After Joseph’s goblet is found in Benjamin’s sack, Judah makes a passionate speech to save Benjamin, in which he claims that if Benjamin leaves his father, “he will die.” Who will die? Why does the Torah phrase this so ambiguously?

“I'll let you be in my dreams if I can be in yours” ― Bob Dylan

Before speaking with Pharaoh, Joseph adapts to Egyptian norms by shaving and changing his clothes. When he interprets Pharaoh’s dream, he only uses the generic word for God, Elohim, making no mention of YHWH. Pharaoh, in turn, declares Joseph to be wise and a man with the spirit of God, and puts aside Joseph’s ethnic and socio-economic background, appointing him viceroy to save Egypt from the pending famine.

Translating the Torah from Hebrew into a different language is a huge challenge: What is the right balance between composing a text that reads smoothly while capturing the flavor of its original language? When I translated the Torah and the Early Prophets, I navigated this tension in favor of keeping the Hebrew flavor.

God tells Jacob, “I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you back” (Gen 46:4), a reassurance intended to speak to readers in the exilic period.

Contemporary abuse of a once popular biblical hero.

A Surprising Perspective

Egyptologists have long searched the details of the Joseph story for clues to when the story was written. Does the Jewish experience as a diaspora community in Egypt hold the clue to the story’s origin?

The names and numbers of Jacob’s descendants differ between the Masoretic Text (MT) and the Septuagint (LXX). Which tradition is more original, and what prompted the change?