Joseph

Preface

In Fear and Trembling, Johannes de Silentio does not retell the story of Abraham in order to clarify it. He retells it because it resists clarification. The repetition is not didactic but ethical; not explanatory but existential. Each possibility circles the same event, not to resolve its meaning, but to expose the cost of faith when faith exceeds both reason and morality.

What follows is a chewing of a similar bone.

The birth of Jesus is often rendered harmless by familiarity. Angels soften it. Carols sentimentalize it. Doctrine settles it. Yet beneath the settled language remains an offense: that God’s action enters the world through the strained trust of two ordinary people, bound together by obedience neither fully understands.

Mary and Joseph do not argue theology. They do not debate providence. They live within it, and it presses upon them unevenly.

These vignettes do not seek the historical Mary and Joseph, nor do they improve upon the gospel narratives. They imagine possibilities—interior postures that might have accompanied the same outward obedience. They do not claim that things happened this way. They ask whether faith could survive happening like this.

As with Abraham, the difficulty is not God’s command but God’s silence. The question is not whether Mary and Joseph believed, but what believing required them to relinquish: clarity, innocence, mutual transparency, even the comfort of being understood by one another.

If these musings trouble the reader, they have done their work. They are not offered to edify in the ordinary sense, but to unsettle—to restore to the Incarnation the weight it carried before it became familiar.

The reader is asked to linger, not to judge. To imagine, not to resolve. To stand where obedience has already been chosen, but meaning has not yet arrived.

Joseph Who Could Not Sleep

Joseph did not sleep that night.

Nor the next.

Sleep abandoned him as though it, too, had been commanded to depart.

He lay awake not because he did not believe Mary, but because he did.

If she had lied, there would have been a path—narrow, painful, but visible.

There would have been words to say, laws to cite, duties to perform.

Even sorrow, when named, can be endured.

But Mary spoke without defense.

She did not persuade.

She did not argue.

She spoke as one who had already relinquished the outcome.

Joseph knew the sound of truth.

That was the terror.

For if she spoke truly, then nothing would shield them.

Not righteousness.

Not mercy.

Not silence.

He was a just man, which meant that he knew exactly how ruin occurs—not suddenly, but carefully, with reasons.

He counted the costs as a carpenter counts measures.

Not in despair, but in precision.

He would lose standing.

He would lose trust.

He would lose the ease of ordinary obedience, where the law and the good align without remainder.

He did not fear God’s will.

He feared God’s manner.

When the dream came, it was not like comfort.

It was not light.

It was command.

“Do not be afraid,” the angel said, and Joseph understood at once that fear was precisely what obedience would require.

The dream did not explain Mary.

It did not explain the child.

It did not explain the village.

It explained only this: that Joseph was now implicated.

To take Mary would not justify him.

It would expose him.

To take Mary would not resolve the scandal.

It would carry it.

He rose before dawn and did not tell anyone what he had seen.

He did not ask whether faith ought to feel different.

He took Mary.

And in doing so, he crossed from righteousness that could be named

into obedience that could not.

Mary Who Waited

Mary waited.

She did not know for what, only that waiting had been given to her as a task.

The angel had departed.

The words remained.

She did not repeat them aloud.

Words spoken once in obedience do not require rehearsal.

She counted time not by days but by the space between footsteps outside the door.

Joseph would come.

Or he would not.

Both possibilities were already present within her.

If he came, she would have to watch his face for belief that could not be demanded.

If he did not, she would have to learn how solitude carries weight.

She did not imagine explanations.

Truth does not persuade when it appears too early.

What she carried was not only a child, but the end of ordinary expectation.

Nothing could be given back.

She remembered the moment of assent, not as courage, but as clarity that did not ask permission.

It had not occurred to her then that obedience would have a duration.

Now she learned that faith unfolds slowly, like a burden shifted from one place to another without relief.

She did not pray for Joseph’s faith.

She prayed only that she would not harden.

When Joseph came, she did not move to meet him.

Waiting, once learned, is not undone easily.

She let him choose.

And in that restraint, she accepted again what had already been accepted once:

that God’s nearness does not spare the obedient from loss.

Joseph Who Spoke No Word

Joseph took Mary into his home.

The village noticed.

It always does.

He did not explain himself, because explanations belong to those who expect to be understood.

He had obeyed.

Nothing more had been promised.

The angel did not return.

Faith, once commanded, does not linger to reassure.

Joseph learned that obedience has a sound, and it is quiet.

He worked.

He measured.

He cut wood to fit spaces that did not ask why.

At night, he lay awake beside Mary and listened to his own thoughts until they, too, grew tired.

