■ Historical C/tararter of Joseph. — Taken in the abstract, it cannot be said that there are serious historical improbabilities in the substance of Joseph's bio''raphy. Certainly the narrative con- tains many dramatic situations. Both Joseph and his brethren ptiss through a series of crises and adventures, any one of which might readily have closed the drama, though all, in fact, lead on happily to the linal di'noihncnt. Tmth is, how- ever, proverbially stranger than fiction. There have been many remarkable biographies in history, and we must beware of making probabilitj' too absolutely the test of credibility. In the general fact of a foreijnier, by a happy stroke of clever- ness, winning tlie favour of an Eiistem despot, and being in consequence invested by him with high powers, there is nothing unprecedented ; and in the ca.se of Egj'pt, in particular, the monuments supply explicit evidence of foreigners rising there to positions of political distinction. The question as.sumes, however, a dillerent aspect when account is taken (1) of the fact that the narratives about Joseph are plainly not the work of a contemporary hand.ll but were in all probability only committed to writing 700-800 j-ears afterwards, and (2) of the further curious fact that ' Jo.seph ' (like many of the other patriarchal names) is also a tribal name, the name of that sulidivision of the nation which was also called after hi.s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. The first of these facts at once destroys all guarantee that we possess in the Joseph-narratives a literal record of the facts. The outline, indeed, maj' still be historical, but for details or particular e[iisodes popular imagination will very probably be responsible : the improb- abilities which certainly attach to some of the details connected with the famine and the measures
•So Knob., Ilillm., Riehm, Ebera (in Smith, DB* \^9il.), BrugBcb (SleiniiuKhr\/t, 131), Wiedemann (with rewnre), Affj. Gesch. (1884), i. lait., and in his amiUi UacK. con att-Atg. (IBttl) 07 f. ; and othera.
t Zoan would be not more than about 35 miles from Ooahen ; and it iH true that the court of the Pharaoh in Cln ia represented as beini^' not far from tioshcn (fur Joseph was near to both : 4510 1» iga^* 477), whereiu the residence of tlie Pharaohs, both before (12-14 d)-n.) and afur (lS-20 dyn.) the Hjksoa perio<l,was far up the N'ile, at ThelK'S. However, an ar^ment in sunnort of Joseph's Ptiaraoh bein(( one of the Hylcsos kings could be based upon thin coincidence, only if it were alrsady certain that the narrative was the woric of a contemporary band, which miu'ht he trusted to reproduos accurately geograpliical tacts of (his Idnd.
t P. 62 (cf. p. (^0) ivJ ri>#i ykp rvM«i«^*v**' •** ••'J 'Acw^im li^{if 'I«rf]^ rit A'iyvrvnt: p. 107, the 17th year of Aphophis is SJieciiletl. Eminn (/. /. Ary .«pr. ISSl, 12i-7 ; cl. Mas|>ero, StnujgU of Satitmt, 71) has nuide it probable that this date was arrived at by a oombination of the iSO yeara of Ex 1241 with L^'Vptian dalu.
}' ivtrie, II M. n/h:<i. i. 242, IL 17 ff.
I Notire incidonttilfy in this connftlnn the ahsencs of par. tieriJnrti in tho narmtive, e.(j. any nu-nlioii of the in-nmna] name of tiio i'haraob, and of the p^arein KK'>l>t wliervhe neld )us court; and cf. Sayc«, UCit 228 f. Contemporary writers— for instance, Jeremiab— «n in such matters much iDors definite and specific
by which it was relieved (4I«-«- «■ »•" 47i*-«)« may thus, for example, be accounted for. The second fact raises the further ([uestion whether the figure of Joseph, in part or even as a whole, is a rellection of tlie history and characteristics of the tribe, projected upon the past in an individual form.
According to Ewald (cf. above, p. 534), the twelve sons of Jacob represent corresponding subdivisions of the nation ; the siniiller part of it, distinguished in the extant tradition by the name and fame of Josejih, and consisting essentially of the two tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh (wliich afte^^va^ds separated), mi^'rated into K^'vpt first ; Joseph, who was a real person, was a leader or distinguished member of the immigrants; he rose to power in E^'ypt, and conferred there great twnelits both upon his own people and upon the countr)', and in the end also attracted t)ie remaining and stronger part of his people to the £. frontier of K;r\'pt. His personality was a remarlcable one ; and in after ages it was transfigured in the memory of his people : under the inliueuce of Israel's religion it became an ideat of tilial and fraternal affection, a high example of goodness, de- votion to duty, sincerity, and love. Tlie fundamental idea of the 8tor>' consists in the happy reunion in Eg^-pt of the long aejiarated members of Jacob's family, at the call of the son and broUier who has risen there to liigh station ; this, in ths narrative of Genesis, as we possess it, lias been gradually elaborated by successive writers until it attained ' the mature and attractive form in which it was worthy to become an heir- loom of the human race.'t The view of DUlm. (introd. to cIl 39) and Kittel (i. lOSf.) is similar: behind tlie individual, Joseph, there stands the tribe (Dillm.) ; the tribe, migrating to Eu'.n>t, acquired there power and pre-eminence over itA ' bretiiVen,' and its leader is known to tradition by the same name, Jctiepti (Kittel). It is an objection to this view that it duplicates the name at oiif aiui the saim time : 'Joseph' de- notes both an individual and a tribe, not at different times, but in B'ji/pt itgelf. Stade and others see in Joseph (as in his brethren) merely the imaginary eponymous ancestor of the tribe, in whose life and experiences are reflected the political and other relations of a later age.