WI/AHC: St. Joseph On The Same Level as the Virgin Mary

ATL tradition says Joseph followed the Magi’s example by giving gifts to the children of Nazareth. Of course these were hand made toys from his carpenter shop.
Boom! Joseph replaces St. Nicholas as the basis for Santa Claus.
Does that make him as popular as Mary? :closedeyesmile:

That is a pretty good response, actually.

And in America he'd be called Joey Carpenter. Or if we still get him from Dutch, something like Santa Timmer.
 
As far as I know, the idea of 'Uncle Joe' is medieval, probably prompted by the notion that Jesus should have been buried in a family grave, despite the 'borrowed tomb' motif of the Gospels. It's possible that the Carpenter could be confused with him, especially if a more Adoptionist theology develops, where Joseph is the literal father, and Jesus only becomes divine at his baptism.
Make it a threesome between God,Joseph and Mary.Make Jesus effectively a human possessed by God.

I'd be a bit wary of the Adoptionists, I feel it could send Christianity in a whole different direction to what it did - with Jesus being seen as just a prophet (whom the Spirit of God rested upon) rather than God's son.

On the other hand, they're is definitely no shortage of mens in the bible to be put on a pedestal, Jesus first among them. To get Joseph the same level of importance then Mary you need to make him stand for a group as numerous, or at least comparatively numerous, to womens. That's no mean feat, the only thing I can thing of is to have his status as patron saint of artisans eventually transmute into patrons of all workers, leading to the christians in the industrial working masses to see themselves in him down the line the same way many christian womens have seen themselves in Mary.

Even that, however, would still fall short on the number level.

Joseph the Carpenter, patron saint of working fathers, the working class, artisans. As to men in the Bible, it's worth noting that in the entire old testament, the only persons that never have a bad word said against/about them - direct or indirectly, mortal or divine - are Joseph (son of Jacob) and Daniel. So I'd say it's a pretty short list to get Joseph (the Carpenter) on.

Having St. Joseph be as prominent as St. Mary would probably be impossible, given that Mary was Jesus' natural mother and Joseph was just his foster father. But, I don't see any reason why the early Church can't have a few more feast days in honour of St. Joseph; if any of these becomes prominent for some reason, this would give a big boost to St. Joseph's visibility.

See, this is more what I was going for. Europe's stuffed full of Madonnas and Pietas, throw Joseph into those, and he's at least more visible. I mean, even at Christmas, which is the only multidenominational feast day Joseph's really involved in (there's the Epiphany, the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, too, but they're not celebrated across denomination), we sing "round yon Virgin, Mother and Child" in Silent Night and "the Virgin Mary and Christ were there" in I Saw Three Ships . In fact, now that I think about it, I can't think of a single traditional Christmas carol that even mentions Joseph.

Maybe have Joseph become some kind of Gnostic figure? Like, just as Christ radiated from the couplings in the Pleroma, Joseph and Mary formed a similar coupling on Earth and thus are a powerful example of how to live in opposition to the Demiurge?

That's not gonna work out well for poor Joseph when the whiplash against Gnosticism goes out. I could see the Christians deliberately downplaying his role in such a circumstance to distinguish themselves from the Gnostics.

To get him on the same level, I suppose, might be too hard, but to get him to a higher stature probably would not be. His lineage from the Davidic line was likely significant and probably was spoken of in the Apocryphia, and might have been a bigger part of Early Christianity than perhaps we are aware of.

In most of the Apocryphal and deutero-canonical books of the New Testament I've read, Joseph doesn't even get a look in. I'm not saying that you're wrong, it's just that as said above, orthodox Christianity is going to try and remove/downplay Joseph from any texts associated with any movement not condoned by what is considered orthodoxy.

Mary is the theodoikos, or god-bearer. St. Joseph is (merely) her and the Christ child's protector. I find that there really is no way to raise him to equal stature to Mary, and the only way to achieve equality would be to lower Mary to his level; perhaps as Christ simply coming to them a la Superman.

But here is the thing: Do we really want to raise St. Joseph to the same level as Mary? So much flak hits Christianity for being a patrarchial religion, but the most important person in it after the Son of God is a young woman! Does it profit the faith to raise an older man to the same level? One where he could overshadow his wife in less enlightened societies? Where is the benefit in that?

We don't want to raise Joseph to the same level (sorry if the title's misleading, but I wasn't sure how else to word it), just get him more recognized. The intention is not for him to overshadow his wife, nor even to be on an equal footing with her, but simply to have a more prominent role. To use your metaphor of Superman, Jonathan Kent isn't a non-entity in the story, nor is Martha shown as being less than Jonathan or more important than him. Martha is shown as being a mother (even though she has less of connection to Clark than Mary has to Jesus) but never to the detriment of Jonathan.

