Supplemental Reading for Week: Daniel 5.
The last chapters of Genesis are about Joseph and set the stage for the birth of the nation of Israel. Here are a couple of questions to consider this week.
- What do you think of Joseph initially? Who is he within the family, and how do you react to what he says and does, what is said and done to him?
- Do you see any changes in Joseph as the story progresses?
- Are you curious to continue reading beyond chapter 42 to see how everything comes out? Why or why not?
- What part does the story of Judah and Tamar play in the narrative? Why do you think it's there?
- What do you think about Joseph's dreams? Do they have any relevance to us in the 21st century?
2 comments:
What do you think, please, of Obadiah Shoher's interpretation of the story? (here: samsonblinded.org/blog/genesis-37.htm ) He takes the text literally to prove that the brothers played a practical joke on Yosef rather than intended to murder him or sell him into slavery. His argument seems fairly strong to me, but I'd like to hear other opinions.
Hi Alex. Welcome to our OT reading blog.
Frankly, I don't agree with Obadiah's interpretation, and primarily because he doesn't seem to take all the text literally.
In v.37:18, before Joseph has arrived, "Now Joseph’s brothers saw him from a distance, and before he reached them, they plotted to kill him." This seems as clear as possible. Not a joke, but a true intent.
The question of who pulled Joseph out of the pit and sold him is an interesting one, and several solutions have been offered to the apparent contradictions in the text:
1. Midianites, Medianites, and Ishmaelites are references to the same group of people. "They" in verse 28, refers to the brothers (minus Reuben) who sold them. See Judges 8:24. (Obadiah recognizes that the text support this view.)
2. Same as #1, except that Ishmaelites might be a generic term for those who travel in caravans, and the Midianites is who the group was ethnically. "They" is still the brothers.
3. There are separate groups, and as Obadiah states in his comments, the Midianites beat Joseph's brothers to the punch. "They" in verse 28, refers to the Midianites. This doesn't really change the intent of the brothers from one of slaying to one of playing a hard practical joke as I see it.
I'm assuming that the reason for this interpretation of the text is to somehow exonerate the brothers (or God) from needing to be punished for their transgression, by indicating they didn't commit one. I need to think about that a bit more, because while there are all kinds of what we would today call immoral acts by these fathers of the tribes, did any specifically break Torah?
I thought one of the commenters on the blog post you've referenced, Cynthia, did a good job of laying out in detail the objections to this interpretation of the text.
Glad to have you here.
Post a Comment