How old was Jesus when he was baptized?

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Some people have pointed to two texts that may shed light on the age of Jesus at the time of his baptism. We are told in Luke 3:23 that Jesus “was about thirty years old” when he began his public ministry. Some have suggested that perhaps Luke used the round number thirty in order to draw a parallel between Jesus and David, whose kingship began at that age (2 Sam. 5:3–4; cf. also Joseph in Gen. 41:46 and Ezekiel in Ezek. 1:1). In John 8:57 we read that the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Stein points out that “this should not be taken as an exact reference by Jesus’ opponents to his actual age. The statement seeks rather to emphasize the difference between Jesus’ age and the time of Abraham more than fifteen centuries earlier. How could Jesus and Abraham have known each other, as Jesus claimed (Jn. 8:56)? Fifty years is most probably a generous exaggeration of Jesus’ age for the sake of argument. Even if Jesus was attributed an age older than he really was, the Jews argued that he could not have seen Abraham."

Storms, S. (2006). Christology. Oklahoma City, OK: Sam Storms.

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