Also, out of curiosity, I can understand it, but nowhere in the Scriptures does it say or imply that Joseph was much older than Mary. It's certainly possible that it might have been a May-September marriage, but it's also possible that both of them could've been around the same age. In fact, now that I think of it, Mary doesn't describe herself as a girl in the Annunciation, simply as "parthenos" which can mean girl, but also a virgin/maiden. (for instance, I've never seen the goddess Athena, who had the epithet of parthenos, referred to/spoken of as a girl).

ATL tradition says Joseph followed the Magi’s example by giving gifts to the children of Nazareth. Of course these were hand made toys from his carpenter shop.
Boom! Joseph replaces St. Nicholas as the basis for Santa Claus.
Does that make him as popular as Mary? :closedeyesmile:

I like that idea, in fact it sounds downright lovable. Because he's giving of his own resources, so I could see something like that being popular in early Christianity.
 

Md139115

Banned
Also, out of curiosity, I can understand it, but nowhere in the Scriptures does it say or imply that Joseph was much older than Mary. It's certainly possible that it might have been a May-September marriage, but it's also possible that both of them could've been around the same age. In fact, now that I think of it, Mary doesn't describe herself as a girl in the Annunciation, simply as "parthenos" which can mean girl, but also a virgin/maiden. (for instance, I've never seen the goddess Athena, who had the epithet of parthenos, referred to/spoken of as a girl).

No, you're absolutely right. Many Christian denominations though like to consider Joseph an older man in order to get around the potential "brothers of the Lord" by saying that they're Joseph's children from a previous marriage.
 
No, you're absolutely right. Many Christian denominations though like to consider Joseph an older man in order to get around the potential "brothers of the Lord" by saying that they're Joseph's children from a previous marriage.

That's not why Joseph is assumed to be older. He was considered to be older because he predeceased the Lord. The misunderstanding about the so-called "brethren" has little to do with it - the "other marriage" tradition is, as far as I know, only truly embraced by the Eastern Orthodox.
 
One natural way to make Joseph more popular but still less popular than Mary is to make him a bigger part of Mary's reputation. OTL, Mary is the mother, full stop. What if, ATL, there is also some early Christian basis for playing up Mary's credentials as a model wife too.

It could be something as simple as an early Christian story or something that makes Paul add one little phrase to scripture: "wives, submit to your husbands, even as Mary, though highly favored, submitted to Joseph". Something like that.

Shoot, I bet even a parable from Jesus about "a good wife," totally generic, with no Marian references at all, will be enough for Christians to start attaching those qualities to Mary.

So now that part of Mary's reputation is her qualities as a wife, Joseph is going to be included lots more in Marian iconography, feasts, rituals, and prayers. By association he will acquire more prominence and will probably start accumulating more stories about what a good husband and father he was.

I think its unlikely that this changes the Late Antiquity Christian notion that celibacy is superior to marital sex and the Catholic priestly/Orthodox episcopal celibacy, but its possible.

Where you might see actual knock-on effects from OTL is during the late 19th and early 20th, when the Western world really started getting sentimental about family, and when Catholics were exploring blue collar lay movements that valorized work. Its an ideal combo for a robust, widespread Catholic movement for St. Joseph, Father and Carpenter.
 
That's not why Joseph is assumed to be older. He was considered to be older because he predeceased the Lord. The misunderstanding about the so-called "brethren" has little to do with it - the "other marriage" tradition is, as far as I know, only truly embraced by the Eastern Orthodox.

I'm Dutch Reformed (Calvinist) and generally our church isn't too comfortable with the idea of referring to someone (i.e. epistle writers James and Jude) as "brother of Jesus". I know, I get a kick out of pointing it out to the ministers in church every time they neglect to mention that part, and then the ministers generally have ten fits and insist that Jesus has no siblings. :)

But AFAIUI the Catholic Church and Mary's perpetual virginity don't quite fit with her having more kids after Jesus.
 
Also, out of curiosity, I can understand it, but nowhere in the Scriptures does it say or imply that Joseph was much older than Mary. It's certainly possible that it might have been a May-September marriage, but it's also possible that both of them could've been around the same age. In fact, now that I think of it, Mary doesn't describe herself as a girl in the Annunciation, simply as "parthenos" which can mean girl, but also a virgin/maiden. (for instance, I've never seen the goddess Athena, who had the epithet of parthenos, referred to/spoken of as a girl).

