(2) An Artificer. Joseph was by trade a car penter, in which business he probably educated Jesus. In Matt. xiii :55, we read, 'Is not this the son of the carpenter?' and in Mark vi :3, 'Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary?' The Greek term employed, tech-tone, is of a general charac ter (from tech-noh, 'I form'), and may be fitly rendered by the English word 'artificer,' or 'arti san.' Schleusner (on this subject) asserts that the universal testimony of the ancient church repre sents our Lord as being a carpenter's son. Hila rius, on Matthew (quoted in Simon's Dictionnaire de la Bible, i, 691), asserts, in terms which cannot be mistaken, that Jesus was a smith. Of the same opinion was the Venerable Bede; while others have held that our Lord was a mason, and Car dinal Cajetan, that he Was a goldsmith.
The last notion probably had its origin in those false associations of more modern times which disparage hand labor. Among the ancient Jews all handicrafts were held in so much honor that they were learned and pursued by the first men of the nation.
(3) Tradition.. Christian tradition makes Jo seph an old man when first espoused to Mary ( Epiphan. Hcer. 78, 7), being no less than eighty years of age, and father of four sons and two daughters. The painters of Christian antiquity conspire with the writers in representing Joseph as an old man at the period of the birth of our Lord—an evidence which is not to be lightly re jected, though the precise age mentioned may be but an approximation to fact.
(4) Death. It is not easy to determine when Joseph died. That event may have taken place before Jesus entered on his public ministry. 'Fhis has been argued from the fact that his mother only appeared at the feast at Cana in Galilee. The premises, however, hardly bear out the inference. With more force of argument, it has been alleged (Simon, Diet. de la Bible) that Joseph must have been dead before the crucifixion of Jesus, else he would in all probability have appeared with Nary at the cross. Certainly the absence of Joseph from the public life of Christ, and the absence of reference to him in the discourses and history, while 'Mary' and 'His brethren' not unfrequcntly appear, afford evidence not only of Joseph's death, but of the inferior part which, as the legal father cnly of our Lord, Joseph might have been expected to sustain. The traditions respecting Joseph are collected in Act. Sanct. p. 4, sq.; there is a Life of Joseph written in Italian by Affaitati. (Pearson, On the Creed; Mill, On the Brethren of the Lord; Alford's Note on Matt. xiii:55.) J. R. B.
3. Father of Igal, who was the spy, sent from the tribe of Issachar to investigate the land of Canaan (Num. xiii :7), B. C. before 1657.
4. An Israelite of the family of Bani, and one of those who put away their foreign wives in the time of Ezra (Ezra x :42), B. C. 456.
5. A priest in the family of Shebaniah in the next generation after the return from captivity (Neh. xii :14), B. C. after 536.
6. An ancestor of Christ (Luke iii :30). He was the son of Jonan, and was in the eighth gen eration from David, or about contemporary with Ahaziah.
7. An ancestor of Christ (Luke iii :26). He was the son of Judah or Abiud, and grandson of Joanna or Hananiah the son of Zerubbabel.
8. Another ancestor of Christ (Luke iii :24). He was the son of Mattathias, in the seventh gen eration, before Joseph, Mary's husband.
9. Surnamed CAIAPHAS (Whith see).
10. Joseph of ../Irimathea. The name Ari mathea denotes probably the place where Joseph was born, not that where he resided.
(1) Location. of Arimathea. Arimathea lay in the territory of Benjamin, on the mountain range of Ephraim, at no great distance south of Jerusalem (Josh.xviii :25 ; Judg. iv :5) ,not far from
Gibeah (Judg. xix :13; Isa. x :29; Hos. v :8).
(2) Begs the Body of Sesus. Joseph was a secret disciple of Jesus—`an honorable counsellor (tiolAcuils), who waited for the kingdom of God' (Mark xv :43), and who, on learning the death of our Lord, 'came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.' Pilate hav ing learned from the centurion, who commanded at the execution, that 'Jesus was actually dead,' gave the body to Joseph, who took it down and wrapped his deceased Lord in fine linen which he had purchased for the purpose; after which he laid the corpse in a sepulcher which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulcher (Mark xv :43, sq.). From the parallel passages in Matthew (xxvii :58, sq.), Luke (xxiii: so, sq.), and John (xix :38, sq.), it appcars that the body was previously embalmed at the cost of another secret disciple, Nicodemus, and that the sepulcher was new, 'wherein never man before was laid ;' also that it lay in a garden, and was the property of Joseph himself. This garden was 'in the place where Jesus was crucified.' (3) Character. Luke describes the character of Joseph as 'a good man and a just,' adding that 'he had not consented to the counsel and deed of them,' e. of the Jewish authorities. From this remark it is clear that Joseph was a ineinber of the Sanhedrim; a conclusion which is corrob orated by the epithet 'counsellor,' applied to him by both Luke and Mark. Tradition represents Joseph as having been one of the Seventy, and as having first preached the Gospel in old England (Ittig. Diss. de Pat. Apostol, sec. 13 ; Assernani Biblioth. Orient. iii :r, 3i9, sq.). For an attempt to fix the precise spot where Jesus died and was buried, see the article GOLGOTHA. J. R. B.
//. Joseph called Barsabas was one of the two persons whom the primitive church, immedi ately after the resurrection of Christ, nominated, praying that the Holy Spirit would show which of them should enter the apostolic band in place of the wretched Judas. On the lots being cast, it proved that not Joseph, but Matthias, was chosen.
Joseph bore the honorable surname of Justus, which was not improbably given him on account of his well-known probity. He was one of those who had 'companied with the Apostles all the time that the Lord Jesus went in. and out amongst them, beginning from the baptism of John,' until the ascension (Acts i :23, sq.). Tradition also ac counted him one of the Seventy (Euseb. Hist. Eccles. i:12; Heinrichs, On Acts i :23; Ullmann, in the Theolog. Stud. und Kritik, i. 377).
J. R B. JOSES (jo's6z), (Gr. 'Icucrils, ee-oh-sare').
1. The son of Mary and Cleopas, and brother of James the Less, of Simon and of Jude, and, con sequently, one of those who are called the 'breth ren' of our Lord (Matt. xiii :55; xxvii :56; Mark vi :3 ; xv :40, 47) • (See JAN/Es ; JunAs.) He was the only onc of these brethren who was not an apostle—a circumstance which has given occasion tO some unsatisfactory conjecture. It is perhaps more remarkable that three of them were apostles than that the fourth was not.
2. Son of Eliezer in the genealogy of Christ (Luke iii :29). He was in the fiftecnth generation from David, which was about the time of Man asseh. Jose of the A. V. is incorrect, being merely the genitive case.
S. (See BARNABAS.) jOSHAH (jo'shah), (Heb. 71.V, yo-shaw', Jeho vah established), a prince of the house of Simeon, who attacked the Hamitc Shepherds in Gedor, without provocation, and, after exterminating them, occupied their country (1 Chron. iv:34), B.
C. about 711.