Word: joseph
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...certain point, however, Edington ran out of verses for exegesis. Joseph appears in the Nativity story of Matthew and more briefly in that of Luke but is then severely--eventually terminally--marginalized. The Bible never even quotes him directly. Yet with Bright's encouragement, Edington extended his research beyond the New Testament to early nonbiblical sources. In 2000 he published a slim book called The Forgotten Man of Christmas: Joseph's Story, which combined biblical analysis with material suggested by his additional reading, along with brief recollections of his own family's story. The pastor admits that it may have...
...recently, he has had company in that exercise. Even without that much imagination, a Christian curious about Joseph can take some sturdy, basic inspiration from the carpenter who is, at a minimum, humanity's stand-in, a lunch-pail hero not born to holiness but who, by his hard-won and steadfast belief, finds a role in salvation. This season two big-name writers have taken Joseph's story a step further. He is a major supporting character in erstwhile vampirologist Anne Rice's current best seller, Christ the Lord: Out of Egypt. And he has a lead role...
Both authors had to work around the Scripture's Joseph deficit. In outline, his life seems rich: after an initial moment of stunned disbelief at Mary's condition, he receives his own Annunciation in one of four angelic dreams; he marries her and gets her to Bethlehem; spirits mother and child off to Egypt when they are threatened by the murderous King Herod; then settles them in Nazareth. Yet there are strange omissions and truncations. Joseph is not described as present at Jesus' birth or the reception of the shepherds. The Egyptian trip is not actually recounted. The last reference...
...Scripture," says Jenkins. In fact, Edington, Rice and Jenkins are just the most recent participants in a lively and long-standing tradition. From almost the moment the Gospels were set down, early Christian communities, church fathers, Pontiffs and random laity have colored in the lightly sketched character of Joseph, and in some cases extended his contour considerably. At first they elaborated his story to buttress embattled doctrines like the virginity of Mary. Later interpreters repurposed him to respond to crises in the church or in society, as various Popes raised up the image of Joseph as the Family Father...
...Audiences," writes Louise Bourassa Perrotta, author of Saint Joseph: His Life and His Role in the Church Today, "do not generally react well when favorite characters are retired early," citing Sherlock Holmes and Joseph. Nor did early Christians appreciate potshots by contemporaries who suspected Jesus might have been Joseph's son after all, or questioned Mary's virginity when Scripture talked about his having several "brothers" and "sisters." Among the first attempts to address all those issues were the vivid set of books known as the Apocrypha...