"Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult"

The former Alabama Supreme Court chief justice had been well-known for years for his Christian nationalist stances, including refusing to remove a Ten Commandments monument he'd erected in the state judicial building, his hardline comments on same-sex marriage and transgender rights, and more recently his suggestion that the last time America was "great again" was when there was slavery. Corfman's story was only the beginning, as nine women in total came forward saying Moore had pursued them romantically when they were teenagers. Moore and his allies pushed back hard against the flood of accusations against him — but in some surprising and questionable ways. Some even argued that the age gap between Moore and the girls wasn't necessarily wrong. "Take the Bible. Zachariah and Elizabeth for instance. Zachariah was extremely old to marry Elizabeth and they became the parents of John the Baptist," Alabama State Auditor Jim Zeigler told the Washington Examiner. "Also take Joseph and Mary. Mary was a teenager and Joseph was an adult carpenter. They became parents of Jesus."

[npr.org]