The Protoevangelium of James

What this is about is how the virgin Mary came to be born and then on through the birth of Jesus.

Mary's father was on the old side and apparently there is a problem with any male who has not raised a family with at least one kid in it. It's even written down in a book. So he goes off into the desert for forty days and forty nights praying that his wife will have a child.

Meanwhile his wife is also feeling the pressure and thinks she's been cursed in some way. Anyhow, angels appear to her husband and her and give them the news that she will, indeed, have a child. The father is so happy he arranges for a celebratory sacrifice of 10 lambs, 12 calves and 100 goats.

Mary is then born and spends time from her third birthday on through her twelfth at the temple being taught. Now when she turns 12 the priests get upset because they are worried she will start her period and pollute the temple so they set up a plan to get her married off.

They get all the widowers together and give them staffs and tell them the one a dove lands on will get her as his wife (whether he wants a wife or not makes no difference.) Joseph is a pretty old man and doesn't really want to be involved but he has no choice and, of course, the dove lands on his head.

Instant plan for marriage but no actual marriage. So what does Joseph do?Takes off to build things. So as the story goes there's another angel, this one telling Mary you're going to have a kid without having sex with Joseph.

Joseph finally returns, finds out she's pregant, gets really angry but is calmed down.

There's a few things that don't make sense such as these quotes:

'And I Joseph was walking and was not walking.'

'Those that were eating did not eat.'

'I saw the sheep walking and the sheep stood.'

What gets more interesting is how the author of the book that this James text is in doesn't seem to care much for apocryphal writings. (Which is what this texts is.) He calls them legend mongers, absurdness, embellishment, modification, spurious acts and so on. So if he dislikes writings like this so much why did he write a book about that kind of writing?