"Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."
—Matthew 5:16

~Name: Joseph Seed
~Title: The Father
~Age: 44
~Height: 6'1"
~Weight: 165lbs
~Hair/Eye color: Brown || Blue.

Joseph truly believes that he was chosen by God, and that he was told of the coming end of the world. His goal is to protect his followers, or "children" from the coming end and lead them to "Eden's gate."
Joseph is shown to be a psychopath, having no problem killing, torturing and looting to advance his project. Despite this, he has shown mercy on the player numerous times, even after the player kills his entire family, even offering them the chance to walk away. He is also shown to have some measure of humanity, as he breaks down emotionally following the death of his entire family, and the actor Greg Bryk has himself stated that one of the primary aspects he channeled into the character was empathy. In this sense, one could claim that Joseph Seed has plenty of empathy, albeit very misplaced empathy. He is calm in dire situations, and is very charismatic, leading to his rise to power, convincing numerous people to join him. He may actually have some sort of supernatural powers, as is shown with his prediction of the nuclear explosion (although he may have been at fault) and his quote "sometimes it's best to leave well enough alone" in the secret ending, which was a direct quote from Whitehorse while approaching in the helicopter.
According to The Book of Joseph, Joseph first heard from the Voice while he was being beaten by his father for reading a Spiderman comic. The second time Joseph heard the voice was after John had been beaten. Afterwards, the Seed family was separated and placed into foster care. He passed through several foster families during his adolescence and found it difficult to connect with his classsmates and siblings, living life as a lonely orphan. The Voice's message would accompany Joseph during this period.

As a young man, Joseph squatted in a old packing plant in his hometown as he searched for his brothers, working as a bellhop in the meantime. During this time, he would also become deeply interested in religion in an attempt to understand the Voice. Later, he would move to Atlanta in search for John and found work as a garbage collector. In many of his jobs, he was fired for talking about the Voice. Later on, he took on the position as a caretaker in a psychiatric hospital. One night as he went to the hospital for the late shift, he was mugged by three men and it was then that the Voice contacted him for the final time. The Voice gave him a vision of the apocalypse and the "punishment" that would be inflicted upon the world.
After recruiting his two brothers into his Vision, Joseph began to preach out of a former slaughterhouse in Rome, Georgia, eventually building up a considerable congregation of the marginalized in society. However, following the disappearance of a man who had been kicked out of Eden's Gate, the police interrogated and accused the Seeds of being behind the man's disappearance. After that the Seeds then moved to Hope County with their following.

He had a wife and a daughter, both of which were involved in some type of car accident while traveling to see a friend. During the accident his wife was killed, leaving him with only his infant daughter. When he was in the hospital he says they handed him a pink bundle filled with tubes (his daughter). While in a room alone with his daughter Joseph believes that that's when God told him about the end of the world and to start Eden's Gate. He then killed his daughter by pinching the plastic tube attached to her face shut to prove his willingness to "serve God no matter what he asks.”