Young Jesus in Britain
There is an Arthurian legend that Jesus travelled to Britain as a boy, lived at Priddy in the Mendips, and built the first wattle cabin at Glastonbury. William Blake's poem And did those feet in ancient time was inspired by the story of Jesus travelling to Britain. Glyn S. Lewis in Did Jesus Come to Britain? (2008) recounts the legends that Jesus visited Britain with his great-uncle Joseph of Arimathea. Joseph was supposedly a tin merchant and took Jesus under his care when his mother Mary was widowed. Gordon Strachan wrote Jesus the Master Builder: Druid Mysteries and the Dawn of Christianity (1998), which was the basis of the documentary titled And Did Those Feet (2009). Strachan believed Jesus may have travelled to Britain to study with the Druids.
The story of Jesus visiting Britain as a boy is a late development of legends connected with Joseph of Arimathea. During the late 12th century, Joseph of Arimathea became connected with the Arthurian cycle, appearing in them as the first keeper of the Holy Grail. This idea first appears in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, in which Joseph receives the Grail from an apparition of Jesus and sends it with his followers to Britain. This theme is elaborated upon in Boron's sequels and in subsequent Arthurian works penned by others. Later retellings of the story contend that Joseph of Arimathea himself travelled to Britain and became the first Christian bishop in the Isles.
Read more about this topic: Lost Years Of Jesus
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