Friday, 3/21/4
Our first reading today, taken from Chapter Thirty-Seven of
the Book of Genesis tells the story of how Joseph was carried off to Egypt.
Actually, that chapter gives two conflicting stories about
how he was carried off; even though the Lectionary, by carefully cropping the
Bible’s account, gives us only one version of the story. Let me explain. The
account in our Lectionary tells us that when the brothers saw some Ishmaelites
travelling down to Egypt Joseph’s brother Judah suggested that instead of
killing their brother, they should sell him; and they received twenty pieces of
silver for him.
(Judah has
asked, “What is the good of killing our brother and concealing his blood.” That
showed their belief that a murdered man’s blood, if not covered over, would
call out to heaven for vengeance.)
In our Lectionary’s version of the story the brothers had
first thrown Joseph down a deep dried cistern, with the thought that he would
starve there. The part of the story that our Lectionary leaves out is that the
oldest of the brother’s, Reuben, had intended returning to rescue Joseph; but
on going back to the cistern after he had sat and ate with his brothers, the
only thing Reuben found was Joseph’s tunic.
In the part of the story omitted from our Lectionary, without
the brother being aware of it, some traders from Midian had heard Joseph
calling up from the cistern. It was they, not the Ishmaelites who brought
Joseph as a slave to Egypt.
In this omitted part of the story the brothers, not knowing
what had happened to Joseph, smeared goat’s blood on Joseph’s tunic, then went
to telling their father Jacob that Joseph had been devoured by beasts.
Which ever way it happened, Joseph was taken down to Egypt after
1800 B.C. when the Israelites had no written language. Each of the twelve
tribes had a special family of storytellers who generation after generation passed
on the tribe’s stories.
It was only after 600 B.C. that the tribes came together to
put into writing the ancient legends shared by the twelve tribes. That was when
the people were carried off to Babylon. There they were impressed by the way
the Babylonians had put all their legends into writing. That had them bringing
together the storytellers from all the tribes to fit together what became the
Books of Genesis and Exodus.
At times the accounts of the tribal storytellers didn’t
agree. Here, the way the descendants of Judah remembered it, it was Judah who had tried saving Joseph, while
the way the descendants of Reuben remembered it, it was Reuben who tried to save
Joseph. That had them putting the two conflicting accounts into our Chapter
Thirty-Seven of Genesis.
1 comment:
Thank you, Father!
You have cleared my questions about
the exact process of selling Joseph.
I have ever been confused concerning
that part of the story.
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