Reading Notes: Infancy Gospels Reading B

Mirrored Glass of Jesus’s Stories

• Curing the Leprosy
• I like this story a lot. It follows Joseph, Mary, and Jesus on their journey. However, it does not make clear the purpose of their journey. Instead, the story focuses on individuals they meet in each city. Each time, Jesus heals them unintentionally or intentionally (depending on believes about Jesus). I love the character and wonder of Jesus. He does things that are unexpected, thought to be impossible, and it appears as if He is not consciously helping people. It’s unexpected and against what we think of as reality yet the story speaks as if it was real. 
• Also, I like all of the descriptive adjectives used. 
• There are enough details to understand what is going on, even though it shifts characters a few times, it keeps a good flow. 
• The Mule
• Love the continuation of the story. It maintains its voice and style. 
• The ending wraps up the story so well. It began with another challenge/problem, but it ends joyfully after the protagonist saves the day and love is found. 
• Unexpected twist where the girls story goes from being healed from leprosy in the first story, to her being married to the healed mule in the 2nd 
• The Two Robbers
• Great foreshadowing of years later
• The Boy Judas
• Not only does this story introduce some great foreshadowing similar to The Two Robbers, but it also introduces a new “miracle” where Jesus creates perfect cloths after tossing them into the furnace. What a cool and interesting miracle. One would think the intentions were to burn them and destroy, but Jesus creates a new perfect cloth instead
• The rest of the stories
• I like how each story miracles continue to happen, but they change as Jesus is aging. Water miracles continue to happen, but as Jesus grows up He begins to perform miracles of His own. Like the cloths, sending demons away, changing toys to animals, and in the end He has great knowledge of everything. 
• His character growth is great, while Mary and Joseph do not get a ton of character growth, they do get some. I liked Joseph and Jesus’s moment where Jesus aided Joseph in his work

Infancy Gospels Reading B