Was Joseph really a carpenter? The Greek word is far broader
The gospels call Joseph a tekton, a word from the same root as technology. It could describe a builder in wood, iron or stone, and some scholars suggest a skilled workshop owner. One historian notes the Talmud used carpenter as shorthand for a learned man.
Joseph appears only in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, usually dated to around 80 to 90 AD. The earliest Christian writings, Paul's letters, never mention Jesus's father, and neither does Mark, thought to be the first gospel; in Mark, the people of Nazareth call Jesus simply Mary's son. Matthew and Luke each trace Jesus back to King David, but through different sons, Solomon and Nathan, so every name between David and Joseph differs. Explanations range from one line being legal and the other biological to Augustine's suggestion that Joseph was adopted.
The two birth stories diverge as well. In Matthew, angels guide Joseph in dreams: to marry Mary, to flee to Egypt from Herod, and to settle in Nazareth afterwards, echoing the Old Testament Joseph, who also dreamed and went to Egypt. In Luke, Joseph already lives in Nazareth and travels to Bethlehem for a census, with no angelic visits to him and no flight into Egypt. His last appearance in person is Luke's story of the twelve-year-old Jesus at the Temple. He is absent from the Crucifixion, where Joseph of Arimathea takes charge of the body, which suggests he had died.
His home village was tiny. Nazareth probably held at most about 400 people, yet it sat roughly 6 kilometres from Sepphoris, a city the Romans destroyed in 4 BC and then rebuilt on a large scale. Some historians speculate Joseph, and later Jesus, walked there daily for construction work, though others picture them as general village craftsmen. The early Christian writer Justin Martyr said Jesus made yokes and ploughs.
Veneration grew enormously. Catholic tradition makes him patron of workers, and March is devoted to him. Pope Pius IX named him patron and protector of the whole Catholic Church, and because he was believed to have died with Jesus and Mary beside him, he is also patron of a holy death. Since the 1950s a specialist field, Josephology, has developed alongside the study of Mary.
Source: Saint Joseph
