Apostles age

[therealdrag0]

What were the apostles age. I just heard a friend say they were teenagers, I asked him about it and all he said was, look at the Jewish roots. Now, that tells me nothing.
Do you guys have more info on this matter, with support?

 

[Epiphoskei]

When Jesus was asked to pay the temple tax, he told peter to throw a fishhook in the sea. Peter fished up a fish with a shekel in its mouth. The temple tax was one half shekel. Therefore, Jesus and his disciples payed tax for two adults.

This indicates to some that Jesus was following the traditional rabbinic system, wherein the Rabbai had one older disciple and a bunch of younger disciples. Jesus and Peter would have been of age to pay tax, and the other eleven would not have been.

This is a possible interpretation. I could see it as also possible that he and Peter were alone at the time of the dialogue, and he payed for both of them because they were the only ones present. But I think I do lean to the former interpretation, that everyone but Peter was fairly young.

 

[bbbbbbb]

I think it is probably going too far to think the disciples were teenages. However, given that Jesus was approximately thirty years old during His ministry, I would put the age of the apostles probably around that. At the time it appears that none were married, so that would tend toward a younger age. Later, of course, some such as Peter, did get married.

 

[Epiphoskei]

Well, since one of Jesus first acts (at least in matthew) was to heal Peter's mother in law, it appears that peter got married earlier, rather than later.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Good point. I had overlooked that. Thanks

 

[marktheblake]

Its quite reasonable to beleive that some of the disciples were very young. My understanding that boys became men at around 13-14 years old (as did girls) and with no schooling apart from the Rabbi schools , there was nothing to do but work if and when they dropped out.

But they could have been from a range of ages, one would think that Levi being the tax collector would have had to have been quite mature.