I have been talking about Jesus' life before he was baptized, the so-called "Lost Years."  But how many years was that?  How old was he when he met up with John the Baptist?  And beyond that, how long did his ministry last?  How old was he  when he died? The standard line is that Jesus started his ministry when he was thirty and was executed three years later when he was thirty-three.  But none of the Gospels says all that.  So why is it the common view? It'll take a bit to explain how it's calculated (and a bit more to explain why it's highly uncertain). Only one of the Gospels says about how old he was when Jesus began his ministry.  Luke says that he was “about thirty” years old when he John baptized him (Luke 3:23). This number is not confirmed by any other source and we really don’t know if Luke had special information about this or if he was just guessing. The other three canonical Gospels say nothing explicit at [...]