During the reign of Pharaoh Siptah, Egypt had a powerful vizier from the Levant named Baya, who dominated even the Pharaoh. Archaeological records and climatological studies show that this was right in the middle of a lengthy famine that effected the entire Mediterranean.

In the Joseph story, the Egyptian officials, including Pharaoh, are kind and wise. Joseph himself  shaves his beard, puts on Egyptian clothes, takes an Egyptian name, and marries the daughter of an Egyptian priest. Nothing in the text implies that the author thinks any of this is problematic.

The story of Joseph in Pharaoh’s court (Genesis 41), like the story of Daniel in Nebuchadnezzar’s court (Daniel 2), is a Thompson Type 922 folktale in which an underdog gains his fortune by answering hard questions that elude his superiors. Paradoxically, viewing the story of Joseph through the lens of folklore studies allows us to appreciate the uniqueness of Israelite cultural religious orientation.

The Joseph story invites the reader to be transported to Egypt itself through the inclusion of Egyptian words, proper names, and customs; to analyze the unsurpassed use of repetition with variation; and to enter the mind of the character (in this case, especially Pharaoh) through the use of interior monologue.

The Torah is silent about the nature of Joseph’s dreams: What do they mean?  Do they come from God? This ambiguity is part of the literary artistry of the story, which relates Joseph’s “coming of age” as a prophet.

Why the rabbis ended Parashat Mikketz with a cliffhanger (in both the Babylonian and the Eretz-Yisraeli traditions), and what the Ancient Near Eastern legal context of “evidence law” can clarify for us about the background of the story.

Historical Symbolism and the Position of the Tribe of Benjamin