Children wandering away from parents in public places is so common as to be a stereotype, and we would hardly be surprised if parents express concern. At the age Jesus is portrayed, young boys were expected to show themselves able and willing to cut the apron strings, so to speak.

Some object that a child was not allowed to sit in the presence of rabbis until the time of Gamaliel. However, the individuals mentioned are 'teachers,' not necessarily formal rabbis. Furthermore, at twelve years old, Jesus would not have been considered a 'child' according to the Jewish custom of the time, as he was nearing the age of religious adulthood.

Luke 2:46 describes Jesus at age twelve sitting in the temple courts among the teachers. It is objected that not until the time of Gamaliel in the middle of the first century A.D. was a child allowed to sit in the presence of rabbis. This objection fails on two fronts. First, the text specifies these men as 'teachers,' not formally ordained 'rabbis' of the later Mishnah era. Second, and more importantly, at the age of twelve, Jesus was on the verge of his Bar Mitzvah and would no longer have been considered a mere 'child' lacking theological standing according to the Jewish customs of the day.