Anyone who has looked at Christmas cards knows where to find Joseph in a typical manger scene.<\/p>\n\n
Just look for the humble, gray-haired man standing near the edge of the heavenly glow that surrounds Mary and the Christ child. In ancient Nativity icons, St. Joseph the Betrothed usually appears huddled in the foreground while Satan, in disguise, tempts him to doubt and despair.<\/p>\n\n
Joseph is a major character in this drama, yet he remains a mystery. While filming the movie called \u201cThe Nativity Story,\u201d actor Oscar Isaac visited the Vatican and studied a tapestry of the manger scene. He kept asking himself the question actors always ask when trying to play historical figures: \u201cWhat was he thinking?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the thing,\u201d said Isaac, during press events before the film\u2019s Dec. 1 release. \u201cJoseph didn\u2019t know what to expect. I was having trouble as an actor, saying, \u2018How can I play that I am going to have the Son of God? I don\u2019t know what that means. It doesn\u2019t make any sense.\u2019<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThen I realized that this was exactly what Joseph was going through.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
For decades, Mary has received lots of screen time in traditional Hollywood movies dealing with the life of Jesus. New Line Cinema\u2019s attempt to create a new biblical epic is unique in that Joseph receives as much attention as Mary. Joseph\u2019s trials, doubts and decisions drive the plot.<\/p>\n\n
The problem is that biblical accounts offer little information about St. Joseph, other than his standing as a \u201cjust man\u201d from the House of David who lived in Nazareth. He is an important figure in the Nativity narratives and he was alive when Jesus was 12 and the family visited Jerusalem. According to early church traditions, Joseph was a widower who already had children \u2014 who are mentioned in the New Testament as brothers and sisters of Jesus.<\/p>\n\n
Joseph was older than Mary, but it\u2019s hard to know much more than that, said screenwriter Mike Rich.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIn the research that I did \u2026 I quickly found that if you talked to 12 theologians about Joseph then you\u2019ll probably get 12 different stories,\u201d said Rich. \u201cThe age range that I was given in my research was everything from 25 to 90. \u2026 I don\u2019t think there would have been a wrong decision, because of the disparity in all the viewpoints. So we just decided to go younger.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The 27-year-old Isaac, meanwhile, turned to a volume of history entitled \u201cThe Life and Times of Jesus Messiah\u201d for clues into his character\u2019s background. Joseph is a Jewish carpenter betrothed to a girl who says an angel has told her she will give birth to the Son of God. What does that mean? Will people in Nazareth stone her? Will Mary die while giving birth? Will this be a normal child? Will legions of angels show up and begin an apocalyptic war with the Romans?<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s crucial to remember that an angel visited Mary, while Joseph had a dream reassuring him that she was telling the truth. It\u2019s safe to assume that most men \u2014 when asked to risk life, limb and reputation \u2014 would prefer to talk to an angel face to face, rather than rely on a mere dream, said Isaac.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cJust because God came to him in a dream didn\u2019t mean that he wasn\u2019t thinking, \u2018I hope that I didn\u2019t make that up. I hope that I heard God correctly,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cI think that he constantly, even up until the end, is grappling with his feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The whole story changes if Joseph rebels, noted Isaac, who is Guatemalan by birth, but grew up in a multi-ethnic evangelical Protestant family in Miami. It\u2019s easy to assume that God would have found some other way. But someone had to take claim the responsibility of protecting Mary and helping raise Jesus.<\/p>\n\n
Joseph is a pivotal figure, yet a humble saint who rarely receives much attention.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere is this very interesting psychological character study here,\u201d noted Isaac. \u201cHow does a man share the woman he loves with God? That\u2019s what he has to do. He loves God with all of his heart and he loves this woman, selflessly. \u2026 He can\u2019t just live in this little house that he\u2019s building in Nazareth. He has to, literally, share this woman. How do you wrap your mind around that as a man?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anyone who has looked at Christmas cards knows where to find Joseph in a typical manger scene. Just look for the humble, gray-haired man standing near the edge of the heavenly glow that surrounds Mary and the Christ child. In ancient Nativity icons, St. Joseph the Betrothed usually appears huddled in the foreground while Satan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[206,431,434,447,486,534,1542],"class_list":["post-1414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-christmas","tag-hollywood","tag-holy-family","tag-icons","tag-joseph","tag-mary","tag-movies"],"yoast_head":"\n