Talk:Joseph (Genesis)

Historicity
Ref this sentence.

Other scholars have made a case for the historicity of Joseph[29] pointing to recent archaelogical discoveries that support the Old Testament account of Joseph's leadership role in ancient Egypt.[30]

I think that this should be removed, the second RS does not mention archeological discoveries in connection with Joseph at all, (I note that no page number is given) and the first though claiming that scholars regard the Joseph story as fact does not name a single scholar who claims that. Baal is my Lord and Master 21:05, 21 October 2014 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Theredheifer (talk • contribs)

Albright school
I would like a section added to the historicity section of the article. The theory that is currently listed is called the JEDP theory. I would like a section on the refute of JEDP to be added. Having both sides of the research is needed in order for individuals to have an accurate representation of the parties involved. I in no way take credit for what I am about to write but would like to bring attention to the website that I am copying this from http://www.evidenceunseen.com/authorship-of-exodus/. I do not claim to be the author of this. This is not the proposed addition but this is what i will state in order to build a case for something being added:

I have taken screenshots since i am currently on a discussion to have been banned from making edits to show that i have sources referenced and am attempting to be civil about the topic at hand. I apologize if something I said is offensive, or if I did not cite my sources correctly. this is my first attempt at an edit on wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.208.76.251 (talk) 20:56, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The Albright school ruled archaeology when the dinosaurs ruled the Earth. Anyway, that is pretty much a thing of the past. See why at Also, we have a name for "antisupernatural bias", we usually call it the historical method. Historians do not allow for supernatural events in World War II, nor in the Gallic Wars, nor in the life of Muhammad, so asking that historians allow the supernatural in respect to the Bible is special pleading. Tgeorgescu (talk) 22:37, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
 * Any scholar whose approach is to begin by taking all religious scripture and oral tradition at face value, and who isn't a hypocrite, is going to fall apart the instant they expand their scholarship to other religions around the world. Basically, most of them have to be false—which is why taking an arbitrary religion's texts and starting with a presumption of truth is a losing strategy. The odds are poor. Largoplazo (talk) 23:24, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
 * 108.208.76.251, I don't understand what you're concern is or what you are trying to do. Can you explain why you have posted this? By the way, you are indeed being polite :) Achar Sva (talk) 02:35, 8 November 2019 (UTC)

I think this topic is missing, because in the tomb of official Khnumhotep II during the 12th Dynasty there is a panel where a hykso "foreign ruler" wears colorful robes, and his relatives were coming to Egypt to buy supplies. In addition to a statue discovered by Manfred Bietak in Avaris that represents a governor of the province of Goshen, a certain type of lens has located deteriorated pigments in his robe. It is multicolored. However, the foreign governor drawn on the tomb of official Khnumhotep II and the statue of the governor of Avaris have no name... If not the biblical Joseph, it is the Canaanite man who became governor in Egypt who inspired the Hebrew legend Hubrahubra (talk) 05:52, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

Moving away
Perhaps scholars are moving away from JEDP, but definitely not in the direction intended by the edit-warring IP. WP:MAINSTREAM WP:SCHOLARSHIP seems to move further away from a literalist-fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. "Modern Bible scholarship/scholars (MBS) assumes that: • The Bible is a collection of books like any others: created and put together by normal (i.e. fallible) human beings; • The Bible is often inconsistent because it derives from sources (written and oral) that do not always agree; individual biblical books grow over time, are multilayered; • The Bible is to be interpreted in its context: ✦ Individual biblical books take shape in historical contexts; the Bible is a document of its time; ✦ Biblical verses are to be interpreted in context; ✦ The "original" or contextual meaning is to be prized above all others; • The Bible is an ideologically-driven text (collection of texts). It is not "objective" or neutral about any of the topics that it treats. Its historical books are not "historical" in our sense. ✦ "hermeneutics of suspicion"; ✦ Consequently MBS often reject the alleged "facts" of the Bible (e.g. was Abraham a real person? Did the Israelites leave Egypt in a mighty Exodus? Was Solomon the king of a mighty empire?); ✦ MBS do not assess its moral or theological truth claims, and if they do, they do so from a humanist perspective; ★ The Bible contains many ideas/laws that we moderns find offensive; • The authority of the Bible is for MBS a historical artifact; it does derive from any ontological status as the revealed word of God;"

