(8 votes, average: 4.88 out of 5)
Loading...Here now is a translation (from the Coptic) of a section of the intriguing apocryphal Gospel, The History of Joseph the Carpenter, by my colleague Zlatko Plese, as found in our book The Other Gospels (Oxford Press, 2014).
As you’ll see there are eleven chapters before this and yet more after it; for the whole thing – along with some forty other apocryphal Gospels! – check out our book.
This is Jesus speaking to his disciples, in the first person.
******************************
Joseph’s Death Draws Near
12 (1) But then the death of Joseph, my father, drew near, as is appointed to all people. (2) When his body grew ill, his angel announced to him, ‘In this year you will die.’ (3) And as his soul was troubled,
Get access to Dr. Ehrman's library of 4,000+ articles plus five new articles per week about the New Testament and early Christianity. It costs as little as $2.99/mth and every cent goes to charity!
Unlock 4,000+ Articles Like This!
Do you think some early Christians simply invented such stories, like the boy bitten by an asp and Jesus healing him, or did they evolve over time? For example, someone speculates, “Could Jesus heal when he was just a boy? What if a friend was bitten by an asp?” And they discuss it. And that discussion is shared with others, and over time it is taken as an actual event? If early Christians were willing to invent stories about Jesus, does that tell us anything about the Gospels and their stories?
I’d say it’s impossible to trace the origins of most legends, whether they were intentionally invented, a result of miscommunication/misunderstanding, spontaneously generated (like gossip/rumors, which usually are not intentional lies; as it turns out, there is an entire field of modern scholarship devoted to this!), or something else. But yes, the fact that we have firmly believed and, apparently, honestly (i.e., not deceptively) presented stories about Jesus that simply can’t be true in later periods should certainly suggest that we should look for such things in early periods as well among his enthusiastic followers. Some people have argued that it would take years for legends to develop, but they’re just saying that because it “seems” that way to them. In fact, “fake news” (good, bad, or indifferent) takes almot no time to appear. Many of us hear stories about what we said and did that are just wrong, or seriously in error, the NEXT DAY!
So Jesus was nineteen when Joseph died. And Mary was fifteen when she gave birth and so forty six to forty eight at the crucifixion. Joseph can’t have taught Jesus very much carpentry as he would have been over a hundred when Jesus was eight.
Do you think there is any real information in any of this?
Well, there probably was a Mary, and a Joseph, and a Jesus!
Some of the phraseology is very reminiscent of Eastern Orthodox religious services and theology. This is both a beautiful and very strange sounding story!