Joseph of Nazareth appears in the New Testament only in the birth and childhood narratives of Jesus, and there almost entirely in the Gospel of Matthew. He is described as a tekton, a craftsman, traditionally rendered carpenter, of the line of David, betrothed to Mary, and it is through him that both Matthew and Luke trace Jesus' Davidic descent, though their genealogies differ.
Matthew tells the story from Joseph's side: learning of Mary's pregnancy and resolving to divorce her quietly, he is reassured in a dream by an angel, takes her as his wife, names the child, and is warned in further dreams to flee with mother and child into Egypt from Herod and later to settle in Nazareth. Luke, telling the story from Mary's side, places Joseph at the census journey to Bethlehem and at the presentation of the child in the Temple.
After the episode of the twelve-year-old Jesus in the Temple, Joseph vanishes from the record. He is never mentioned during Jesus' public ministry, and the tradition has generally inferred that he had died by then. The Gospels report no word spoken by him; he is a figure known entirely through his obedient actions.