Joseph Brother of Jesus

Joseph had some friction with Jesus in his younger years. One thing that was troublesome was that Joseph, while seeming to agree with Jesus’ instruction about using persuasion and nonresistance to solve problems with his playmates, was quick to defend himself when bullied or attacked. He didn’t seem to grasp the spirit of those teachings of his father-brother.

When Joseph was fourteen, in 14 CE, he graduated from synagogue school. Soon after, he began working in the home carpentry shop at the small bench – a necessity because Joseph's estate was gone and the family needed more income. Once he started work, joining Jesus and James, prospects started looking up and they were optimistic that they could avoid poverty.

In 15 CE, Jesus went up to Jerusalem with Joseph, then fifteen years old, to celebrate the Passover.

Joseph asked Jesus many leading questions concerning his life mission, but to most of these questions Jesus would only reply, “My hour has not yet come.” However, in these intimate discussions many words were dropped which Joseph remembered during the stirring events of later years. Joseph and Jesus spent this Passover with Jesus’ friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus at Bethany, which was his custom when in Jerusalem attending these festival commemorations.

In the later months of 16 CE, when Joseph was sixteen years old, Jesus began a gradual process of weaning his family from his daily presence. Since carpenter work was slow during this time, Jesus left Joseph in charge of the home bench while he found work in Sepphoris as a metalsmith. And he worked there for six months.

Jesus could have walked home every night, but he chose to stay in Sepphoris because he wanted to train James and Joseph to take responsibility for the family. Jesus would always come home for Sabbath, or even sometimes during the week, just to see how the plan was working. Even after he came home from Sepphoris after six months, he never again took full control of the family’s affairs.

James spent the next two years as acting head of the family, and after those two years, while James was still head of the household, Joseph was placed in charge of the household funds and entrusted with the general management of the home.

Jude, Joseph’s younger brother, was a thorn in the family’s side at times. Even Jesus was embarrassed by Jude’s belligerent exploits and numerous patriotic outbursts. James and Joseph were in favor of casting him out, but Jesus would not consent. When their patience would be severely tried, Jesus would only counsel: “Be patient. Be wise in your counsel and eloquent in your lives, that your young brother may first know the better way and then be constrained to follow you in it.” The wise and loving counsel of Jesus prevented a break in the family.

While Joseph was entrusted with the general management of the home, he was also being trained by James for his eventual role as head of household in preparation for James leaving the home after his marriage.

During these years, Jesus enjoyed more than usual leisure, and he devoted much time to training Joseph in the direction of home affairs

After James’ marriage, in November, 20 CE, Joseph was formally installed by Jesus as head of the family.

When Jesus left home to work in Zebedee’s boatshop, he began earning a salary that he shared with his Nazareth family. Each month, either Joseph or Jude would come down to Capernaum for the money. During this time, the Nazareth family got along very well.

When Jesus returned from his Mediterranean tour early in 24 CE, he traveled to Nazareth and spent some time with Joseph who was still at work in the family repair shop. Joseph was 23 years old at that time.

Somewhere between the time that Jesus left home to work with Zebedee in his Capernaum boatshop (January 21 CE), and the time that Simon and Jude were married in a double wedding (March, 24 CE), Joseph was also married and had a family of his own. Before Jesus left on the caravan trip to the Caspian in that year of 24 CE, he called a family conference at which he proposed that his mother and Ruth go to Capernaum to live in the home which he had so recently given to James. And Joseph and his family moved into the old Nazareth home.

In February 26 CE, when Jesus had assembled the first six of his apostles, he and his new associates visited Nazareth and stayed overnight with Joseph in Jesus’ boyhood home. And during this visit Jesus destroyed all of his writings that were preserved on the boards about the carpenter shop, and which hung upon the walls of the old home.

This action of Jesus was a great sorrow to Joseph and made a deep impression upon the minds of these early apostles. After this, they never saw Jesus write anything, except on dust or in the sand.

Before leaving the Nazareth home, the six new associates of Jesus told Joseph and other members of Jesus’ family about the wonderful events of the then recent past and talked freely of their belief that Jesus was the long-expected deliverer. After hearing all of this news about Jesus, his family talked all this over, and Joseph said: “Maybe, after all, Mother was right — maybe our strange brother is the coming king.” It could be that Joseph was also remembering some of the words that Jesus spoke to him during their trip to Jerusalem when Joseph was a lad of fifteen and asking Jesus about his mission.

Joseph entertained thoughts that maybe Jesus was a special, but strange, person. He wondered if he might even be the “coming king.” But in the intervening years, up until the later days of Jesus’ public ministry, Joseph, like many of his family, harbored increasing resentment of Jesus because he felt that Jesus had abandoned them and neglected them. Joseph was among his other siblings who didn’t seem to understand Jesus.

In 29 CE, late in his public ministry, Jesus had a chance to meet with some of his family after a few years of not seeing them, but it was not to be. These family members – Joseph, Jude, James, and Jesus’ mother – went to the home of Zebedee in Capernaum where Jesus was speaking to a crowd of believers because they had heard he was going to be arrested; moreover, they were worried that he was acting strangely and that he would bring disgrace on the family by this preaching of his about a new religion. In addition, they worried for their own safety now that Jesus was being sought by the Jerusalem authorities. So they decided to go there together, confront him, and try their best to persuade him to come to his senses and come home with them. Joseph still retained much of his faith in Jesus, but he had permitted pride to interfere with his better judgment and real spiritual inclinations.

Only Ruth still believed wholeheartedly in Jesus and his mission and she steadfastly refused to go along with the plan. Ruth said: “I will tell my brother that I think he is a man of God, and that I hope he would be willing to die before he would allow these wicked Pharisees to stop his preaching.” Joseph promised to keep Ruth quiet while the others labored with Jesus.

But in the end, he didn’t have to keep Ruth quiet. The meeting never took place, owing to Jesus’ hasty escape in a waiting boat when it was feared that the authorities were close by to arrest him.