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?
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.