Why did Mary call Joseph Jesus’ "father"? (Luke 2:48)
Luke 2:48 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.”
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Asked January 30 2022
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Jack Gutknecht
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Tim Maas
The first thought that occurs to me is the effectiveness of Mary's words as a testimony to the accuracy of Scripture, for no writer of a fictitious account would have had such words come from the mouth of the one person who had first-hand knowledge of the circumstances of Jesus' conception, and of the identity of His true Father. In addition, although Joseph was not Jesus' biological father, the fact that he was fully entrusted by God Himself with Jesus' day-to-day care and upbringing from the time of His birth made him Jesus' father in a very real sense (which was even recognized in a rabbinical maxim, which said that "not he who begets, but he who brings up, is the father"), and it was in that sense that Mary was speaking. Also, Mary's own words indicate that Joseph was certainly a full partner in the searching and worrying process involved in this incident, just as if Jesus had been his own biological son.
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