Connections

FOURTH CLASS

THE JOSEPH STORY

PROLOGUE TO EXODUS

As for you, you meant evil against me; but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.

GENESIS 50:20

QUICK NOTES FROM PREVIOUS CLASSES:

1. All history is remembered in favor of or in light of the author’s perspective.

2. People do their own thing, God makes the best of it (again and again).

FOURTH CLASS: GENESIS 37-50 THE JOSEPH STORY

BACKGROUND:

1. Likely it was written during the reign of Solomon, after years of oral tradition.

2. Story so faithfully mirrors customs, laws, and language which prevailed in Egyptian society in the times before Moses that it must have been handed down from those who knew the historical situation in the Delta region very well.

3. Embellishments: Potiphar’s wife attempting to seduce, then accusing Joseph, mirrors many typical stories of indiscreet woman incriminating a man who refuses her advances. There was a particular story in Egyptian lit. that parallels this (except the ending), “The Two Brothers.”

4. Likely at least somewhat true, historical. (See attached chronology of Egypt).

5. Pharaoh Akhnaton (c.1364-1347)’s tomb has murals depicting a Semite (“Tutu”) in a high position, wearing gold chain (GEN 41:42), riding in Pharaoh’s chariot with people bowing down to him and calling him, “Superior voice in the whole country, and receiving foreign delegations. Joseph? At least there is evidence that Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt was not unheard of.

6. There is evidence that the Pharaohs allowed hunger-stricken people from Palestine and the Sinai peninsula to enter the Delta frontier.

7. There is a period of history (c. 1720-1552BC) when the rulers, being of Semitic background, were favorable to the “abiru” (Hebrew) people and the capital was in Avaris during those years. That seems to be where Pharaoh’s capital was in the Joseph story.

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THEOLOGICAL PURPOSE:

The story affirms that affairs are not governed by the evil designs of men, or by the economic stresses that led to Jacob’s migration to Egypt, but by the overruling providence of God, who makes all things serve his purpose.