Joses

Joses is a personal name borne by two distinct figures in the New Testament: a physical brother of Jesus, named alongside James, Judas, and Simon at Nazareth and again at the cross and tomb of Mark; and a Levite whom the apostles surnamed Barnabas. Mark is the only Gospel within the in-scope UPDV text that names the brother Joses, and he names him three times — once in the Nazareth list and twice in the passion narrative as the son of one of the women at the crucifixion.

The Brother of Jesus at Nazareth

The Nazareth scene supplies the only home-village notice of Joses. The townspeople, scandalized at Jesus' teaching, list his family by name: "Isn't this the son of the carpenter and Mary, and the brother of James, and Joses, and Judas, and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us? And they were offended in him" (Mark 6:3). Joses stands second in the four-name list of brothers, between James and Judas. The verse is the only place in the in-scope UPDV that pairs Joses' name with the carpenter's household, and it is the one place that explicitly identifies him as a brother of Jesus.

At the Cross and the Tomb

The passion narrative names Joses twice, never directly but always through his mother. Among the women watching the crucifixion from a distance, Mark identifies "Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses": "And there were also women watching from far: among whom [were] both Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the less and of Joses, and Salome" (Mark 15:40). The same woman returns at the burial, again identified by the name of her son: "And Mary Magdalene and Mary the [mother] of Joses looked at where he was laid" (Mark 15:47). In both verses Joses is not present; he is the patronymic anchor by which his mother is distinguished from the other Marys in the scene. The cross-reference back to Mark 6:3 is what supplies the identification: the Mary at the cross is the mother of James and Joses, and the brothers at Nazareth are James and Joses; the same two names tie the women at the cross to the family at the home village.

The Other Joses: Barnabas

A second Joses is identified as a Levite, surnamed Barnabas by the apostles, but the verse that carries that identification (Acts 4:36) lies outside the in-scope UPDV text and is not quoted here. The figure himself is treated under Barnabas, where the name "Joses" survives only as the apostolic surnaming-narrative, not as the name by which the New Testament otherwise calls him.