- Beardsley Ruml

Quoted by Tgeorgescu (talk) 20:55, 7 November 2019 (UTC)
 * The "edit-warring IP" is correct in saying that scholarship is moving away from the JEDP theory (more often called the documentary hypothesis, but TGeorge is correct in saying that this does not mean they're moving back to Mosaic authorship. In fact they're moving even further away from it, towards more authors/editors and later dates. I suggest to the IP that he/she read the book by Moore and Kelle, which was intended as an introductory text for university/seminary students and is pretty recent (2011). (Current thinking is that the Joseph story was written in order to link the stories of Genesis, which take place in Palestine, to the Exodus story, which has to begin in Egypt - Joseph explains how they got to Egypt). Achar Sva (talk) 21:47, 7 November 2019 (UTC)

joseph died in 1445 BC?!
Abram was born ~2150 BC in the Ur of Chaldeans, no? So by the Bible, Isaac was born ~2050 BC, Jacob ~2000 BC, Joseph ~1900 BC, and he died when he was 110, so this gives deathdate ~1800 BC. How in the name of anything could this be changed by 350 years? Moreover, can I change this date to 1789 BC, or is this the correct date and I'm not seeing something very simple here? JameezWiki (talk) 19:05, 17 September 2021 (UTC)
 * There's no correct date if by that you mean the year in which any of these characters were "really" born - they're all literary characters without historical reality. However, the Hebrew Bible does contain an elaborate chronology telling the reader how many years had passed between the creation of the world and the birth and death of almost everyone of importance. This is especially true of Genesis, although it becomes harder to follow the books go on and ends with Kings (and then returns for Chronicles and Daniel). Someone presumably added it around 164 BC, since the count ends around that year. Anyway, it's permissible to ad dates after creation, but dates in real time, meaning BC, are a misunderstanding of what the biblical authors were doing. Achar Sva (talk) 07:22, 21 September 2021 (UTC)
 * JameezWiki: Biblical and Historical scholars agree that many of the figures (both Jewish and Gentile) from the Bible are in fact real people that can be traced and placed in the same time and place as ascribed by the Bible. For example, it was once believed that the Bible had simply made up the Assyrians since no historical evidence had been found (up to that date) of that people group and places. So ignoring the contrary POV stated by Achar Sva above, their overall point that one cannot ascribe a birth/death date to a Biblical personage based solely on the Biblical text is correct. Ckruschke (talk) 19:17, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * If you can't ascribe a date to a biblical figure, then why is it being ascribed in this article? Don't include the deathdate! (I have removed the date of death, makes sense to me) JameezWiki (talk) 21:33, 22 September 2021 (UTC)
 * JameezWiki: The dates are there because people want them. They're mistaken, but itb doesn't worry me. To see what the biblical writers were really trying to do, you might look at the article Biblical chronology. Achar Sva (talk) 23:57, 22 September 2021 (UTC)

Dates differ 500 years from Britannica's dates
Encyclopedia Britannica says that Moses left Egypt around 1300 BC which puts it way away from the dates in this article which say Joseph got to Egypt around 700 BC. Moses was born after Joseph so you can see where the conflict lies with these two articles 47.220.218.28 (talk) 09:50, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

Historicity Section Needed
It is always surprising and disappointing that largely mythological or literary characters from the Hebrew tradition are treated so gingerly that one can read the article and not even learn, clearly, whether he was a real person or merely a character in a book. Here, for instance, is the Wikipedia entry for Achilles: In Greek mythology, Achilles (/əˈkɪliːz/ ə-KIL-eez) or Achilleus (Greek: Ἀχιλλεύς) was a hero of the Trojan War, the greatest of all the Greek warriors, and is the central character of Homer's Iliad. He was the son of the Nereid Thetis and Peleus, king of Phthia. ZeroXero (talk) 07:31, 25 April 2022 (UTC)
 * He is covered in the Book of Genesis, so I would assume that all of the book's characters are mythical. The main article on the book already points out that it has no historical basis.:


 * "Genesis is an example of a work in the "antiquities" genre, as the Romans knew it, a popular genre telling of the appearance of humans and the ancestors and heroes, with elaborate genealogies and chronologies fleshed out with stories and anecdotes. The most notable examples are found in the work of Greek historians of the 6th century BC: their intention was to connect notable families of their own day to a distant and heroic past, and in doing so they did not distinguish between myth, legend, and facts. Professor Jean-Louis Ska of the Pontifical Biblical Institute calls the basic rule of the antiquarian historian the "law of conservation": everything old is valuable, nothing is eliminated. This antiquity was needed to prove the worth of Israel's traditions to the nations (the neighbours of the Jews in the early Persian province of Judea), and to reconcile and unite the various factions within Israel itself."
 * "Describing the work of the biblical authors, John Van Seters wrote that lacking many historical traditions and none from the distant past, "They had to use myths and legends for earlier periods. In order to make sense out of the variety of different and often conflicting versions of stories, and to relate the stories to each other, they fitted them into a genealogical chronology." "
 * "David Adams Leeming describes it as the creation myth of both Judaism and Christianity." Dimadick (talk) 12:18, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
 * The article on Joseph itself gives a birth year and a burial location. I think this is misleading without a discussion of historicity. B1c1jones (talk) 21:33, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Identification - Siptah
He is called "Zaphenat-paneach" in the bible, and "Psothom Phanech" by Josephus. The name looks like the semitic pharoah, Siptah, who had a mother Suti-lija, which looks like Leah, wife of Jacob. The tale of 2 brothers, which dates to Seti I, while Siptah was alive, has been linked to the Joseph tale. Za-Phenat = Si Ptah. Glyphs: https://pharaoh.se/pharaoh/Siptah — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:58B:E7F:8410:D34:E4F6:73B2:E375 (talk) 05:33, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Joseph
Joseph was not sold by his brothers into slavery. His brothers threw him into a pit. He was later found and sold my merchants (Midianites, I think). Also he did not wind up in jail but as head of a household. It was only later that he was thrown into jail upon a false accusation. (It is not difficult to rthe story and get this right.) 2601:645:581:8270:80B8:45FF:DD04:A3B1 (talk) 12:08, 8 August 2023 (UTC)
 * Actually, the point of mainstream Bible scholars is that how Joseph became a slave is an excellent example of two different stories which were smashed together without any regard for plot coherence. tgeorgescu (talk) 12:22, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Requested move 6 November 2023

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: not moved (non-admin closure). There is a consensus against the proposed title due to its ambiguity. However, I do not get the sense that anyone is particularly enamoured with the current title so no prejudice against a future discussion with a new suggested title. Jenks24 (talk) 09:45, 21 November 2023 (UTC)

