Toddler Jesus Topples Egyptian Idols!

According to the apocryphal Infancy Gospels, Baby Jesus was working miracles in Egypt long before his adult ministry began.

BY: Paul Perry

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Matthew's gospel records that Mary, Joseph, and the child Jesus escaped King Herod's massacre of infant boys by fleeing to Egypt. What happened next? Little information on the Holy Family's flight remains, but ancient noncanonical texts called the Infancy Gospels offer fascinating speculations. These texts, along with stories accepted by Egypt's Coptic Christians, tell of a pint-sized Jesus working wonders during his stint as a refugee. Author Paul Perry followed the trail of the Holy Family through Egypt, trying to solve the mystery: Once Jesus and his family left his birthplace, where did they go, and what did they do?

Here, Perry and his Egyptian guide are in Tel Basta, where the infant Jesus was said to have made Egyptian idols bow down before him. Excerpted from Jesus in Egypt: Discovering the Secrets of Christ's Childhood Years with permission of Ballantine Books.

This place looks like a waste of time, I said to myself. A total zero. All I see is scrub brush and dirt.

We topped a hill and the entire scene changed. There in front of us was an enormous field of fallen idols. There were hundreds of them, covering perhaps a square mile in area. Pillars the circumference of pine trees had been toppled. Heads of stone pharaohs the size of automobiles were broken off and lying next to their own stone feet. Statues of shapely stone queens were lying on their sides. Massive steles were broken into pieces that were scattered all over the ground. Walls were crumbled, as prophecized by Ezekiel, an Old Testament prophet who lived between 592 and 570 BCE.

And there, in the foreground, was a perfectly shaped well, its circular wall neatly fashioned from irregular bricks. I looked inside. The well was partially full of water. Floating on its surface was bits of Styrofoam cup and other rubbish.

I began to laugh at the scene in front of us.

"I did the same thing the first time I saw this," said Ra'ed. "I laughed too."

"I can't help it," I said. "It is so true to the Gospels that it's almost absurd."

I brought out the notebook that contained the various Infancy Gospels and opened it to the

book of Pseudo-Matthew

. "Listen to this," I said to Ra'ed, standing on the hill overlooking the ancient destruction and reading out loud.

". . . they went into a temple which was called the Capital of Egypt. And in this temple there had been set up three hundred and fifty-five idols, to each of which on its own day divine honours and sacred rites were paid. For the Egyptians belonging to the same city entered the Capital, in which the priests told them how many sacrifices were offered each day, according to the honour in which the god was held.

"And it came to pass, when the most blessed Mary went into the temple with the little child, that all the idols prostrated themselves on the ground, so that all of them were lying on their faces shattered and broken to pieces; and thus they plainly showed that they were nothing. Then was fulfilled that which was said by the prophet Isaiah: Behold, the Lord will come upon a swift cloud, and will enter Egypt, and all the handiwork of the Egyptians shall be moved at his presence.

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