Any judgment upon a question of this kind most be more or less 'subjective'; but to the present writer the amount of personal incident and detail in the narrative appears, as in the case of JACOB (p. 534''), to be an objection to both these views. It seems to liiin to be more probable that there was an actual person, Joseph, afterwards — rightly or wrongly — regarded as the ancestor of the tribe, whose biography, during the time that it lived only in oral tradition, maj- have been embellished ana made more dramatic in details, but who under- went substantially the experiences recounted of him in Gn, and who, having risen to power in Egypt, succeeded in obtaining for his fellow^-tribes- men a home in the pastoral land of Goshen. This view, amongst other things, does justice to the Egyptian colouring of the narrative (see below). This colouring, it is true, is seldom specific ; it is never of a character to prove close and personal cognizance of the facts described ; J nevertheless, its presence in the narrative — as indeed the entire Egj'ptian episode in Joseph's life — is difficult to account for, if the whole were nothing but a legend, woTen by popular fancy npon the hills of Ephraim.
From 471^*, however, mora cannot be inferred than that the agrarian conditions described prevailed In the a^e of the narrator : the details of the narrmtive, such as the connexion with the seven vears of famine, the exhaustion of the Eg>'ptians' money, etc, will, as Dillm. remarks, ' belong merely d^ naicen Sage. The benefit derived in consequence by the crown must have been attributed jxipularly to Joseph's statesmanship ; but If it be true that he r->se to power under Aphophis, at the very time when the native Theban princes were Ix-pnning the war of independence, it is ditticult to think that an innovation of this kind. Introduced bv him, could have surriTed the expulsion of the Hyksos PharaoW
It is, moreover, important to obsenre, aa Kittel has pointed out, that this colouring is common to both J and E : as it is improbable that tico writers would have added it independently, it may be inferred that it was inherent in the common
• Cf. Kuenen, TkT. May 1871, p. teOB. t Eivald. Iliet. L 3«3, 332, 406. 407-400, 41t-4la i Institutions, otnclals, etc, tor Instance, are dtacribed gtiur- aUii, not by their spedflo Egypt- names : contrast the ksf UsM of specific Utlsa In BrugKh, .Xttftalogit, pp. Kfr-tsa.
JOSEPH
JdSKPU
tradition which both represent. This is a circum- btance tending toshowtliatin itsorigin theEgj'ptian element was considerably anterior to either J or E, and increases the probability that it rests ulti- mately upon i foundation in fact. At the same time, it is diflicult to deny that the narrative (like those of Ishmaki. and Jacob) has been coloured in some of its details by later events, and even that particular epi-sodes may have originated in the dc.-iire to account for the circumstances and reliitions of a later age. The hostility of the brethren to Joseph, the leadership in one narrative (E) of llcuben, in the other (.)) of Judali, the power and iire-eniinence of Joseph as compared with his father and brothers, the fact that Ben- jamin, afterwards the smallest tribe, is the youngest brother, the ' adoption ' of his two grandsons by Jacob {i.e. their elevation to the same rank as his own sons), and the priority so pointedl}' bestowed bj' him upon the younger, are, for instance, points at which it is very possible that popular imagination has thus been at work, colouring or supplementing the historical elements of the Joseph -tradition by reference to the facts and conditions of later tiiues. And naturally the literary form of the narrative, with its charms of stjle and other characteristic traits, will be due to the dill'erent writers, who, severally, cast the original tradition into a written shape.
The acquaintance shown by the authors of the Joseph narratives, esp. J and E, with Egyptian customs and institutions has been long observed ; * and the principal instances deserve to be noticed here, references being added to authorities where the subject may be more fullv studied.
37=» (cf. 43"). There would be demand in Egypt fo; rtsinous substances, such as ' gum tragacanth,' ' hilm,' and ' ladanum ' (the e.\udation of the Cistus or Rock-rose), t partly for medicinal purposes, partly for the composition of incense to be used in religious rites, and partly for embalming ; see Ebers, Aeg. 289-293. For Svrian trade with Egypt (in the 18th dyn.), including slaves, see ib. 292 If., Ernian, Life in Ancient Egypt, 516 ff.
39^ ' and he appointed him over his house.'X Such a position can hardly be regarded as distinctively Egj'ptian (see note J) : nevertheless the monuments show that large Egyptian households were organized with superintendents of iheir dill'erent departments (the fields, the cattle, the kitchen, etc.), the nier- per, or ' superintendent of the house,' being in
E articular often mentioned. § The 'bread which' is master ' did eat ' (39") would not be left in loseph's hand, on account of the scruples which ^he Egyptians had against eating food prepared hy foreigners (cf. 43^-). To the story of Joseph and his master's wife (39'"-) there is a remarkable parallel (which has been often compared) in the Egyptian romance, commonly called ' The Tale of the Two Brothers,' written for Seti II. (19 dyn.), and preserved in the d'Orbiney Papyrus. Two brothers, Anpu and Bata, lived together in one house : the elder, Anpu, one day sent Bata back from the fields into the house to fetch some seed ; Anpu's wife there made advances to him,