Up until the Israelites became captives in
Babylon after 587 B.C., they had no acquaintance with written records. Each
tribe had storytellers who passed their legends on through families of story
tellers. They were trained to chant the old tales. Then, on discovering the way the Babylonians had
kept a written record of their history and myths, The Israelites sat their story
tellers down to slowly chant their legends to men who scratched the cuneiform wording
on clay tablets.
With each of the
tribes having its own storytellers, sometimes there were differences in the way
different tribes remembered ancient events. This story about how Joseph was
taken away is told in Chapter 37 of Genesis. If you look closely at the Bible
account, you will see how verse 21 says it was Reuben who tried to save Joseph,
while verse 26 says it was Judah who tried protecting him.
As for the Gospel,
while it seems that the tenants had no excuse for being so mean and grabby,
they did have some law on their side. Jewish Law did not permit those who
planted a vineyard to market the grapes for the first five years. The Law as
well, forbade planting two different crops on the same plot. However, it did
allow for planting produce between the vines for those five years before their
first vintage. There often were disputes between owners and tenants as to who gained
the profit for selling such between-the=vines produce.
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