He did not accuse her.

He did not absolve himself.

He wondered whether faith was meant to feel like loss, or whether loss was simply its shadow.

When neighbors spoke, he did not correct them.

Correction presumes that clarity is owed.

He knew what he had done.

That knowledge did not warm him.

He named the child as he had been told.

In the naming, there was no revelation—only obedience spoken aloud once, so it would not need to be spoken again.

Joseph never told Mary about the dream.

Some truths, once shared, seek comfort in return.

He had already given what was required.

Mary and Joseph Who Did Not Ask

They did not ask each other what they feared.

Not because fear was absent, but because it was already known.

Between them stood a knowledge neither could claim as their own.

It was not ignorance that separated them, but reverence.

Mary did not ask Joseph whether he had doubted her.

To ask would have been to ask him to defend himself.

Joseph did not ask Mary whether she had been afraid.

To ask would have been to seek a consolation that could not be given.

They learned to speak of ordinary things with care,

as though care itself were a form of faith.

The child grew between them, not as explanation, but as witness.

What had begun as command became habit.

What had been fear became watchfulness.

They protected one another by protecting the silence.

In time, the silence no longer felt empty.

It became weight-bearing.

They knew that love does not always arrive as intimacy.

Sometimes it arrives as restraint.

And in that restraint, they remained faithful—not because they understood,

but because they had already said yes in different ways, and neither consent could be undone.

_____________________

Afterword

Many possibilities remain untouched.  Four vignettes is barely a start.

Joseph is given dreams—more than one.

He is warned, redirected, displaced.

And yet he is never told what any of it means.

The vignettes attend to some varying possibilities of his obedience, his silence, his restraint, and his shared faithfulness with Mary. They do not follow him into the question raised by Matthew’s narrative: that God speaks to Joseph repeatedly, but only enough to require action, never enough to grant understanding.

Each dream is brief.

Each dream is urgent.

Each dream demands movement.

“Take the child.”

“Flee.”

“Return.”

“Withdraw.”

God addresses Joseph as one trusted with responsibility, not as one invited into interpretation. The speech is precise and functional. It solves the problem at hand and no more. It does not explain Herod. It does not interpret danger. It does not disclose why this child must grow up as a refugee, or why obedience must repeatedly undo itself.

Joseph becomes a man who hears God only when survival requires obedience. Meaning is always deferred.

This is not divine silence, but something more exacting: revelation without disclosure. God intervenes in Joseph’s life without narrating himself. Faith is sustained not by clarity, but by repeated displacement—each obedience provisional, each resolution temporary.

Joseph is never released into understanding. He is rerouted.

In this, he stands close to Abraham, who hears God’s command but not God’s reasoning. Yet Joseph’s trial is not concentrated on a mountain; it is extended across years. The knife is never raised, but the ground keeps shifting beneath his feet.

If there is a final, unspoken possibility, it is this: that Joseph’s truest faith is not found in any single act of obedience, but in his willingness to begin again each time God’s word unsettles what had just been secured.

The dreams do not make Joseph certain.

They make him available.

And perhaps this, too, belongs to the offense of the Incarnation: that God enters history not by explaining himself, but by entrusting his vulnerability to a man who must act without ever being told why.

______________________

A Comment by Johannes de Silentio

One might think that nothing more could be said about obedience once Abraham has ascended Moriah. And yet here obedience descends—into houses, into sleeplessness, into waiting, into silence that must be shared.

What is striking is not that these possibilities imagine Mary and Joseph inwardly, but that they refuse to let inwardness become consolation. There is no inward triumph here, no secret harmony by which obedience justifies itself. Instead, inwardness is shown to be weight-bearing, and therefore dangerous.

The author insists—quietly, relentlessly—that faith does not clarify life but complicates it. One obeys, and then one must still live. This is the difficulty modern readers wish to avoid, preferring either the heroic leap or the moral explanation. Here we are given neither.

Joseph, especially, is not treated as a secondary character or a moral example, but as a man whose righteousness becomes unintelligible the moment it is fulfilled. This is deeply unsettling. For if righteousness cannot be named once it has been enacted, then how is one to recognize it at all? The author offers no answer, which is precisely the point.

Mary, too, is spared the false honor of certainty. Her assent does not protect her from duration. That obedience should last—this is perhaps the sharpest insight in the whole. Faith is not only a moment, but a time one must endure without explanation. Many can say yes; few can remain faithful to having said it.

The repeated emphasis on silence may mislead some readers. It is not silence as absence that troubles this text, but silence as restraint. These figures are not mute because they have nothing to say, but because speech would demand a reciprocity that faith cannot guarantee. Silence here is ethical before it is psychological.

