Question:
Answer:
According to the Gospel of Matthew, St. Joseph’s father was Jacob (Matt. 1:16). According to the Gospel of Luke, his father was Heli (Luke 3:23).
Various explanations have been offered as to this difficulty, but the one that has received the most acceptance is that Jacob and Heli were half-brothers (same mother, different fathers). It is proposed that Heli was married but died before he had any offspring. Jacob then took Heli’s widow in a “levirate marriage” (Deut. 25:5-6), and this marriage produced Joseph as offspring. This would make Jacob the biological father of Joseph but Heli would be the legal father.
As for who St. Joseph’s mother was, no account exists in either Scripture or tradition. This is not all that unusual, since under both secular and religious law at the time it was the lineage of the father that was considered of importance and therefore was preserved.