THE YOUNG JESUS
by Charlene & Friedhelm Dohmann

Flight to Egypt

The carnage Herod had organized did not reach his goal, the holy family had fled. Egypt had been a place of refuge since centuries. Whenever disastrous droughts and famine threatened the life of the Israelites, thousands traveled to the fruitful banks of the Nile. One of the best known old testament example is the journey of Joseph's brothers who driven by a famine went to Egypt to buy grain. Egypt was refuge for approximately a million Jews. They lived mainly in Alexandria, but also in smaller communities and were part of the enormous and successful trade between Egypt and its neighbors.

You had to travel a long way through the desert to reach Egypt. Joseph and his family went probably from Bethlehem westward to the Mediterranean and followed the coast down to the Egyptian border.

Travel and stay in the foreign country has become part and object of many stories. The New Testament however, gives us no description of this time. A young Jewish family was probably welcome in Egypt and Joseph might have found work as carpenter or in any other trade. But it is easy to imagine that Mary and Joseph never felt they belonged there.

After Herod's death a year later, Joseph, Mary and the young Jesus returned to Nazareth. They crossed the Sinai and the Negev again, but avoided Juda, which was in the hands of Herod's power-hungry son Archelaeos.

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