To what tribe of Israel did Joseph belong?

Answer 1

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke contain two different genealogies of Joseph, going back through King David to Judah, and therefore showing him to be from the tribe of Judah. However there are important discrepancies between the two genealogies, and between each of them and the Old Testament accounts, such that many scholars believe them to be no more than literary creations.

We can also look at the gospel text in another way. Most inhabitants of the area surrounding Jerusalem and Bethlehem were from the tribe of Judah. However, there were many Jewish proselytes in the first century, and many forced conversions had occurred beforehand. Matthew portrays Bethlehem as the home town of Joseph and Mary before they fled to Egypt and later settled in Nazareth, which means they were probably both from the tribe of Judah. Luke portrays Nazareth in Galilee as the home town of Joseph and Mary, even before the birth of Jesus. The Jews of Galilee were originally pagans who were forcibly converted to Judaism by the Maccabeans during the second century BCE, which means that Joseph might not have been a Jew by descent and therefore not from any of the tribes of Israel.