Around the turn of the first century, a man named Joseph lived and worked in this small but significant working-class village. Now, very little is known about Joseph of Bethlehem. In fact, by the end of the second century, Christians began to develop traditions about him just to fill in some of the uncomfortable blanks. These traditions – that he was a widower, or elderly, or had children by a first, now-deceased wife, and so on – are just that: traditions. It’s unlikely that much in these later traditions is historically accurate. But the traditions point to the human longing for details and stories and the ability to really picture what’s going on in the stories we’re told. If only the author of Matthew’s had been concerned with our insatiable curiosity about the Holy Family!
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