Ever wonder why Joseph is almost always portrayed as an old man in Nativity scenes? The reason goes back to an early apocryphal book--maybe as early as the 2nd Century AD--known as the Proto-Gospel of James . In the story Joseph is an elderly widower who marries the youthful Mary in order to take her under his care, as a father figure not as an actual husband. In the story, James the brother of Jesus is the son of Joseph by his previous marriage. The story marks an early departure from the New Testament view of Mary and Joseph as simply husband and wife and Jesus’s brothers and sisters as Mary and Joseph’s natural children. In contrast, The Proto-Gospel was interested in preserving the idea of the perpetual virginity of Mary, going as far as claiming that Mary was found to still be physically a virgin after Jesus was born (chapter 20). This then is the story that stands behind the way of depicting Joseph in Eastern Orthodox Iconography. From there the convention of an elderly Jos
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