Saint Joseph: Son of Israel, Son of David, Father to Jesus

By Philip A. Cunningham

It can come as something of a shock to realize that the New Testament does not really provide much information about Saint Joseph. He appears as a character only in the early chapters of Matthew and Luke, but says not a word. His ancestors differ in the genealogies of Jesus in those Gospels, though both present him as a descendant of King David, who lived a thousand years earlier.^[1] These two Gospels also disagree about Joseph’s initial place of residence: Nazareth^[2] or Bethlehem.^[3] Luke explains that a Roman tax brings him to Bethlehem where Jesus is born,^[4] while Matthew shows him receiving messages in dreams (like his namesake in the book of Genesis), including to make a new home in northern Nazareth with Mary and Jesus.^[5] Matthew 13:55 calls him a tekton, the Greek word for a craftsman in wood, metal, and stone. In Luke, he vanishes after the tale about the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple.^[6] With such sparse and sometimes contradictory material, no wonder later Christians expanded upon Joseph’s story in various apocryphal texts and religious devotions.

Since the Jewish High Holydays are just concluding, I would like to reflect on two often overlooked but certain facts: Joseph was a pious Jew^[7] and he raised Jesus to be a pious Jew. From this simple statement we can surmise much, in fact more than previous generations because of the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and other relevant Jewish texts that reveal much about Judaism of the time.

We can begin with these comments from Saint Pope John Paul II:

Jesus' human identity is determined on the basis of his bond with the people of Israel, with the dynasty of David and his descent from Abraham. And this does not mean only a physical belonging. By taking part in the synagogue celebrations where the Old Testament texts were read and commented on, Jesus also came humanly to know these texts; he nourished his mind and heart with them, using them in prayer and as an inspiration for his actions. Thus he became an authentic son of Israel, deeply rooted in his own people's long history. When he began to preach and teach, he drew abundantly from the treasure of Scripture, enriching this treasure with new inspirations and unexpected initiatives.^[8]

If Jesus “became an authentic son of Israel,” he presumably did so under the tutelage of Joseph. He learned to venerate the commandments (mitzvot) that God gave to Israel in the Torah (the first five biblical books). As an adult, Jesus would join Jewish contemporaries in a typical activity of the period—talking (and sometimes debating) about how to best interpret and observe these mitzvot. Perhaps as a boy he watched Joseph participate in such exchanges.

Luke’s Gospel portrays Joseph, Mary, and Jesus as traveling each year from Nazareth in northern Galilee to Jerusalem in the south to celebrate the Passover.^[9] Even if they could not go on this pilgrimage annually, Jesus would learn to revere the Temple of God in Jerusalem and the rituals of the Passover festival. Throughout the year he would be immersed in Jewish prayer life, likely familiar to the point of memorization with biblical texts such as the five books of the Torah, the psalms, and the prophets.

A violent episode during Jesus’ infancy or toddlerhood likely also impacted his upbringing. It is conceivable that as a tekton Joseph sometimes found employment in Sepphoris, a city a few miles north of the village of Nazareth. In 4 BCE, a Jewish insurrection against Roman rule erupted there. According to the first-century Romanized Jewish historian Josephus, the Romans retaliated by devastating the city, selling many of its residents into slavery, and hunting down and crucifying some 2,000 rebels.^[10] If so, then tales of these events must have circulated for years throughout the region, including in nearby Nazareth.

What stories might Jesus have heard as a boy or teenager? What prayers were uttered; what relevant biblical texts were discussed when the Jews of Nazareth gathered on the Sabbath? All answers are speculative, but, as a pious Jew, would Jesus have heard, and Joseph have spoken, about the hope that God would one day free the people of Israel from foreign overlordship? Years later, Jesus would travel throughout the Galilee proclaiming, “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God is at hand!”^[11] But how did Jesus learn about and become convinced of this? It seems reasonable to conjecture that he grew up absorbing faith in God’s world to come from how Joseph and the Jewish townspeople of Nazareth prayed and interpreted the scriptures of Israel. Probably, as John Paul II suggested, Jesus brought his own “new inspirations and unexpected initiatives” to this belief.

By portraying him as a typical Galilean Jewish artisan of the first century, these reflections might paint an unfamiliar portrait of the mysterious Joseph. This is partially because, as the United States bishops have observed: “Early in Christian history a de-Judaizing process dulled our awareness of our Jewish beginnings.”^[12] This process affected the church’s memory of Joseph as well. As a Jew, he believed that he was part of God’s covenant with the Jewish people and should therefore follow such words as those of the prophet Micah “to do justice, to live lovingkindness, and to walk humbly with [his] God.”^[13] Joseph may also have shared the hope of many Jewish contemporaries that the reign of God would soon arrive. And he would pass on his spirituality to Jesus.

We who form a community named after Saint Joseph would do well to see him as our spiritual father as well.

[1] Mt 1:16; Lk 3:23.
[2] Lk 1:27; 2:4.
[3] Mt 2:11.
[4] Lk 2:4.
[5] Mt 2:22-23.
[6] Lk 2:42-51.
[7] Mt 1:19; Lk 2:21-24, 39, 41.
[8] Address to the Pontifical Biblical Commission, April 11, 1997, §3.
[9] Lk 2:41.
[10] Josephus, Antiquities 17:271-87; War 2:56–69.
[11] Mk 15:1, e.g.
[12] National Conference of Catholic Bishops, “Statement on Catholic-Jewish Relations,” November 20, 1975.
[13] Mic 6:8.