The Jews were polygamist like many other Oriental peoples. Men of wealth and nobility married several wives and this custom was also followed by men of the poorer classes. In some cases the Jewish law made it mandatory. For instance, if a brother should die before leaving a wife and no posterity, his brother must mate her and bring a child to his deceased brother. Thus, even those who were content with one wife were often forced by circumstances to take another.
The family unity of Easterners is centered in the father. The mother’s side is unimportant. In a family there is only one father, many mothers and the children of all the mothers. In every case, in biblical genealogies, the name of the mother in polygamous families is given with that of her son. This fact explains why the name of the mother is often mentioned in connection with the kings of Israel and Judah. Even today in many Eastern countries where polygamy is still practiced, whenever a son is mentioned, reference is made to his mother as the one who gave birth to him, to distinguish her from other mothers of the family.
There is no doubt that Joseph had other wives. Matthew traces the genealogy of Jesus from Abraham to Joseph. The reference to Mary is to show that Jesus was born of her and not one of the other wives of Joseph. The brothers and sisters of Jesus who are mentioned in the Gospels were not Mary’s children, but children of Joseph by other wives. If they had been the children of Mary, Jesus being the eldest son would have asked them to take care of her. Instead, Jesus placed His mother in the care of John.
George M. Lamsa,
Ethnologist, Aramaic Language Expert
Gospel Light: Comments on the Teachings of Jesus
(compiled and adapted from pages 5, 6, 97, 98, 129)
A.J. Holman, Bible Publishers, 1939
The Patriarchs' Journal 
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August 21, 2011 at 11:33 am
Dr. William F. Luck, sr.
The burden of proof for the assertion of polygyny for a given person falls upon the person asserting. Beware of words such as “there is no doubt.” They often attempt with “word magic” to bear the burden of proof where there is insufficient reason for an assertion.
Lamsa’s arguments in favor of the polygyny of Joseph are neither strong nor accepted by hardly anyone.
1) Matthew’s reference to Mary in his genealogy has no necessary relationship to “other wives” any more than references to any given wife in any genealogy implies other wives for that man. If Mary were his only wife, how else would Matthew have made the point? In that genealogy for example, Rahab is mentioned but there is no evidence that Salmon was married to any other woman. Tamar is mentioned and we know that Judah had another wife. But there is no evidence that Tarmar married Judah subsequent to the events of her pregnancy. Thus we do not know that Judah was a polygynist by the fact that Tamar is mentioned. There aren’t even any Jewish legends of which I am aware that Judah was a polygynist. The psedepigraphical Protoengelium of James and the apocryphal History of Joseph the Carpenter both state that Joseph was aged and had children by an earlier wife who had died by the time that Mary came along, but there is no reason to believe their accounts insofar as there is no historical tie between those books and the real Joseph. I know of no manuscripts from antiquity which suggest that Joseph was a polygynist.
2) While it is true that, for example, the sons of David are specifically tied to the names of their mothers (e.g., 1 Chron. 3) that does not mean that every mention of a woman in a genealogy indicates another wife for the father. Sometimes the woman is mentioned because she was famous (or infamous) in her own right. There are numerous names of mother’s of kings of Judah and Israel for which we do not know that there was a sister wife. So too, the lack of the mention of another wife for a king does not prove that he was a monogamist. We may only assert what we have evidence for.
3) Neither does Jesus placing his mother in the care of John prove anything about Joseph’s matrimonial connections. Insofar as Jesus considered true believers and followers to be His real family (Luke 8:21), it is to be expected that He would put his mother in the care of one of His disciples rather than an unbelieving brother when she was bereft of Him under such traumatic circumstances. Remember that when Jesus spoke His words about His true family, His mother was with those brothers. Why? If they were not her children, why mention them as being with her. Was it not that she stood by them rather than going with Jesus because they were her children and she was concerned with their spiritual state? The text of Scripture does not note her being with them thereafter. I suspect that she was shamed by Jesus teaching on family and decided that following Him (thereafter) was more important than assuming that her presence with her other children was needed. Compare this to Jesus’ teaching that He had come to divide families and His harsh words to erstwhile disciples who wanted to stay an bury relatives (Luke 9:59) or even say “goodbye” (Luke 9:61).
In short, there is no sound basis for claiming that Joseph was a polygynist.
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August 21, 2011 at 2:31 pm
sandres2k8
Thank you for your comments, Dr. Luck. I always appreciate your insights.
What I find more interesting than whether or not Joseph was a polygamist is that:
(1) a man of such background and scholarship would even suggest that Joseph was, and
(2) a major Bible publishing house (Holman) would print a book with such an assertion in 1939, and that it would be later reprinted by Broadman & Holman, a Southern Baptist publishing house, in 1987, and
(3) that a book containing such an assertion would receive such endorsements as (a) John P. Harrington, famous linguist and ethnologist, and (b) The Christian Herald.
George Lamsa was a native Assyrian, born in Mar Bishu in what is now the extreme east of Turkey, which gave him the lifetime of preparation for his vocation as an ethnologist and linguistic of the region. As a native Aramaic speaker, he translated the Aramaic Peshitta Old and New Testaments into English.
Lamsa gave more language support for the issue of polygamy than I supplied in my abridged citations. Lamsa wrote in his forward, “These historic facts are the testimonies and writings of the eastern fathers and other writers from the earliest centuries to the present day. What is a fact needs no defense.”
John P. Harrington, the linguist and ethnologist scholar, wrote concerning his work, “Lamsa gives us the semantics of Semitics. … The Scriptures will constantly impress the reader of Lamsa’s fact-filled pages.”
The Christian Herald wrote that his work “makes plain the idioms, customs and manners of the peoples of the New Testament.”
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