long supposed that Jesus was approximately 33 years old when he was crucified.

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How Do We Determine Jesus’ Age?

There are no specific verses that tell us Jesus age when he died. What we do have are verses that tell us how old he was when he accomplished certain things, as well as the cultural expectations of his faith community regarding milestones in a person’s life.

The ones to look out for that relate to his death are when he started his ministry and how long he was in ministry for up until he died. Prior to that we need to know when he was born. That has been estimated at the years four to zero BC.  Luke 3:23 shows us that Jesus was about thirty when he started ministry (26-30 AD) and was in ministry for three years – placing Jesus’ death at 29-33 AD. Other important milestones in Jesus’ life would have been circumcision, Temple redemption, Bar-Mitzvah, and reaching majority age (20 years old).

What Were Some Milestones in Jesus’ Childhood?

Hebrews 4:15 describes something about Jesus that we must consider when attempting to determine his age. He was without sin. In the connotation of his Jewish upbringing, he was considered perfect according to the Law of Moses.

If he was perfect according to the Law of Moses, it means that the expectations of the community life governed by the Law were met satisfactorily. This means that we can track some of his life milestones if we look carefully and then build a loose timeline for his life. Here are the ones we have in the Scriptures:

Circumcision at 8 days old (Luke 2:21). This was required of all males in the Mosaic Law. Circumcision is the mark of God’s covenant with Abraham, it is a sign of the promise as well as the initiation of a male child into the life of the Jewish faith. Without ritual circumcision, a boy cannot be a part of this community of faith.

Temple presentation (Luke 2:22). This was done forty days after birth for the purification ritual. This had a number of purposes. First, it was the ritual that declared the child (Jesus) to be clean after coming into contact with his mother’s blood in childbirth. This was also the ritual that declared the mother (Mary) to be ritually clean after the uncleanness created during childbirth. Because Jesus was the firstborn male, this was also the redemption ceremony. In this, his family purchased via sacrifice (redemption) the firstborn male because all firstborn male offspring (human or otherwise) are owed to the Temple.

Twelve years old, teaching in the Temple (Luke 2:41-51). This was one year prior to the Jewish age of Bar-Mitzvah (Son of the Commandment). When Jesus was still considered a child and while his father was still responsible for his moral actions, Jesus stands with the teachers in the Temple and instructs them. This is important because it shows that even before the society considered him responsible for himself or before he could be a part of the practices of faith, Jesus already possessed wisdom beyond the most learned of the Jewish faith.

Two years old when the Magi visited (Matthew 2:16). Another moment in Jesus life was not related to his religious/moral upbringing. The Gospel of Matthew gives us the information we need to determine other specific age facts on Jesus’ timeline. Because Herod figured out from his conversation when the Magi left on their journey, he sent his soldiers to kill any child under the age of two in Bethlehem. So, we know that when the Magi worshipped Jesus, he was two years old.

We can also deduce that Jesus’ family stayed in Bethlehem for the two years following his birth. While Jesus was born in a stable, it would be probable that the family had moved into other lodging.

Do We Know What Jesus Was Doing as a Young Adult?

While there are no scriptures that describe Jesus from the age of twelve until full adulthood, the Bible does give us a few hints as to what he was doing during that time. The verse found in Mark 6:3 is from people who are not describing Jesus in a positive light, but they did describe something that they knew about him.

These people are the ones that watched him grow up and they call him “the carpenter.” We also know from other verses that his father Joseph was a carpenter by trade, and it would have been the cultural expectation that Jesus would have learned his father’s vocation and carried on the family business.

Another thing to consider was that Jesus lived in proximity to where the Herods (Kings of Israel/Judea/Palestine) were conducting large building projects at that time. It would not be improbable that Jesus could have worked on some of these projects as a young man as they required a large amount of manpower to complete.

For a long time, many scholars have proposed that Jesus could have been a part of the Essene movement when he was a young man. Dr. Simon J. Joseph explains this more here. There have been many arguments about the validity of this idea and what it means for the Christian faith. The Bible does not specifically mention the Essenes by name anywhere.

