I've never been a JW and haven't ever studied the bible or theology so it may be that there is a simple answer to my question that I'm not aware of, in which case, please forgive my ignorance. However I have wondered about this for quite some time and have scoured the internet but I can't find any mention of the topic. Maybe someone here might enlighten me.
(Looking at the bigger picture, the answer to my question is actually easy, i.e. the stories in the bible are merely illogical mad made myths, but for the purpose of this question, it’s necessary to go with the theoretical premise that the bible is true).
So the question is: Why did Jesus have to start life on earth in the womb, be born, and grow through babyhood, childhood and teenage into manhood?
What did this achieve? Why could the purpose of His life on earth not have been fulfilled by arriving as a fully grown adult? If his second coming will be as an adult, why could his first not also have been? Jesus’s mission, his preaching, miracles and eventual death were all undertaken as a grown man.
The potential answer that God wished Jesus to experience as many facets of human existence as possible, in order to understand human nature, doesn’t quite work. There were many very important aspects of life Jesus did not have any experience of, such as being married, being a parent, etc, and he missed out completely on one of the most common and basic human experiences – i.e. being female, with all that that entails. Also he was a perfect man and had God as a father, so he could never have completely experienced the essence of the human condition anyway. But he could have discovered for himself the trials of being poor, hungry and oppressed etc even if he had arrived fully grown.
It would have been easy for an all-powerful God to organise sending his adult son to arrive (in Bethlehem or wherever) around 30CE, and give him a head full of the necessary knowledge for negotiating the middle eastern culture and religion. If Jesus suddenly appeared from the sky in a blaze of light in front of a large crowd, and then started preaching and demonstrating his ability to heal the sick and perform other miracles, his ‘Son of God’ persona would have been clearly evident, so he would not have needed to travel around gathering followers, he could have stayed in one place and people would have come from far and wide just to catch a glimpse of him. I guess the Romans would have wanted to kill him even more.
Another critical point, to be the perfect ransom sacrifice, Jesus was supposed to be equivalent to Adam who arrived on earth as an adult, not a baby. Adam must have been given basic knowledge by God in order to survive, so why not do the same for Jesus?
Jesus coming as an adult would be far simpler; it would avoid the complex mystery of how exactly Mary’s ovum was fertilised and whose DNA was in the 23 chromosomes normally supplied by the father. And it would have avoided the trauma for Joseph of hearing his fiancée was pregnant, and presumably Mary's shame of being unmarried.
I can't think why was it necessary for Jesus to have earthly parents and a childhood, as nothing important seems to have been gained by this. God would have simply had to give different ‘inspiration’ to the Old Testament prophets so that rather than foretelling that the Messiah would be descended from David , the prophesy would be that the Saviour would come from Heaven.
If Ive missed something and there is an explanation more satisfying than just that ‘it's a mystery and God knows best’, I'd like to understand it.