[1] The main source of biographical information on Joseph is the Book of Chastity of Isho'dnah of Basra, written a century or so after his death.
He requested to be baptized and was freed by his owner in order to enter the monastery of Abba Sliba as a novice.
He then became the abbot of the local monastery of Mar Bassima, before moving to Mount Zinai in Adiabene to resume the life of a hermit.
[5] He was the first to synthesise the three contemplations of the Hellenistic scholar Evagrius Ponticus (4th-century) with the tripartite division of the Syriac John of Apamea (5th century).
He also supposedly slipped into Messalianism, claiming that a gmirā (person who had achieved perfection) did not need prayer, the office, scripture reading or manual labour.