Joseph (Genesis) → Joseph (patriarch) – I believe he is considered a patriarch. Nonetheless, I am requesting a move away from this current title, as (Genesis) is an odd disambiguation, and we should use a descriptor for the person itself. Natg 19 (talk) 17:54, 6 November 2023 (UTC) — Relisting.  The Night Watch     (talk)   22:01, 13 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment. The move history of this page is a mess. There has only been one RM (and that was unsuccessful) but lots of other moves: it was moved from Joseph (patriarch) to Joseph (Genesis) in 2016 on the basis that "Some consider Saint Joseph a patriarch". (See this page, for example.) It had previously been moved from Joseph (son of Jacob) to Joseph (patriarch) in 2014, on the basis that "Matthew 1:15-16 tells us that Saint Joseph was the son of a different Jacob". All the other children of Jacob have the "son of Jacob" disambiguator: see Category:Children of Jacob. StAnselm (talk) 19:02, 6 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Comment "Some consider Saint Joseph a patriarch" I am middle-aged, and I don't recall ever encountering any text which describes the minor figure from the Gospels as a patriarch. On what authority is that based? Dimadick (talk) 17:01, 7 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Well, I did include a reference. It was linked from the Saint Joseph article and I didn't do any more looking. StAnselm (talk) 17:05, 7 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Sure he IS a patriarch, but most people won't know him as one, they would know him as the figure from the book of Genesis. Lucifer in a maid outfit (talk) 14:00, 10 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Strong Oppose WP:AT/WP:PRECISE highly ambiguous disambiguator. patriarch is not a good term to use. It is a title used in several churches, so we have Joseph (Nestorian patriarch). Joseph (patriarch) should point to the disambiguation page Joseph (disambiguation) -- 65.92.247.90 (talk) 13:55, 14 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Oppose Joseph (Genesis) → Joseph (patriarch) per 65.92.247.90, but would support Joseph (Genesis) → Joseph (biblical figure) or Joseph (Genesis) → Joseph (Genesis figure). A number of entries under Category:Book of Genesis people use parenthetical qualifier "(biblical figure)". Only three other entries — Deborah (Genesis), Naamah (Genesis) and Tamar (Genesis) — use the qualifier "(Genesis)" and those three may be likewise considered for a move to "(biblical figure)" or "(Genesis figure)". —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 01:36, 15 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, (biblical figure) may not work, as Saint Joseph (the father of Jesus) is also a biblical figure. Natg 19 (talk) 01:49, 15 November 2023 (UTC)


 * Oppose. I have redirected the ambiguous proposed title to the existing dab page at Patriarch Joseph. Srnec (talk) 03:09, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
 * And I did the disambiguating for you. ;) I wonder if Saint Joseph needs to be added to the list, having come across Saint Joseph the Patriarch Cathedral while doing so. StAnselm (talk) 05:15, 17 November 2023 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I'd add it. Srnec (talk) 21:06, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Comment. A nomination listing the other three biblical figures that use "(Genesis)" as a parenthetical qualifier — Deborah (Genesis) → Deborah (Genesis figure), Naamah (Genesis) → Naamah (Genesis figure) and Tamar (Genesis) → Tamar (Genesis figure) — has been submitted at Talk:Deborah (Genesis). —Roman Spinner (talk • contribs) 21:53, 17 November 2023 (UTC)

first paragraph of this wiki page
the following does not make logical sense:

...however, he rises to second-in-command in Egypt and saves Egypt during a famine. Jacob's family travels to Egypt to escape the famine,...

can someone fix this apparent error? 173.2.60.165 (talk) 20:09, 24 December 2023 (UTC)

Article contradicts itself on when the Joseph narrative was written
“The composition of the story can be dated to the period between the 7th century BCE and the third quarter of the 5th century BCE, which is roughly the period to which scholars date the Book of Genesis.”

“The majority of modern scholars agree that the Joseph story is a Wisdom novella constructed by a single author and that it reached its current form in the 5th century BCE at the earliest.”

Would be worth us editors taking a look at relevant sources to see if we can see where the scholarly consensus/majority stands in 2024.

Römer (regularly quoted as a reliable source on here) argued in 2021:

“The date of the original narrative can be the late Persian period, and while there are several passages that fit better into a Greek, Ptolemaic context, most of these passages belong to later revisions.” IncandescentBliss (talk) 05:02, 28 January 2024 (UTC)


 * Source for Römer quote:
 * https://www.academia.edu/49108908/T_Römer_How_Persian_or_Hellenistic_is_the_Joseph_Narrative_in_T_Römer_K_Schmid_et_A_Bühler_ed_The_Joseph_Story_Between_Egypt_and_Israel_Archaeology_and_Bible_5_Tübinngen_Mohr_Siebeck_2021_pp_35_53_ IncandescentBliss (talk) 05:03, 28 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Greek-influenced passages in the Book of Genesis? The main article on the book mentions that the primeval history segment (the first 11 chapters) were probably composed in the 3rd century BCE, but we fail to mention specific influences from the Hellenistic period. Dimadick (talk) 13:41, 29 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Go ahead and add them! That would be great! IncandescentBliss (talk) 18:26, 29 January 2024 (UTC)