What did Joseph Believe?

 

Sami Zaatari

 

 

I've already written an article showing how Mary the mother of Jesus had no belief in his supposed divinity, readers can visit the article on the following link:

 

 http://muslim-responses.com/Was_Jesus_God_according_to_Mary/Was_Jesus_God_according_to_Mary_

 

So what about Joseph, Jesus' step dad, the man who adopted Jesus as his son, did he believe that his adopted son was the all mighty God who created everything including himself? Well, the following account from the Gospel of Matthew gives us a resounding NO, as we read:

 

After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child's life are dead." So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee, and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets: "He will be called a Nazarene." (Matthew 2:19-23)

 

According to the above, when Joseph was planning to return to Judea with little baby Jesus, he changed his mind and went to Nazareth instead, the reason for this was that Archelaus was the leader of Judea, and his father was Herod, this is the same Herod who wanted to kill Jesus, which is what caused Joseph to flee to Egypt with little baby Jesus.

 

Obviously Joseph is concerned for baby Jesus, he is concerned that maybe Archelaus the son of Herod may want to finish what his father started, and so decided to go to Nazareth instead. This makes perfect sense, any father would do the same to protect his child, this precaution is better than taking the risk, yet the baby that Joseph is looking after is no ordinary baby, it's the all mighty God himself!!!

 

Now if Joseph believed that this baby was God, then he wouldn't care about who was in charge of Judea, why should he be worried and take a precaution for the safety of the baby? Precaution and safety for the all mighty God? The all mighty God who creates and destroys? Obviously the concern Joseph had was because he didn't believe that Jesus was God, if Joseph believed that Jesus was God he would have been the one seeking protection from baby Jesus rather than the other way round!

 

And Allah Knows Best!