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Joseph

Prostration to God and Humans—A Biblical Practice

Falling face-down on the ground, with hands and feet outstretched, was a common gesture of honor and respect in the Bible. Why is prostration only performed today on the High Holidays?

Prof. Rabbi

Marty Lockshin

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The New Pharaoh Revokes Joseph’s Patronage of the Israelites

Joseph sustains his family from the official Egyptian storehouses, unlike the Egyptian population, whose produce and livestock were taxed by a fifth, and who were forced into corvée labor to keep from starving. Then a new king arose who did not honor that agreement.

Prof.

Ziony Zevit

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Potiphar and His Wife Desire Joseph

“Now Joseph was well-built and handsome”—Genesis 39:7

Prof. Rabbi

Rachel Adelman

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Judah’s Speech to Joseph: The Subtext

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?

Avram Friedman

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Joseph and Asenath

A text from Hellenistic Egypt (ca. 100 B.C.E. to 100 C.E.) tells a romantic story of Joseph and Asenath’s courtship. Initially, Asenath rejects Joseph, but then falls in love with him, only to have Joseph reject her because she is the daughter of an Egyptian priest. It’s only after she repents and changes her allegiance to Israel’s God that Joseph marries her.

Prof.

Patricia D. Ahearne-Kroll

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Pharaoh’s Dreams and the Mirroring of Joseph’s Inner Life

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

Prof.

Meira Polliack

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Pharaoh and Joseph Speak of a Common God to Save Egypt

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.

Prof.

Safwat Marzouk

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Joseph Dreams that the Sun, Moon and Stars Bow to Him – Does It Come True?

Jacob berates Joseph when he hears his second dream: “Are we to come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow to you?” (Genesis 37:10) Rachel, his mother, was dead. What then did the dream mean?

Dr.

Mordecai David Rosen

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Joseph and the Famine: The Story’s Origins in Egyptian History

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 affected the entire Mediterranean.

Prof.

Israel Knohl

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Why the Joseph Story Portrays Egypt Positively

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.

Prof.

Susan Niditch

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Joseph Interprets Pharaoh’s Dreams — An Israelite Type-922 Folktale

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.

Prof.

Susan Niditch

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Torah in Translation: Rendering the Story of Joseph in English

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.

Prof.

Everett Fox

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Why the Sages Add Titles to Biblical Personalities

A rose by any other name

Dr.

Malka Z. Simkovich

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Joseph in Custody: Enslaved or Imprisoned

Joseph, sold by two different groups (Midianites and Ishmaelites), seems to have been bought by two different men (Potiphar, captain of the guard, and an unnamed Egyptian man), leading to two discrete storylines, each of which place Joseph in a different position when he meets the cupbearer and the baker.

Dr. Rabbi

Zev Farber

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Jacob’s Multiple Death Scenes

Bringing Parashat Vayechi to Life

Dr. Rabbi

Zev Farber

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The Joseph Story: Ancient Literary Art at Its Best

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.

Prof.

Gary Rendsburg

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Is the Recent Antipathy to Joseph Justified?

Contemporary abuse of a once popular biblical hero.

Prof.

Alan T. Levenson

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Joseph: The Making of a Prophet

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.

Dr.

Jason Tron

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The Historical and Literary Complexity of the Joseph Story

The story of Joseph as a young man (Genesis 37-40) is full of contradictions and doublets, and is interrupted by the story of Tamar and Judah (Genesis 38). Beyond that, hovering in the background is the question: how can the spoiled youth, his father’s favorite, become the prudent leader and savior of his family?

Prof.

Athalya Brenner-Idan

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Joseph and the Dreams of Many Colors

Understanding the practice of dream interpretation in the Joseph story by using the ANE interpretive traditions as background.

Prof.

Jack M. Sasson

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Why the Brothers Hate Joseph

A background fraught with favoritism

Prof.

Alan T. Levenson

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Primeval Coats

Clothing, beginning with Joseph’s coat, functions both as a marker of distinction and as the source of undoing in the Joseph story. Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer adds layers of history to this coat: it is the original garments made from the sloughed skin of the serpent that God gave to Adam and Eve, which was then worn by Nimrod, Esau, and Jacob. Midrash Tanchuma claims it to be the (future) High Priest’s tunic.

Prof. Rabbi

Rachel Adelman

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Why Is Esau’s Kiss Dotted?

Esau’s kiss to Jacob is written with scribal dots over the word וַׄיִּׄשָּׁׄקֵ֑ׄהׄוּׄ, “and he kissed him.” Traditional commentators suggest this hints to Esau’s feelings or state of mind. Critical scholarship, however, points to something much more prosaic, a question of syntax.

Prof.

Albert I. Baumgarten

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The Conclusion of Parashat Miketz: Jacob’s Suspicion and the Brothers’ Choice

Why the rabbis ended Parashat Miketz 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.

Dr.

Miryam Brand

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Is the Torah a Pentateuch or Hexateuch?

Does the Torah end with Deuteronomy or Joshua? The answer depends on whether we view the Torah as a law collection or as a narrative about a promise fulfilled.

Prof.

Marc Zvi Brettler

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Judah Recognizes Joseph: The Hidden Factor Behind his Speech

Prof.

B. Barry Levy

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Our Mummified Patriarchs: Jacob and Joseph

How was ancient mummification carried out? What does it say about Jacob and Joseph that their remains were handled in accordance with Egyptian burial practices?

Dr.

Rachel P. Kreiter

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Breaking the Heifer’s Neck: A Bloodless Ritual for an Unsolved Murder

If a corpse is found in a field, and the killer is unknown, Deuteronomy 21 requires the elders of the closest city to break a heifer’s neck by a stream and declare that they did not spill “this blood.” How does this ritual of eglah arufah, “broken-necked heifer,” atone for Israel’s bloodguilt?

Dr.

Yitzhaq Feder

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What Did Joseph Want from His Brothers?

Joseph reveals himself only when Judah acknowledges the pain the brothers caused to their father.

Prof. Rabbi

David R. Blumenthal

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A Tale of Twelve Brothers

The historical symbolism of the twelve tribes and the geographical significance of the tribe of Benjamin.

Prof.

Yigal Levin

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Was the Joseph Story Written in Egypt During the Persian Period?

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?

Dr.

Shirly Ben-Dor Evian

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