Quite frankly, we would know very little about Saint Joseph if we only relied on the Gospel narratives: St Mark does not talk about him at all and St John mentions him only twice (Jn 1:45, 6:42). We need to remember that these two evangelists begin their account (after a prologue) at the beginning of Jesus' public life. Matthew and Luke, on the other hand, tell us about the childhood of Jesus, and thus they will be our privileged sources. But the 25 passages found in Luke and the 17 in Matthew give very few elements. We ignore everything about the place and time of St Joseph's birth and no words from his mouth have been transmitted to us. "Joseph, the spouse of Mary, of whom Jesus was born" (Mt 1:16).
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