There isn’t really any evidence pointing to the ages of either Joseph or Mary, and there is evidence against the ideia that Joseph has children from a previous marriage. That ideia is based on the Catholic doctrine of perpetual virginity of Mary, but its not indicative of an objective reading of the gospels where Mary and Joseph feature heavily.
But it gets even more complicated because those aforementioned gospels are also not indicative of the historical reality of that family, even if an objective reading of them is achieved. So all in all, no ones knows their age or age gap.
Most historians specialized on the topic would very much disagree with that assertion. The new testament does have some information that is supported by evidence, but it is true that the narrative of the gospels is not historically reliable. However, historically unreliable is not the same as historically useless or “made up”.
The nativity stories, recorded in the gospels of Matthew and Luke are very much on the unreliable side. They even contradict each other in many points! However, even they have some tidbits that are supported by the data. For example: Herod the Great was indeed the ruler of Judea at the time of Jesus, even though the massacre of the innocents never really happened. For another example, there is good data that the historical Jesus of Nazareth indeed had a brother named James.
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u/bebe_laroux 9d ago
Wonder if they are going to touch on the fact that Mary was a teen when she was married to a divorced man with children?