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On one of these occasions where did they find him?
Luke: “They found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions” ([ii, 46]).
Not until the time of Gamaliel, who lived as late as the middle of the first century, was a child allowed to sit in the presence of the rabbis. He was always required to stand, and those acquainted with the Jewish history of that age know that the rabbis were the most rigid sticklers for ecclesiastical formalities, the slightest breach of which was never tolerated. The author of the third Gospel is familiar with the later, but not with the earlier custom.