I think it's mostly because girls were usually married off quite soon after puberty to men who were a fair bit older than them, so odds are that this was the case for Mary and Joseph, too. Plus Joseph isn't mentioned at all during the period of Jesus' public ministry, and it's usually been assumed that he was dead by this time; although, given the number of ways to die in the ancient world, this doesn't necessarily prove all that much.
 
Maybe that's your POD right there. Joseph lives longer, gets mentioned more in the NT.

Could be interesting. But considering that Jesus basically tells Mary to get lost when she comes to him at the Cana (possibly his uterine half-sister's) wedding banquet and says "Woman, my time has not yet come" not "Mother, my time..." which seems to indicate that there was tension. Again, when he returns to Nazareth and they say "your mother and brothers are here" he responds that those who follow God's commandments are His brothers and sisters. And lastly, at the foot of the cross (as one of the 7 Last Words), He says to the Beloved Disciple - son, this is your mother; woman, this is your son. Which means I wonder if Jesus wouldn't act in an even more distant way to Joseph (in spite of everything).
 
Could be interesting. But considering that Jesus basically tells Mary to get lost when she comes to him at the Cana (possibly his uterine half-sister's) wedding banquet and says "Woman, my time has not yet come" not "Mother, my time..." which seems to indicate that there was tension.

He calls her "Woman" all the time - you're reading this with a 21st century English language context. This was a common respectful title of address then. He also calls her that on the cross (as you mention). There's linguistic history here with a theological underpinning as well
 
He calls her "Woman" all the time - you're reading this with a 21st century English language context. This was a common respectful title of address then. He also calls her that on the cross (as you mention). There's linguistic history here with a theological underpinning as well

Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

But the fact of the matter remains that even with Joe living longer, Mary and Jesus' siblings play no active role in His ministry in the canonical writings until after His death, so my question of whether of not it would really affect things stands. Plus, I could imagine there would be all sorts of awkward ways to refer to Joe, since they can't refer to him as Jesus' father (and insist that Jesus is the Son of God), and calling him "His earthly father" would likewise be awkward, I guess. So maybe Joe being dead before the ministry started, probably to avoid such awkardness.
 
Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.

But the fact of the matter remains that even with Joe living longer, Mary and Jesus' siblings play no active role in His ministry in the canonical writings until after His death, so my question of whether of not it would really affect things stands. Plus, I could imagine there would be all sorts of awkward ways to refer to Joe, since they can't refer to him as Jesus' father (and insist that Jesus is the Son of God), and calling him "His earthly father" would likewise be awkward, I guess. So maybe Joe being dead before the ministry started, probably to avoid such awkardness.

Re: the second part, I’m not really sure about that either although I don’t know as much about that. It seems in the Gospels they are totally comfortable calling Joseph his father even though they make it clear that he isn’t a biological father. I’m just speculating here so I could be wrong but I would just assume that first century Jews didn’t really make a distinction or really didn’t find it all that meaningful to make such a distinction. The reason I say this is because obviously even though there is a matrilineal relation his primary claim to being a “son of David” comes through his adoptive sonship from Joseph. In the Gospel of Luke, when finding Jesus in the temple, Mary (who would know otherwise most of all) refers to Joseph as his father with no qualifier and nobody seems to mind. Also he’s usually challenged in a couple of the Gospels I believe in Nazareth “is this not the son of the carpenter?”, to which no response is given.

This would read to me like there was a certain comfort level with the notion of adoptive fatherhood
 
IIRC: In ancient Jewish culture, if a man died without a son, his brother was expected to marry the widow and produce a son that would be considered the dead mans genealogical son.
So the culture did have some distinct adoption traditions.
 
Another possibility: a lot of the big Marian shrines (Fatima, Lourdes, etc.) are on places where Mary appeared to someone in a vision, and that spot then became a place of pilgrimage. So maybe have St. Joseph appear in a couple of visions, and you could get a pretty big pilgrimage centre dedicated to him, which would boost his visibility quite a bit.
 

BlondieBC

Banned
Having St. Joseph be as prominent as St. Mary would probably be impossible, given that Mary was Jesus' natural mother and Joseph was just his foster father. But, I don't see any reason why the early Church can't have a few more feast days in honour of St. Joseph; if any of these becomes prominent for some reason, this would give a big boost to St. Joseph's visibility.

Well, let's stay in the season. What if the Christmas festival has St. Joseph, not St. Nick as the main man?
 
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