The question of Jesus’s father involves a duality central to the New Testament narrative. The answer depends on whether one seeks his earthly, legal parent or his heavenly, divine originator. The Gospels present a recognized human father figure, Joseph, who provided legal and social standing, while simultaneously asserting a unique, non-biological conception pointing toward a divine source. This dual paternity blends Jesus’s human connection to a historical lineage with a theological claim to a supernatural origin.
Joseph The Legal Father
Joseph, a first-century Jewish man living in Nazareth, fulfilled the role of Jesus’s legal and earthly father. The Gospel of Matthew identifies him as Mary’s husband. Tradition holds that he worked as a tekton, a Greek term referring to a craftsman who worked with building materials like wood or stone. This occupation placed him as a respected, working-class member of his community.
His primary importance stems from his legal act of adopting Jesus as his son by marrying Mary and giving the child his name. When Joseph discovered Mary was pregnant before their marriage, he initially planned to divorce her quietly. However, a divine instruction received in a dream led him to proceed with the marriage, officially accepting the child into his household.
This formal, legal recognition was necessary to establish Jesus’s place in Jewish society and fulfill prophetic requirements. Since Jewish lineage was traditionally traced through the father, Joseph’s decision legally conferred his own ancestry upon Jesus. He became the protector and guardian, leading his family to Egypt to escape King Herod’s decree. Even as an adult, Jesus was commonly referred to by his neighbors as “the carpenter’s son.”
The Divine Paternity
The theological answer to Jesus’s paternity points to God, referred to as God the Father, as the ultimate source of his existence. The New Testament describes his conception as a supernatural event known as the Virgin Birth. This event is detailed in the Gospel of Luke, where the angel Gabriel informs Mary that she will conceive a child through the intervention of the Holy Spirit.
The angel explained that the Holy Spirit would “come upon” her and the “power of the Most High will overshadow” her, resulting in the Son of God. This divine conception bypassed the need for a human father, establishing Jesus as both fully human, through Mary, and fully divine, through his Father in heaven. The Virgin Birth is understood as the means by which the eternal Son of God entered human existence.
The Holy Spirit is described as the agent who facilitated this unique entry into the world. This supernatural origin ensured that Jesus’s nature was a new creation, aligning him with God’s power. While Joseph served as the adoptive father, the divine paternity confirms that Jesus’s unique nature resulted directly from God’s power acting in Mary’s womb.
The Significance of the Lineage
The existence of Jesus’s legal father, Joseph, is tied to the necessity of proving his ancestry. For Jesus to be recognized as the Messiah, he had to be demonstrably a descendant of the royal line of King David, fulfilling Old Testament prophecies. The two genealogies recorded in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke serve this function, even while affirming the Virgin Birth.
Matthew’s genealogy traces Jesus’s lineage through Joseph, establishing his legal right to the throne of David by connecting him to David’s son, Solomon. By accepting Jesus as his son, Joseph conferred this royal legal status upon him, making him the rightful heir to the Davidic covenant. Luke’s genealogy is widely interpreted as tracing the physical line through Mary, linking Jesus to David through a different son, Nathan.
The combination of these two genealogies provides a comprehensive claim to the Davidic heritage. The legal path through Joseph affirmed Jesus’s status as a legitimate heir and candidate for the Messiah’s role. The physical descent through Mary ensured his connection to David. The purpose of including Joseph and these records was to root the Son of God firmly within the historical and prophetic context of Israel.