While the canonical New Testament offers very few details about the early life and childhood of Jesus (focusing mostly on his birth in Matthew and Luke and a single story about him at age 12 in the Temple), several non-canonical texts known as the Infancy Gospels emerged in the early centuries of Christianity to fill in those gaps. These writings are classified as New Testament apocrypha. They are generally works of fiction or creative theological expansion rather than historical records, but they heavily shaped Christian folklore, art, and traditions. 1. The Canonical Accounts (The New Testament Gospels) Matthew (Chapters 1–2): Focuses on the genealogy of Jesus, the Magi (wise men) tracking the star, King Herod's jealousy, the massacre of the innocents, and the Holy Family's flight into Egypt. Luke (Chapters 1–2): Focuses heavily on the annunciation and birth of John the Baptist, the census of Quirinius, the birth of Jesus in a manger in Bethlehem, the angelic visitatio...