JOSEPH THE PATRIARCH: Oldest son of Jacob and Rachel. The name "Joseph" (Hebr. Yoseph) was probably originally Joseph-el, "may God add" (Gen. xxx. 24; see JACOB).
In considering the historical value of the tradition
of Joseph, the references to Egypt, its customs,
manners, etc., are of especial importance.
Modern investigation of the monuments
has explained and justified the
recital. While formerly many scholars
thought to find in Joseph's story
erroneous statements of Egyptian
conditions, Hengstenberg and the Egyptologists
Ebers and Brugsch have shown that the story is
almost entirely concordant with the monuments
of Egypt. Caravan trade was carried on by
the Arabs from the most remote times between
Syria, Palestine, and the country of the Nile; precisely
the three spices mentioned in Gen. xxxvii. 25
(cf. xliii. 11)
were always staple articles of commerce
between Gilead and Egypt; the caravan
route, after crossing the Jordan at Beth-shan, passed
by Dothan; there was a good market for young
slaves in Egypt; Potiphar bears a genuine Egyptian
name ("devoted to Ra"); such stewardships
as that with which Joseph was entrusted by Potiphar
appear frequently in the Egyptian inscriptions
and on the monuments; the scene between Joseph
and Potiphar's wife is practically duplicated in a
story preserved in the D'Orbiney Papyrus ("The
Tale of Two Brothers"), written down for Seti II.
when he was crown prince (cf. H. Brugsch, Aus
dem Orient, Berlin, 1864, pp. 7 sqq.; Eng. transl. in
W. M. F. Petrie, Egyptian Tales, London, 1894-95;
cf. A. H. Sayce, Higher Criticism and the Monuments,
London, 1894); dreams were matters of intense
interest in Egypt; the two court officials of
Gen. xl. 1
appear as representatives of the court butlers
and the court bakers, even the title "chief of the
bakers" has been found; an illustration of the
dream of the court baker is given in a representation
of the court bakery of Rameses III. (J. G.
Wilkinson, Manners and Customs of the
Ancient Egyptians, ii. 385, London, 1837), wherein a
load of freshly baked bread on a board or mat
(elsewhere a basket, Wilkinson, ii. 393) is borne
away on the head; according to the Rosetta stone
and the Decree of Canopus, Egyptian kings on
their birthdays were accustomed to issue amnesties;
the double dream of the Pharaoh (Gen. xli.) is
thoroughly Egyptian; the very words ye'or, "stream"
(=Nile) and ahu, "reed-grass," are Egyptian; the
number seven was significant in the land; the kine,
that is, the good and the lean years, quite properly
come up out of the stream which was the object of
divine honors as the fructifier of the entire country;
the cow is symbolical of Isis-Hathor, the female
principle of fertility, and therefore especially appropriate
for the representation of the productivity
of the land; the "magicians" of
chap. xli. 8
correspond to the sacred scribes who, besides devoting
themselves to the arts of writing, mensuration, and
astronomy, were also entrusted with the task of
explaining portents; the shaving of the hair and
the changing of clothing on the occasion of an appearance
before the Pharaoh (Gen. xli. 14) was required
by ancient Egyptian custom, while among
the Israelites baldness was regarded as an infirmity;
the ceremonies accompanying the conferral of
his new dignities upon Joseph (Gen. xli. 42) are all
faithfully represented on the monuments; the cry
abrech ( 232
natural conditions, and the Amarna Tablets record
that Canaan imported corn from Egypt (cf. H.
Brugsch, Die biblischen sieben Jahre der Hungersnot,
Leipsic, 1891; Sayce, ut sup., pp. 217-218).
Since Egypt was the great producer of wheat, the
Semitic tribes in times of scarcity naturally migrated
thither, where they were not seldom received
with justifiable suspicion
(xlii. 9). The settlement
of the Hebrews in the land of Goshen (q.v.) is in
accord with the conditions, since this territory had
for a long time been the resort of invading Semites
and was adapted to the nomadic manner of life.
Finally, the embalming of Joseph and the seventy
days mourning for him
(l. 1 sqq.) are thoroughly
Egyptian. Taking all these facts together, it is
impossible to escape the conviction which Ebers
expresses: "The whole of Joseph's history, even
in its smallest details, must be regarded as in accord
with the actual conditions in Egypt." To be
sure, this general agreement with Egyptian conditions
and manners does not of itself positively establish
the historic character of the recital; but the
assertion that the author or compiler was not familiar
with Egyptian conditions is equally pure assumption.
It is true that several things, especially the
mention of the "Land of Rameses"
(Gen. xlvii. 11),
a name which could scarcely have been used
before the nineteenth dynasty, make it unlikely
that Joseph's story is from a nearly contemporaneous
source. It seems probable that the account
was written about the time of the Exodus (A. H.
Sayce, ut sup., pp. 212-213).
The determination of the period of Egyptian history to which the Hebrew immigration belongs depends upon the relations of the Hebrews with the Hyksos. Josephus' supposition (Apion, i. 14) that this nomadic people of Semitic race was identical with the Hebrews does not agree with the modest position the Hebrews occupied in the land according to the Biblical narrative. But Joseph's activity must have fallen in the Hyksos period. The 430 (or 400) years of the Egyp tian bondage (Ex. xii. 40; Gen. xv. 13), even if the Exodus took place under Merneptah and certainly if it took place earlier, point to that period. Georgius Syncellus gives Aphophis as the name of the Pharaoh of the Exodus, that is, the Apepi of the monuments, who, according to Brugsch, reigned shortly before the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty. To this time belongs also, in the opinion of Brugsch, the famine of many years mentioned in his Geschichte Aegyptens, pp. 243 sqq. The Hyksos kings may have been as anxious to attract Semitic settlers as the first rulers of the New Empire (eighteenth dynasty) were to hold them aloof or to oppress them. The darkness, however, which enshrouds the period of the Hyksos, especially the ruthless destruction of their monuments by a later dynasty, may have obliterated all definite information of Joseph and his family. In general, in the memory of the Egyptians, this tribe was confused with the other Semitic inhabitants of the Delta, and consequently separate features of the history of Joseph and Moses appear confusedly interwoven with other events in Egyptian tradition. Among Jews and Mohammedans the tale of Joseph's fate was especially fancied, and it has been embellished with much legendary matter, especially by the Mohammedans (cf. Koran, surah xii.).
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