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Saint Joseph, the foster father of Jesus and husband of Mary, Scripture gives two genealogies for Jesus through Joseph (Mathew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38). In both, Joseph descends from David, but in one his father is named Heli, in the othjer Jacob. Some biblical; scholars believe Luke actually gives Mary's genealogy but since the Jews did not trace descent trough mother, mentions Joseph who is merely said to be "of Heli" others hold that Jacob was the natural Heli, his legal father by Jewish leviate Law (Deuteronomy 25:5-10) if a man died childless, his brother was to marry the widow and raise up children with him. Still others believe Luke gives Joseph's natural genealogy. While Mathew drew up a royal table to show how royal rights were transmitted from David to Jesus. It is probable conjecture that Joseph was born in Bethlehem in the city of David. By trade Joseph was a (TEKTEW V-Mathew 13:55; Mark 6:3) which commonly means carpenter, though it could designate some other type of craftsman. Tradition in general, beggining with St. Justin (d. 162/163) supports the view that he was a carpenter. He was a "just man" (Mathew 1:19) that is, righteous before God.

The new testament Apocrypha said Joseph had children by an earlier marriage before his marriage to Mary, There is no evidence for this view, which was devised chiefly, it seems, as a facile explanation for the "brethren of the Lord." The East accepted this view of the Apocrypha; but most Western theologians and even (mostly after 1300) popular writers rejected the idea, as Jerome held, Scripture commonly uses "brethren"for cousins".

Art has often represented Joseph as advanced age at the time of his marriage to Mary. The view finds no support in the Gospel, or in likeness of Joseph discovered in early tombs, and very little support elsewhere. Belief in advanced age originated in the Apocrypha, which apparently invented the notions as a safeguard to belief in Mary's virginity. The Apocrypha view captured popular fancy, was commonly accepted in the East after the 8th century, and was widespread in popular (not scholarly) medieval biographies in the West.

JOSEPH was certainly living when Jesus was 12 years old (Luke 2:51), but probably died before the public life of Christ.

Protestant do not venerate Joseph since they reject not only the practice, but also the principle of veneration of saints, which they hold to be unscriptural. The Roman Catholic Church gave Joseph little veneration during the first five centuries, largely because preoccupation with pressing dogmatic matters. Thereafter his veneration began to grow in the monasteries. By the end of the 15th century, masses and offices of St. Joseph began to appear all over Europe. In 1479, Pope Sixtus IV introduced his feast at Rome. Pope Pius IX, in 1870, declared Joseph "Patron of the Universal Church." In 1955, Pius XII established a new feast of Joseph the Worker (in addition to the MArch 19th feast) which is celebrated on May 1, Europe's Labor Day; the mass is repeated in the United States and Canada on Labor Day in September in the Greek Church, St. Josep's feast began to spread at least by 1,000 A.D. The Monosphysite Coptic Church in Egypt seems to have observed the feast at least by the 17th century.