The epistles of St Paul are the oldest extant writings. These mention Jesus' mother (without naming her), but do not refer to his foster father. The Book of Mark, believed to be the first gospel to be written and with a date about two decades after Paul, also does not mention Jesus' legal father. The first appearance of St Joseph is in the gospels of St Matthew and St Luke, written from around 80 - 90 AD. Each contains a genealogy of Jesus showing ancestry from King David, but through different sons; St Matthew follows the royal line from Solomon, while St Luke traces another line back to Nathan, another son of David and Bathsheba. Consequently, all the names between David and Joseph are different. Like the two differing genealogies, the infancy narratives appear only in St Matthew and St Luke and take different approaches to reconciling the prophecy that the Messiah be born in Bethlehem with the tradition that Jesus in fact came from Nazareth. In the Gospel of St Matthew, ...

In psychology and logic, rationalization (also known as making excuses) is a defense mechanism in which controversial behaviors or feelings are justified and explained in seemingly rational or logical manner to avoid the merits of the true explanation, and are made consciously tolerable (or even admirable or superior) by plausible means. It is also considered an informal fallacy of reasoning. Rationalization happens in two steps: A decision, action, judgment is made for a given reason or no (known) reason at all. A rationalization is performed, constructing a seemingly good or logical reason, as an attempt to justify the act after the fact (for oneself or others). Rationalization encourages irrational or unacceptable behavior, motives, or feelings and often involves ad hoc hypothesizing. This process ranges from fully conscious (e.g. to present an external defense against ridicule from others) to mostly unconscious (e.g. to create a block against internal feelings of guilt ...