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Well, Joseph must be going just about crazy with how directly God is coming into his life, but he seems to go along with everything the angels tell him. Surely he must have a very strong sense that Mary is a particularly special woman who is deeply loved by God, in order to bear His Son.

Why couldn't the same be said about Joseph? He was visited by angels and honored by God to be the surrogate father of the son of God. He is called a "rightous man" in scripture. Would God entrust the infant Jesus to just any man? Clearly Joseph had to me more than just a mere man. Surely Mary must have known that he was a special man, deeply loved by God, in order to be father to the son of God.

Another point...in order to be our sacrifice, Christ had to live like a man. He had to experience the same temptations as anyone else. Would sibling rivalry be a temptation he would have to go through to be an effective intercessor? Does any human have parents who never have had sexual relations? The answer is obviously "no"...unless you're a test tube baby.

I so agree with you that Joseph had to be a special man, and I believe he was, and that God gave him special graces to endure the rigors of parenting the Son of God, and special graces to be the husband of Mary.

As far as sibling rivalry goes, that's a good one! It is my understanding from Catholic tradition that where it talks about Jesus' brothers and sisters, that there was not a word in Aramaic to denote a close relative, such as a step- brother or sister or even first cousins. Herod's strange family is referred to in the same way, and his "siblings" are shown through history to be step-siblings. By contrast, when Elizabeth is described as a cousin of Mary' she is actually a distantly related cousin, such as second or third cousin to Mary.

Either way it looks like Jesus was probably subject to the idea of sibling rivalry.

As far as whether or not any human has ever had parents who did not have sexual relations, I think Jesus qualifies. The rest of us, no.