Joseph and Asenath, Manasseh and Ephraim

[nuclearfuels]

For Asenath to play such a significant role - being the wife of Joseph and mother of Manasseh and Ephraim - seems like she would have accepted Joseph's faith. (Did Joseph then administer the ordinances of that faith to her?? No record of this??) of the two approaches below, which do you suggest is accurate - or are neither of them?

Asenath is a minor figure in the Book of Genesis. Asenath was a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman.^[4] She was the wife of Joseph and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

There are two Rabbinic approaches to Asenath:

1. One holds that she was an ethnic Egyptian woman that converted to marry Joseph. This view has her accepting the Lord before marriage and then raising her two sons in the tenets of Judaism. This presents her as a positive example of conversion, and places her among the devout women converts.

2. The other approach argues she was not Egyptian by descent, but was from the family of Jacob. Traditions that trace her to the family of Jacob relate that she was born as the daughter of Dinah. Dinah was raped by Shechem and gave birth to Asenath, whom Jacob left on the wall of Egypt, where she was later found by Potiphar. She was then raised by Potiphar's wife and eventually married Joseph.^[5][6]

Asenath's importance is related to the birth of her two sons, who later become forefathers of two of the twelve tribes of Israel.^[4]

Portrayal[edit]

First mentioned in Genesis 41:45, Asenath is said to be the wife of Joseph^[11] and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.^[12] In the Book of Genesis, she is referred to as the daughter of Potipherah priest of On (Gk. Heliopolis).^[13] In the Book of Jubilees, she is said to be given to Joseph to marry by the Pharaoh,^[14] a daughter of Potiphar, a high priest of Heliopolis, with no clarification as to whether or not this Potiphar is the same Potiphar whose wife falsely accused Joseph of attempting to rape her. While in the Midrash and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, she is said to be the daughter of Dinah, Joseph's sister, and Shechem, born of an illicit union, described as either premarital sex or rape, depending on the narrative.^[3][15][16] A later-date apocryphal publication, written in Greek, believed to be a Christian document, called Joseph and Aseneth, supposedly details their relationship and their 48-year long reign over Egypt; in it, Asenath weds Joseph, whose brothers Dan and Gad plot to kill him for the sake of Pharaoh's son, who wants Asenath to be his wife, only for their efforts to be thwarted by Joseph's younger brother Benjamin.

[strappinglad]

The Daze of our Lives, The Young and Breathless, General Hopsheput, could use this.  

[ksfisher]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

which do you suggest is accurate - or are neither of them?

How would anyone know?

[longview]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

. . . This view has her accepting the Lord before marriage and then raising her two sons in the tenets of Judaism.

I would think "tenets of Judaism" is more closely related to the Law of Moses.  Not the Abrahamic Dispensation in which the higher law was given.  Paul described the Law of Moses to be the carnal commandments, the lower law.

I read a new post in the interpreter last night that was very interesting.  It is about ancient scribal culture including that of the Priest of On.  Thought provoking paragraphs from https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/lehi-and-nephi-as-trained-manassite-scribes/#more-53760 - - -

Egyptian Scribalism and Joseph’s Posterity

Joseph then married an Egyptian, the daughter of one of the more distinguished priests of the kingdom and presumably one of the more entrenched members of the educated elite. His sons Manasseh and Ephraim would have been cared for by this Egyptian-speaking mother and her Egyptian staff. They would also naturally have been recipients of the best Egyptian education in conjunction with the traditional Abrahamic training that Joseph and his father-in-law could have provided them.

By Joseph’s time, a centuries-old “system of education for the children of the aristocracy” had been in place.¹⁰⁵ John Baines and Christopher Eyre, noted British Egyptologists, explain further that “at latest by the early Twelfth Dynasty (c. 2000 BC) … a standard system of formal elementary education in literacy was established.”¹⁰⁶ 

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

For Asenath to play such a significant role - being the wife of Joseph and mother of Manasseh and Ephraim - seems like she would have accepted Joseph's faith. (Did Joseph then administer the ordinances of that faith to her?? No record of this??) of the two approaches below, which do you suggest is accurate - or are neither of them?

Asenath is a minor figure in the Book of Genesis. Asenath was a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman.^[4] She was the wife of Joseph and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

There are two Rabbinic approaches to Asenath:

1. One holds that she was an ethnic Egyptian woman that converted to marry Joseph. This view has her accepting the Lord before marriage and then raising her two sons in the tenets of Judaism. This presents her as a positive example of conversion, and places her among the devout women converts.