One is tempted to ask whether this portrayal risks portraying God as evasive or cruel. But that question belongs to ethics, not faith. Faith begins precisely where such questions fail to secure an answer. The author knows this, and therefore refuses to defend God.

Most unsettling of all is the portrayal of revelation. God speaks, yes—but speaks only to move bodies, never to settle meaning. Dreams command, but do not console. Obedience is repeatedly required, but never crowned with understanding. This is a God who entrusts responsibility without explanation, and who withdraws just enough to make faith possible.

The comparison with Abraham is apt, but incomplete in a revealing way. Abraham’s trial is singular and climactic; Joseph’s is serial and domestic. Abraham walks three days toward a mountain; Joseph lives years inside displacement. The knife does not descend, but the ground never stops shifting.

One might object that such a portrayal risks emptying the Incarnation of joy. But the author is not denying joy; he is refusing to purchase it cheaply. If there is joy here, it arrives not as insight, but as fidelity sustained without insight.

These musings will trouble readers who wish faith to be either intelligible or inspiring. They will trouble them precisely because they leave faith where it belongs: in the hands of those who must act without knowing why, and who must begin again each time obedience unsettles what had seemed secure.

Whether this is comforting is beside the point.

Faith was never meant to be.

_____________________

Marginal Gloss (For the Reader) by Anonymous 

Reader—do not hurry.

If you read these pages seeking insight, you will miss what is being asked of you. Insight belongs to those who can step back. Faith belongs to those who cannot.

You may be tempted to admire Joseph. Resist this. Admiration is a way of keeping distance. What is being shown here is not a model to imitate, but a difficulty you would prefer not to share.

Notice how often obedience precedes understanding, and how rarely understanding follows. If this troubles you, ask yourself whether you have mistaken faith for explanation.

You will also notice that no one here argues with God. This is not because argument is forbidden, but because argument presumes that God is obliged to respond. Faith begins when that presumption fails.

Do not ask whether these things happened this way. That question protects you. Ask instead whether you could remain faithful if they felt this way.

If you cannot, then do not condemn Joseph. He is not here to reassure you.

And if you can, be careful. You may discover that obedience, once chosen, does not end—but must be chosen again, without promise that it will ever make sense.

Read slowly.

What is at stake is not interpretation, but availability.

____________________

A Contrary Comment by Anti-Climacus

One must ask whether this work, for all its restraint, has not still granted the reader too much shelter.

It insists on silence, obedience, and displacement—and yet it allows these to remain intelligible. The reader is permitted to recognize Joseph’s difficulty, to sympathize with Mary’s waiting, to admire their restraint. But faith, if it is what Fear and Trembling names, is not recognizable. It is not even admirable. It is absurd.

Here, obedience carries weight, yes—but it carries it with dignity. One can still say, “I see why Joseph did this.” That is already a concession. Abraham cannot be seen in this way without ceasing to be Abraham.

The danger is subtle. By rendering obedience narratively coherent, the author risks domesticating what should remain scandalous. Joseph’s suffering is portrayed as costly but meaningful; his silence as ethical rather than ridiculous; his displacement as tragic rather than absurd. But faith is not tragic. Tragedy still belongs to the ethical. Faith does not.

One may also question whether God here is allowed to be sufficiently terrifying. God commands, yes—but always in ways that preserve life, that make sense retroactively, that fit within a recognizably moral arc. The knife never falls; the child is saved; history moves forward. Where, then, is the offense that cannot be reconciled even in imagination?

Most concerning is the suggestion that faith can be sustained as “availability.” This is far too humane. Availability is a virtue one can cultivate, a posture one can recommend. Faith, by contrast, cannot be taught. It shatters the subject who receives it. It does not leave one capable of beginning again; it leaves one incapable of explaining why one continues at all.

The reader is still able to stand outside these vignettes and say, “This is difficult faith.” But faith is not difficult. Difficulty still belongs to reflection. Faith belongs to the absurd.

If this work truly wished to follow Fear and Trembling, it would leave the reader not troubled but undone—unable to decide whether Joseph is faithful or deluded, righteous or mad. As it stands, Joseph remains too sane, Mary too steady, obedience too survivable.

Perhaps this gentleness is deliberate. Perhaps the author fears that to go further would be to lose the reader entirely. But one must then admit that what is being offered is not faith in Kierkegaard’s sense, but a refined ethical seriousness wearing faith’s clothing.

That, too, has value. But it should not be confused with the offense that cannot be endured—only borne.