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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [b-hebrew] Joseph's Age and Dreams in Chapter 37 of Genesis
  • Date: Fri, 14 Dec 2007 09:39:51 EST


Rev. Bryant J. Williams III:

I agree with most of your fine, insightful analysis of Joseph’s interaction
with his family members in chapter 37 of Genesis. But as we will see, your
fine analysis only works if Joseph is age 8½ regular years at the beginning
of
chapter 37 (being stated age 17 “years”, in terms of 6-month “years”). If
Joseph were age 17 regular years, and Simeon and Levi were about age 23
regular
years, your fine analysis would not work.

1. You wrote: “[Y]ou still cling to the notion that the ages represent
half-years which the Hebrew text does not support.”

As I showed in a post a few weeks ago, 23 out of 23 ages in the Patriarchal
narratives make perfect sense if all ages are stated in the text in terms of
a
6-month “year”, and 0 out of 23 ages make sense if all ages are stated in
terms of a regular, 12-month year. For example, here at the beginning of
chapter
37 of Genesis, there is no way that the narrator would call Joseph a “nar”/“
boy”/ “lad” if Joseph were a full-grown adult man in the ancient world, age
17 regular years. Such terminology only fits a boy, such as young Joseph
here,
who is age 8½ regular years. (A servant, even if older, could be called a “
nar”, but here Joseph is his father’s favorite son, not a servant.) Like a
normal 8½-year-old boy, and unlike any 17-year-old man who was not a virtual
simpleton, Joseph tattles on his older half-brothers. All of Jacob’s actions
in
chapter 37 of Genesis make perfect sense for an 8½-year-old boy, but would
not
make sense for a 17-year-old adult man.

2. You wrote: “Jacob still favors Joseph. It is quite reasonable to see
Jacob having
Joseph staying around him when he sends the rest of the kids up to Shechem.”

(a) When you use the word “kids” here, it seems to me that, effectively,
you are adopting my viewpoint and accurately seeing Jacob’s oldest three sons
as being ages 15, 13 and 13, respectively, in regular years. Whereas on the
traditional view of the case, if Joseph had been age 17 in regular years at
the
beginning of this sequence, then Reuben, Simeon and Levi would be in their
mid-20s, they would be married, and they would have children of their own,
none
of which is the case here. Certainly if Simeon and Levi were age 23 regular
years or so in the ancient world, you would not be referring to them as “kids”
, would you?

(b) One of the most exciting things about this sequence is that it only
makes sense if the bloody Shechem incident has not occurred yet. If the
bloody
Shechem incident had already occurred, there is no way that Jacob would “send
the rest of the kids up to Shechem”. If people would realize that key point,
they would begin to see what is going on here. In order to see ordinary
chronological order, chapter 37 would need to be re-numbered as chapter 33½.

3. You wrote: “It is also quite reasonable for Joseph, being seventeen
years of age and a teenager to boot, to report his dreams to the brothers.”

(a) That in fact is not reasonable at all, in the secular historical
context. In the ancient world, a male age 17 regular years was a grown adult
man,
and was not a “teenager” in our sense of that English word. If you were age
17
regular years, and a grown adult man in the ancient world, would you call
your 10 older half-brothers together to tell them your dream that 11 stars
bowed
down to you? Joseph cannot possibly be that naïve, if not stupid, at age 17
regular years. Rather, Joseph is reporting with gee whiz excitement a dream
of
a 9-year-old boy.

(b) The heart and soul of this b-Hebrew list is analyzing specific Biblical
Hebrew language. Consider in that regard the fine scholarly comments of
Professor Robert Alter, who shows how the very language the text uses at
Genesis
37: 7 reflects how very young Joseph was at this time:

“…Joseph reports the first of his dreams to his brothers in the following
manner: ‘And, look, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, look, my
sheaf
arose and actually (wegam) stood up, and, look, your sheaves drew round and
bowed to my sheaf.’ The language here is surely crafted mimetically to
capture
the gee-gosh wonderment of this naïve adolescent who blithely assumes his
brothers will share his sense of amazement at his dream. …[H]ere Joseph
repeats
the term…hineh (‘look’)…three times in one breathless sentence, and the
effect
of naïve astonishment is equally expressed in his redundant ‘arose and
actually stood up’…. The point is that the adolescent Joseph speaking to his
brothers does not at all sound like the adult Joseph addressing Pharaoh….” “
Genesis”, at p. xxxiv

If Prof. Alter’s word “adolescent” here were changed to “mere boy”, the
foregoing would then be a perfect analysis of the situation here. In the
ancient
world, no intelligent male age 17 regular years would be that naïve. No way.

4. You wrote: “It is also quite reasonable for the response of the brothers
to be quite
upset (hatred) about what the dreams portended.”

What an understatement. If Joseph were age 17 or 18 regular years, smart
Joseph would surely have known what an adverse reaction his brothers would
have
to those controversial dreams, and so Joseph would not have forced his dreams
upon his older half-brothers. Everything in this sequence makes sense only
if
Joseph is about age 9 regular years.

5. You wrote: “Teenagers at any age and any era are bound to have their
good, mature moments and their bad, immature moments. This was both.”

Who are you talking about there? If you have adopted my view of the ages
here, then your comments fit the actions of Simeon and Levi beautifully:
they
are hotheaded teenagers, age 13 regular years.

But if Joseph were age 17 regular years (the traditional view), then Simeon
and Levi would be in their mid-20s, and would not be “teenagers…having…their
bad immature moments”. You are here making my arguments better than I seem
to
make them myself.

6. You wrote: “Each incident in this tale of woe is shown to indicate the
character of each person. Joseph is shown in a good light. The brothers,
and
Jacob, is shown in a
negative light.”

If Joseph were age 17 regular years, this “tale of woe” would not show
Joseph in a good light. Why would a grown man in the ancient world, age 17
regular
years, be so dumb as to twice tell his older half-brothers dreams which
appeared to say that Joseph would soon rule over his older half-brothers?
Would
that show good judgment and intelligence on Joseph’s part? In fact, Joseph
looks good here only once we realize that Joseph is a mere boy, being between
ages
8½ and 9½ in regular years in chapter 37 of Genesis.

7. The only way the storyline in chapter 37 of Genesis makes sense is as
follows. Joseph is age 8½ regular years at the beginning of chapter 37. The
bloody Shechem incident has not taken place yet. Joseph’s mother, Rachel, is
still alive, and is obviously pregnant with Benjamin. Leah has just now
died,
so that the family needs to go down south to Hebron for a few days to bury
Leah
at Hebron, where the first two Matriarchs have been buried.

On that reading, everything about chapter 37 of Genesis makes perfect sense.

In a way, I agree with most of what you say. It’s just that what you say
makes good sense only if Joseph is age 8½ in regular years at the beginning
of
chapter 37 of Genesis. Given that key fact, then virtually all the rest of
your
perceptive comments about Joseph’s interactions with his older half-brothers
are right on the money.

So many stories in the Patriarchal narratives are like that. Once you
understand everyone’s actual ages, in regular years, these great stories make
complete sense.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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  • [b-hebrew] Joseph's Age and Dreams in Chapter 37 of Genesis, JimStinehart, 12/14/2007

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