2. The other approach argues she was not Egyptian by descent, but was from the family of Jacob. Traditions that trace her to the family of Jacob relate that she was born as the daughter of Dinah. Dinah was raped by Shechem and gave birth to Asenath, whom Jacob left on the wall of Egypt, where she was later found by Potiphar. She was then raised by Potiphar's wife and eventually married Joseph.^[5][6]

Asenath's importance is related to the birth of her two sons, who later become forefathers of two of the twelve tribes of Israel.^[4]

Portrayal[edit]

First mentioned in Genesis 41:45, Asenath is said to be the wife of Joseph^[11] and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.^[12] In the Book of Genesis, she is referred to as the daughter of Potipherah priest of On (Gk. Heliopolis).^[13] In the Book of Jubilees, she is said to be given to Joseph to marry by the Pharaoh,^[14] a daughter of Potiphar, a high priest of Heliopolis, with no clarification as to whether or not this Potiphar is the same Potiphar whose wife falsely accused Joseph of attempting to rape her. While in the Midrash and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, she is said to be the daughter of Dinah, Joseph's sister, and Shechem, born of an illicit union, described as either premarital sex or rape, depending on the narrative.^[3][15][16] A later-date apocryphal publication, written in Greek, believed to be a Christian document, called Joseph and Aseneth, supposedly details their relationship and their 48-year long reign over Egypt; in it, Asenath weds Joseph, whose brothers Dan and Gad plot to kill him for the sake of Pharaoh's son, who wants Asenath to be his wife, only for their efforts to be thwarted by Joseph's younger brother Benjamin.

 

Does this count as official Church teaching? https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1981/01/comment?lang=eng

[nuclearfuels]

13 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

this count?

Dude. You nailed it

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/10/2022 at 8:42 AM, nuclearfuels said:

For Asenath to play such a significant role - being the wife of Joseph and mother of Manasseh and Ephraim - seems like she would have accepted Joseph's faith. (Did Joseph then administer the ordinances of that faith to her?? No record of this??) of the two approaches below, which do you suggest is accurate - or are neither of them?

Asenath is a minor figure in the Book of Genesis. Asenath was a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman.^[4] She was the wife of Joseph and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim.

There are two Rabbinic approaches to Asenath:

1. One holds that she was an ethnic Egyptian woman that converted to marry Joseph. This view has her accepting the Lord before marriage and then raising her two sons in the tenets of Judaism. This presents her as a positive example of conversion, and places her among the devout women converts.^{...............................}

Judaism did not exist in Joseph's day, and would not for centuries.  The rabbis have an unseemly habit of retrojecting everything Jewish on the Patriarchs.

As in the case of the Moabitess Ruth, an ancestor of David, Asenath could have adopted the Canaanite culture of her husband, but why?  She was high caste, and so was her husband.  Her husband's God El would fit into her and her father's pantheon as Re, the Sun-god.  Both gods were head of pantheon and both used the winged sun-disk symbol.

The first Jews to enter the Rhineland in about 1,000 AD took non-Jewish wives.  We know this from the mitochondrial DNA of Ashkenazi Jews.  That did not stop them from remaining Jewish for the next thousand years.

[nuclearfuels]

54 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

.

somehow I figured you're answer would be neither.

wikipedia (Where I copied these claims) fails me, once again 

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

somehow I figured you're answer would be neither.

wikipedia (Where I copied these claims) fails me, once again 

Rabbinic traditon is what it is.  Often quite speculative.  It's not your fault.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/10/2022 at 12:00 PM, JLHPROF said:

 

Does this count as official Church teaching? https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1981/01/comment?lang=eng

We do have to ask what does it mean that "a pharaoh arose who didn't know Joseph"?  Exodus 1:8.  Does it mean that he started out with a Canaanite Hyksos dynasty of pharaohs and then a native Egyptian pharaoh took over (which actually happened when the Hyksos were expelled in 1540 BC)?  The meaning of the phrase is not that the new pharaoh was unknown to Joeph personally.  He was long dead.  But that his people would not continue to be recognized as favored, and would now even become slaves.  The Israelites spent 4 centuries in Egypt, and one can imagine things not going well that entire time.

However, there are some problems with that scenario:  Potiphar is the high priest of the sun-god Re in Re-town (Heliopolis, "Sun-City").  He is most likely to be a native Egyptian priest.  Second, priesthood is passed father to son.  The mother has no role to play.  If Joseph held any sort of lineal priesthood, his twin sons Ephraim & Manasseh would automatically hold it, unaffected by any imagined curse on Egyptians or Canaanites (the Hyksos were Canaanites).  Gen 9:25-27 (curse on Ham's son Canaan)