The Unstoried Man

I have a strange affinity to those that get the short end of the stick in the Bible. I feel bad for poor Thomas who does something completely reasonable he doubts it when his friends tell them that they have seen their dead friend alive. He has a little trouble believing that a dead person is alive and I have to say in his position I would have done the same thing. Dead people are by definition not alive. So he doubts the sanity of his friends and their wonderful fish tail of walking talking, breathing, eating, dead Savior, once he sees Jesus with his own eyes he makes a profound statement of belief, not to mention recognizing Jesus for who he really and truly is, that is God incarnate when he falls at Jesus' feet saying, "My Lord and my God." Also Church history tells us he was an amazing missionary to India bringing the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to there.

The Bible character whom I feel for today has an amazing set of names and not much else to his story. Joseph, aka Barsabbus, aka Justus. Here is what we know of "poor" Joe. He was with Jesus and the disciples from the time when John was baptizing until the day when Jesus was taken up from them. He was also a witness to the resurrection, I take that to mean he was with the disciples when Jesus appeared to them. He was one of the two people whose names were put forth to replace Judas among the 12 apostles. The lot did not fall to him. He was the one not chosen. He was the one left standing when everyone congratulated Matthias for being elected to be counted among the 12.

That is all we know of him. Christian tradition says he later became a bishop but little is known about him and his work. So we are left with Joe the man who was not chosen. Joe the man on whom the lot did not fall. Joe the one who was not an apostle. As I search the Internet for a pictorial depiction of this man there seem to be none. He is always a foot note under a picture of Matthias. Matthias is the one they chose and oh yeah there was this other guy, he was kind of cool, he has three names

I think when I get to "heaven" I will pull up a seat and let Joe tell me his story, since after all he has got be be better than the one recorded in the Bible.
Perhaps someday, I will be inspired to write his story for him and others like him. Kaza's supplement to the Bible where I give all these stories to all the storyless characters who show up as one liners in the Bible.

I will put it on my list of things I will write about when I become a writer.