Not my intent to stir up a hornet’s nest, but with regards to Joseph, I have never believed he was an “older guardian”, simply betrothed to Mary, to marry her for the sole purpose of watching over her as her protector. Joseph’s depiction in most religious art is not overly flattering – an old man who looks more like he could be Mary’s great-grandfather, frequently depicted as looking barely awake half the time and nodding off while supported by his staff (lest he topple over), or being shown seemingly just starring off into space; hardly calls to mind the image of “guardian/protector” in even the broadest sense of the word.
Frankly, if it was the intent of Mary’s parents to more or less provide a guardian, that guardianship could have been accomplished much more easily by simply placing her in a household with an older adult than going through the bother of a marriage. It also begs the question of why wouldn’t they have just kept her at home and acted as her guardians themselves. The whole “guardianship thing” just doesn’t stand to reason for me. One could argue that Mary’s parents were old, but I mean, let’s look at that – Mary was probably around 15 when she married Joseph. Assuming she had, let’s say for the sake of argument, four or five older siblings, that would make her parents somewhere in their late thirties when Mary was married. Hardly old even by ancient standards. Another convenience is having her parents as being “older” when they had Mary. I don’t know that it can be said for certain when Mary’s parents deceased; history does not even record their names let alone when they died; “Anna” and “Joachim” are simply later conventions (similar to the “names” of the three Magi) based on the infancy gospel which is more a work of (pious) fiction than anything. Over time the names have become accepted as fact and are now part of the tradition.
To me the guardianship theory is nothing more than a later device used to back up or bolster the idea of Mary’s perpetual virginity. No offence intended, but I’m of the opinion she had children with Joseph after Jesus; those children being the named siblings of Jesus in various places in the canonical gospels. So, yes, I believe Joseph (as well as Mary) did indeed have other children.
To be an only child in a Jewish community in the first century AD would have been something extremely unique and worthy of writing about, yet the gospels only speak to the siblings of Jesus, not to the fact he was a supposed only child (Jews were very aware of the first commandment given mankind by God; be fruitful and multiply – to purposely only have one child would, I think, have been almost unthinkable to Jews in those times.
Marriages, up until fairly recently in history, were virtually almost always exclusively arranged by the parents. Said parents usually knew each other for some time whether through business, being neighbors, friendship, etc. As such, the two sets of parents typically both lived in the same town. Joseph’s parents would have most likely have known Mary’s (and as such, I don’t think Joseph was ever born in or came from Bethlehem, but that’s another topic altogether). Joseph, in all likelihood, would have only been a few years older than Mary at best so, somewhere between 17 and 19 when they married. It’s quite possible they may have even known each other growing up.
This age of between 17-19 more or less negates the possibility of Joseph having been previously married and having several children. Even if that were the case, let’s face it, an older widower with several children in tow (some of them possibly almost as old as, indeed if not even older than, Mary herself) doesn’t exactly make a good prospective marriage match for your 14-15 year old daughter.
I don’t know if there is any truth to this, but I have heard/read that with typical Jewish marriages of the time, couples were betrothed for ‘x’ amount of time (a year maybe - ?). During that time, the couple were, I believe, permitted to live together and even have sexual relations. As I understand it, it was sort of a “trial marriage”. During this betrothal period and up until the couple were actually married, the woman was still legally considered a virgin even if said relations produced a child. This may account for Joseph to want to “put her away privately” even though they were not yet fully married; the betrothal was legally binding, just like the marriage, so either partner would have the option of ending the contract (essentially backing out of the marriage contract legally) if there were any issues.
