Dispute with the Doctors
("Jesus among the Doctors"; "Dispute in the Temple") (Luke 2:41–51)

When he was twelve years old the child Jesus accompanied his parents to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover. Afterwards, Mary and Joseph set off home again unaware at first that he had remained behind. When they returned to the city to look for him they found him in the Temple engaged in learned conversation with the Jewish scribes—a "dispute" in the sense of debate, not quarrel. The scene is the interior of Solomon's Temple. The youthful Jesus stands in the center of a group of gray-bearded elders who listen to him earnestly or wonderingly. He may be counting on his fingers to enumerate his arguments. One of the elders holds a book in the form of a roll (a rotulus) in contrast to Christ who holds a codex—a manuscript book in the form we know today, symbolizing respectively the Old Law and the gospels. (The form of the codex originated early in the Christian era.) Mary and Joseph are usually seen entering at one side, or Mary places a hand on Christ's shoulder, about to lead him away - "Your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." The theme is significant as the first recorded example of Christ's teaching; it occurs also as one of the cycle of the Seven Sorrows of the Virgin.