Joseph (patriarch)

Joseph (/ˈdʒoʊzəf, -səf/;Hebrew: יוֹסֵף ‎, Standard Yosef Tiberian Yôsēp̄; "may He add";Arabic: يوسف‎ Yūsuf or Yūsif; Ancient Greek: Ἰωσήφ Iōsēph) is an important person in the Bible: his life connects the narrative of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in Canaan to the subsequent narrative of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.

The Book of Genesis tells that Joseph was the 11th of Jacob's 12 sons and Rachel's firstborn, and tells how Joseph came to be sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, and rose to become vizier: the second most powerful man in Egypt next to Pharaoh. When famine struck Canaan, Jacob (Joseph's father) and Joseph's brothers came to the Land of Goshen in Egypt. According to the Book of Jubilees, Joseph was born on 1 Tammuz.

Origins

Etymology

The Bible offers two explanations of the name Yosef: first it is compared to the word asaf from the root /'sp/, "taken away": "And she conceived, and bore a son; and said, God hath taken away my reproach"; Yosef is then identified with the similar root /ysp/, meaning "add": "And she called his name Joseph; and said, The LORD shall add to me another son."

Joseph

"Joseph" is a masculine given name originating from Hebrew, recorded in the Hebrew Bible, as יוֹסֵף, Standard Hebrew Yossef, Tiberian Hebrew and Aramaic Yôsēp̄. In Arabic, including in the Qur'an, the name is spelled يوسف or Yūsuf. The name can be translated from Hebrew יהוה להוסיף YHWH Lhosif as signifying "JEHOVAH will increase/add".

In the Old Testament, Joseph is Jacob's eleventh son and Rachel's first (Yossef ben-Yaakov in the Jewish Bible). In the New Testament, Joseph is the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. In the New Testament there is another Joseph as well, Joseph of Arimathea, a secret disciple of Jesus who supplied the tomb in which Jesus was buried.

The form "Joseph" is used mostly in English, French and German-speaking countries. The name has enjoyed significant popularity in its many forms in numerous countries, and Joseph was one of the two names, along with Robert, to have remained in the top 10 boys' names list in the US from 1925 to 1972. It is especially common in contemporary Israel, as either "Yossi" or "Yossef", and in Italy, where the name "Giuseppe" was the most common male name in the 20th century.

Joseph (son of Talhah)

Joseph, son of Talhah (Arabic: يوسف بن طلحة, Yusuf ibn Talhah‎) was, according to a Sunni source, the son of the prominent Muslim general Talha ibn Ubayd-Allah and Umm Kulthum bint Abu Bakr. Umm Kulthum was the daughter of the first Sunni Caliph, Abu Bakr.

References

Saint Joseph

Joseph (Hebrew יוֹסֵף, Yosef; Greek: Ἰωσήφ, Ioseph) is a figure in the Gospels, the husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus, and is venerated as Saint Joseph in the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church, Oriental Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, Lutheranism and Methodism. Christian tradition places Joseph as Jesus' foster father. Some historians state that Joseph was Jesus's father. Some differing views are due to theological interpretations versus historical views.

The Pauline epistles make no reference to Jesus's father; nor does the Gospel of Mark. The first appearance of Joseph is in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. Each contains a genealogy of Jesus showing ancestry from king David, but through different sons; Matthew follows the major royal line from Solomon, while Luke traces another line back to Nathan, another son of David and Bathsheba. Consequently, all the names between David and Joseph are different. According to Matthew 1:16 "Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary", while according to Luke 3:23, Joseph is said to be "[the son] of Heli". Some scholars reconcile the genealogies by viewing the Solomonic lineage in Matthew as Joseph's major royal line, and the Nathanic lineage in Luke to be Mary's minor line.