What happened to Joseph the father of Jesus?
The Bible Answer
The Bible does not say how are when Joseph died. However, we are given a couple of clues from the Bible that give us a likely time frame for the death of the father of Jesus.
(Luke 2:42-48) When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
We see in Luke that Joseph was alive when Jesus was twelve years old. Joseph and Mary had lost track of Jesus at the festival. They found him three days later among the teachers. After this we do not hear anything else about Joseph in the Bible.
Was Mary A Widow?
(John 19:25-27) Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother. “From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
In the book of John we find Jesus entrusting his mother to the disciple he loved, the Apostle John. It’s hard to imagine Joseph being alive at this point with Jesus giving Mary to John to care for. There would have been no reason to do this unless Mary was a widow. We can assume that the earthly father of Jesus died sometime between Jesus being twelve years old and the death of our Savior on the cross.
The above answer seems very likely.
At the marriage in Cana, apparently Joseph was not invited, too ill to travel or dead. If alive and able, it does not seem likely that he would’ve allowed his wife to travel alone. Of course, he could’ve just entrusted her with Jesus.
I’m guessing he was deceased.
I truly believe what was written above about Joseph, he was not mention after they went looking for Jesus in Jerusalem.