The Lost Years of Jesus' Life

We know nothing about Jesus' life until he begins his public ministry around the age of 30. The birth stories in Matthew and Luke are fictional accounts created by the authors to make theological points. Luke adds one story of Jesus at age twelve in the temple, also fictional. Not surprisingly, there has been an endless amount of speculation over the centuries about his youth. Was he an exceptional child? Did he spend his entire childhood in Galilee? Did he travel to nearby cities and learn about other cultures? Did he travel to the "East" and learn from eastern religious traditions? We don't know anything.

But the speculation continues:

"Did he have zits? Did he have crushes? Did he play basketball?" asks Dale Martin, a religious studies professor at Yale University.

The answers are entirely unknown. From the age of about 13 until the age of about 30, Jesus is absent from the pages of the New Testament. Martin said one of the reasons so little is said about Jesus' teenage years is that he didn't really become "famous" until 100 to 200 years after his crucifixion.

"So why would anyone have even thought to record anything about his life as a teenager?" he asks.

Soon, some of those answers -- or at least Hollywood's best guess -- will be coming to a theater near you. Based on a book of the same title, "The Aquarian Gospel" plans to try to fill in the gaps of Jesus' "missing years."

Drew Heriot, whose previous credits include "The Secret," a best-selling but controversial self-help DVD that claims "to reveal the most powerful law in the universe," is set to direct, and said the film will show Jesus not only as a young man but as a traveler to the East.

The $20 million film will follow Jesus as he follows the ancient Silk Road, with stops in India, Persia and Egypt among other places. Along the way, Jesus will come to know "the world's greatest seers and sages," and will reunite with the Magi who visited his crib in Bethlehem, say producers of the film.