Was the Blessed Virgin Mary the first wife of Joseph?

Answer 1

Nowhere in The Bible is it suggested that Joseph had already been married before marrying Mary, and there is no extra-biblical evidence of this, or that he was a widower. A later Christian tradition, that Joseph was a widower, grew up because the Bible talks of Jesus having several brothers and some sisters. Some Christians were uncomfortable with this, because it meant that Mary had sex after the birth of Jesus: sex suggesting defilement to the early Christians. This is an improbable explanation, as the apostle Paul met James, brother of Jesus. If this occurred in the 50s CE, as traditionally accepted, then for James to be the oldest brother he must have been at least 70 years old - at a time when few commoners survived beyond their fifties. And Paul's epistles do not suggest that James was an elderly man when Paul met him. Another tradition holds that the brothers and sisters were not really biological siblings, but were instead cousins of Jesus.

Answer 2

Answer

The Catholic Church has always had difficulty with the gospel mention of the brothers and sisters of Jesus, because the Church not only wanted Mary to be a virgin at the time of Jesus' birth, but remain a virgin throughout her life. One solution was to decide that they were not his brothers and sisters at all: they were cousins. This defies the gospel text, so another solution was to decide that they were only half-brothers, and that Joseph had previously been married.

There are problems with the notion that the brothers and sisters were from a previous marriage. One is that in the Lucan version of the nativity, Joseph would surely have brought the young children to Bethlehem for the census, but there is no evidence of that in the gospel. Nor does Matthew mention the young children fleeing to Egypt or returning with Joseph and Mary after the death of Herod. This suggests that the brothers and sisters were not yet born.

The gospels say Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod, and Matthew implies that he was born quite some time before Herod died (April 4 BCE). Since Jesus had several brothers and sisters, we can estimate that John would have been born well before 10 BCE if he was the first-born of a previous wife of Joseph. Paul mentioned meeting John, and the meeting is traditionally placed in the 50s CE. On the hypothesis of a previous marriage, John would have been in his late sixties or seventies, yet Paul gives no hint that John was (by ancient standards) an elderly man.

The Bible does not tell us that Joseph had a previous wife and the case for this is weak. We should assume that Mary was Joseph's first wife.