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I must be getting old, because I don't think I could handle the masses of middle America thronging about me on anything but a nominal dose.
-- Bakunin
The One I Feel Sorry For Is Joses
2002-04-28 13:53:39
We've had a lot of Jesus coverage lately here at the PDJ. But let's face it, we're not exactly cutting-edge in this subject area. Jesus has been making headlines for, oh, I guess it's a couple thousand years now. Jesus is a very strong brand. Jesus has a lot of mindshare.
But how many of you knew that Jesus had a little brother named Joses? That's right. Joses. Doomed to an eternity of obscurity and neglect because his vowels just don't measure up.
Joses gets one mention in the Bible, and it's actually right before one of the more famous lines, the one about "a prophet is not without honor, except in his own country." What prompts Jesus to say that is that he's preaching in his old neighborhood and everyone's like, what the fuck - we know this guy, and he isn't that great. Specifically, they say: "Where did this man get all this?...Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?" That's Mark 6.3, folks, and it's the last you'll hear of Joses.
Joses. Poor guy. Talk about being overshadowed by an elder sibling. There's someone who'll just never carve out a niche of his own. At least Simon was the baby of the family, presumably, and James and Judas shared their names with famous people. So Joses is the one that really sticks out for me.
I bet he loved his brother and all. But that Son of God business must've always stood between them. I have a half-brother who, when we were kids, liked to disown our relationship by saying "Half a television won't work. Half a brother isn't a brother." Then he would tear the heads off my Barbies and flush them down the toilet.
Goddamn, I hate that bully Jesus!
So, I dunno, just spare a thought for Joses every now and then. Maybe when you're real mad and going to say "Oh, for Jesus' sake," you could try saying "for Joses' sake." Not all the time, but every once in a while. It'd be a real nice gesture.
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