There’s not much doubt that there are pieces missing from the Bible, for example, what was Jesus doing between being born and explaining God to the Rabbis in the Temple at age 12 (or 4,016 if you calculate from the Creation)? Or what happened between then and Jesus’s sudden appearance aged about 30?
Edelhoffer, in his treatise
“Das Bisher verborgene Leben im Himmel von Jesus dem Retter und die Entscheidung auf die Erde zu kommen, zusammen mit Seinen Jugendjahren” (pub. 1826 Wurzberg Presse – German only and out of print) suggested that between birth and 12, Jesus went to the local school during the day and helped his father at weekends.
Edelhoffer postulated that, at school, as Jesus is God, he would not have told anyone but He would known everything and would be wiser than the teachers, He would either have become headmaster by the age of 8 at the latest, or been beaten by the wicked owner out of spite and envy. Edelhoffer concluded that as Jesus’s suffering as a child would have been in the Bible, then this confirms his career in education, which then leads neatly to Jesus’s teaching the Rabbis in the Temple.
As far as helping with the carpentry is concerned, Jesus would have been a poor son to Joseph had He not used His miracles for particularly difficult pieces like rocking chairs, coffee tables, or tie racks. And because He is God, this didn't affect His Grades.
However, my main point here concerns the omission of stories about Jesus’s existence in Heaven before that first Christmas in Bethlehem,when God changed His Mind about having humans in Paradise and required someone to go to Earth and offer places in Heaven for those willing to accept His suggested, and now radically improved, lifestyle.
This was to be a fantastic marketing campaign in which either God, Jesus, or The Holy Spirit would make an appearance on Earth – live among the people and then temporarily die only to make a miraculous recovery.
We can imagine all the brainstorming sessions that took place between the Trinity as they decided how to tell the history of the World,the Universe, and Everything in Book Form – How many books in the Bible? How many chapters and verses, whether to have an Apocrypha or not, which prophets to use, how much genealogy, etc? And when it came to the New Testament, the plan had to be foolproof: the right amount of parables; the right amount of miracles; the tie-ins with the Old Testament; the way the Jews (and particularly the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Scribes) were no longer singing from the same hymnbook as God.
But the main points would be “Who’s going to Earth? And how were they going to get there?”
Now God would have pointed out that, although time is meaningless to him, traditionally His Part of The Trinity is pretty old and is expected to descend only to Major Prophets on mountainsides, and that,furthermore, anyone who looked upon him would instantly die. He explained that people dying every time He tried to give the Word would not be an efficient method of getting people to buy into the New Deal, as they would be dead before they agreed. There was also the question of His previous appearances: Yes, they had been to prophets, but even with them street-preaching, the Children of Israel tended to drift away from Him. When this happened, He had to inflict wars, droughts, famine, cannibalism, great thunderbolts, etc., and pestilence,and
still mankind got it wrong. God added he couldn’t be away from the business for too long and mentioned that Angels got annoyed – and look what happened last time – all that trouble with Satan.He sat back on his Golden Throne and added that, as They had agreed, about a third of human lifetime was needed.
The Holy Spirit would explain that as rings of fire, He would certainly attract attention and although He could do disembodied voices(See the Burning Bush), it was going to be hard to crucify Him, and that half of Jerusalem could burn down in the process – not to mention injuries to Roman Soldiers. He added that nobody wanted trouble with the Romans as the subsequently claims for compensation would be a distraction to the goal of “The Mission Statement”.
Jesus suggested that The Holy Spirit go to Earth in His other form… a dove. God and the Holy Spirit looked at each other and they both replied “Doves are sold in the Temple. Who’s going to listen to a dove? A dove is your daily sacrifice – we need something impactful.”
God and The Holy Spirit then looked at Jesus. He was relatively young; His job in heaven was sort of “general”, there were no known hazards associated with Him, and God added “It’ll be the work of a moment. We’ll hardly know that you’re gone before you’re back.”
The question then arose of how Jesus should arrive on Earth. Jesus thought that “Sort of appearing in Jerusalem” would be a good idea, but the other two of the Trinity said “but we’ve/I’ve agreed on the whole backstory – don’t tell us that ten thousand years was a waste of time. There’s only one way, and that’s to be born.”
And so it was. God slipped away from heaven one night and “knew”Mary in a very Spiritual and Holy way.
I think this sort of thing would help people with their comprehension of the background to the infallible Word of the Bible and the rise of Christianity to be the only real religion on the planet and in the universe.