That being said, there is a reason that some scholars have proposed this. Namely, the teachings of Jesus share some of the same concerns that the Essene community were tightly focused on in regard to the end of days and community life. They also had common enemies in the Pharisees, Sadducees, High Priest, Sanhedrin, and Roman occupiers. The fact that Jesus did not marry also adds force to the argument.

Along with this, Luke 22:7-13 leaves open great opportunity for speculation. In Jesus’ day, carrying water was considered a woman’s job. Jesus told the disciples to follow a man carrying water. If a household had slaves, the slaves could be tasked with this duty, but it normally fell to women. Only if there were no women in a household would men carry the water. Essenes were known to be present in Jerusalem at the time, according to this article from the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and they lived in houses segregated by gender. In the male houses, the men would have been getting their own water.

There is also the issue of what Jesus tells his disciples to say in this passage. He tells them to tell the owner of the house that “The Teacher” needs a space to celebrate the Passover in. In Essene life, the head of the community went by the title “Teacher of Righteousness.”

While we cannot say for sure that Jesus was part of the Essene community, it does appear that he was at least aware of the Jerusalem branch of the Essene sect, its practices, and its teachings.

How Old Was Jesus When He Began His Ministry?

Jesus would have entered into ministry when he reached the age of thirty. Luke 3:23 says that he was about age thirty when he began his ministry. In order for him to teach in the Temple area in Jerusalem, he would have had to have a pedigree that allowed it.

His mother, Mary was a cousin to Elizabeth, who was revealed to be a daughter of Aaron in Luke 1:5.  This gives Jesus his ancestral credentials to perform in the teaching role that he occupied when he visited the Temple. Age wise, Numbers 4:3 provides the guidelines to the Jewish priesthood for when a man begins his full ministry: thirty years old.

The Gospel of Luke marks this entry into ministry with a series of events. He was baptized (Luke 3:21), tempted (Luke 4:1-12), practicing (Luke 4:14), and teaching in the synagogue (Luke 4:16-22). The significance of this series of milestones and events arises on a couple of levels.

First, it reveals to us that Jesus not only has lineage through King David to claim royal authority, he has lineage through Aaron to claim the High Priestly office. It gives us the spiritual reasons for the conflicts between Jesus and the temporal and spiritual authorities of his day. The second, and more germane for our topic, is that we have an age for Jesus when he started his ministry and from that point we know that he was in ministry for around three years. This places him at thirty-three years old when he died on the cross.

Now we can relate Jesus’ age to our own and we can compare him to his society and see if he was representative of the norm. Many sources relate that the average lifespan in Jesus’ day was thirty-five years old, which would make Jesus seem like an older man when he died. However, when you remove the huge statistical weighting of infant mortality, we can see that among people that reached the age of five, they had an average life-expectancy of 56 years (+/- 15.5 years), according to JP Griffin for the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

I would have to say that Jesus actually died young compared to his peers. He truly gave his life without considering how much of it he had left on the Earth. When he counted the cost, he thought that we were worth it.

What Does This Mean for Believers?

God calls many people into ministry. Some start from an early age and this has been the expected norm for a while, but things are changing. Over the last number of years, many people entering ministry are doing so as second, or third careers (including the author of this article). Jesus himself had been in a different career as a carpenter prior to entering ministry.

Don’t let your age discourage you. Even if you are younger, remember that Jesus instructed the teachers in the Temple when he was twelve years old. If you feel the call of God to enter ministry, contact your pastor or another ministry leader to share your feelings with them. Spend a little time discerning and then follow God’s call. There is nothing more satisfying than living in what God has called you to do.

The primary thing that we should be considering when we examine Jesus’ age when he died, is the fact that he died. The main message shouted across the heavens is that God loved his creation so much, that he did not discard them as rubbish, but came and died in their place to pay their sin debt.

His age is relevant in that he was not a child and could make his own choices while here on Earth, he was not coerced. His death came as a result of his choice to do so. He also did not die a natural death. It was gruesome, violent, and terrible to behold. Such was the price he was willing to pay.

Jesus certainly could have lived longer, but chose to die as soon as all of God’s goals for his life with us were achieved. He was here long enough to show us how to live, how to die, and how to live again eternally.

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Photo credit: ©Getty Images/mumemories

Larry White is the pastor of Ephesus Baptist Church near Sanford, NC 

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