Joseph was a bit of a jerk!

[Jamie123]

Now I'm not talking about Joseph Smith here, so please keep your hair on!

Neither am I talking about Joseph the Carpenter, Jesus' da.

I'm talking about the original Joseph - the one with the "Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat", betrayed by his "nasty" brothers, sold into slavery,  falsely accused of sexual misconduct, put in prison...but who eventually became governor of all Egypt and forgave everyone - even his "nasty brothers" - and everyone lived happily ever after. You know the sort of thing...

I'm not even going to talk about him being a spoiled brat - the only son (apart from Benjamin) Jacob had with his beloved Rachel, instead of ugly old Leah or one or other of his two mistresses (I've forgotten their names and can't be bothered to get the Bible out). "Joseph's coat annoyed his brothers / But what made them mad / Was the way that he would talk about / The dreams he often had!" (Great musical!) Enough has been said about that already. It's old hat.

No. I'm talking about later in the story, after Pharaoh put him in charge of all his kingdom. For seven years he collected up a fifth of all the Egyptians' grain. Fine. He put it into storage for the disaster he knew was coming. All well and good. But when the bad years came, did he give it back to them as famine relief?

Did he heck as like!

He made them pay through the nose for it! (A cheek if you ask me, considering it had come FROM them in the first place.)

But it doesn't end there. When the Egyptians had no more money , he took their land and their livestock. And when all THAT was gone, he made them sell themselves into slavery!

They never tell you this stuff in kiddies' Sunday School class. (Just as they never tell you what Joshua did to the people of Jericho after "the walls came tumbling down"...but that's another story.)

It's kinda poetic justice that a few generations later, the Israelites found themselves slaves in Egypt!

Read the Bible closely and carefully, and you see a lot of stuff like this - things that you never knew because you thought you knew the story - while in reality you only ever knew the Enid Blyton or Hollywood version. For example, I'd be interested to know how many Christians are aware of the interlude in the Joseph narrative, the (quite literally) sticky story of Onan and Tamar! I expect it was more in the past - after all, it's where we get the term "onanism" from!

Edited October 18, 2019 by Jamie123

[estradling75]

Call him a jerk if you want... But his behavior perfectly fulfilled the Lord's plan.

Israel needed a safe place to grow into a great nation.  Then after it grew it needed the place to become hostile so they would leave.

Joseph's actions in Egypt brought that about.  Nothing like having a Ruler that owes you everything to make life easy for you and your descendants.  Then the scriptures say a pharaoh come that "knew not Joseph.'  Best guess is that there was a revolution and a new family took power.  A Pharaohic line that did not see Joseph and his line as a bunch of Saviors... but as you said kind of a jerk that took everything, and thus the enslavement of Israel.

[Jamie123]

1 hour ago, estradling75 said:

Call him a jerk if you want... But his behavior perfectly fulfilled the Lord's plan.

Israel needed a safe place to grow into a great nation.  Then after it grew it needed the place to become hostile so they would leave.

Joseph's actions in Egypt brought that about.  Nothing like having a Ruler that owes you everything to make life easy for you and your descendants.  Then the scriptures say a pharaoh come that "knew not Joseph.'  Best guess is that there was a revolution and a new family took power.  A Pharaohic line that did not see Joseph and his line as a bunch of Saviors... but as you said kind of a jerk that took everything, and thus the enslavement of Israel.

One of these days I'm going to write a book: "Septuagintic Slimeballs: Great Jerks of the Old Testament, and how God didn't let any of them put Him off!"

(I don't suppose they'll make a musical of it though.)

Edited October 18, 2019 by Jamie123

[estradling75]

49 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:

One of these days I'm going to write a book: "Septuagintic Slimeballs: Great Jerks of the Old Testament, and how God didn't let any of them put Him off!"

(I don't suppose they'll make a musical of it though.)

Heh  If Christ was limited to only working through people who were never a Jerk at some point he would not ever be able to get something done.  Sadly to many people make the limitus test for the servants of God (ancient or modern) to be perfection.  This is clearly not the case when we read the scriptures

[NeuroTypical]

OT Prophetic jerkiness is a pretty hefty response to most criticisms of our latter-day prophets voiced by Christians.  It's a pity that our church is about the only one left that spends any time in the Old Testament.

[Just_A_Guy]

4 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

Now I'm not talking about Joseph Smith here, so please keep your hair on!

Neither am I talking about Joseph the Carpenter, Jesus' da.

I'm talking about the original Joseph - the one with the "Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat", betrayed by his "nasty" brothers, sold into slavery,  falsely accused of sexual misconduct, put in prison...but who eventually became governor of all Egypt and forgave everyone - even his "nasty brothers" - and everyone lived happily ever after. You know the sort of thing...

I'm not even going to talk about him being a spoiled brat - the only son (apart from Benjamin) Jacob had with his beloved Rachel, instead of ugly old Leah or one or other of his two mistresses (I've forgotten their names and can't be bothered to get the Bible out). "Joseph's coat annoyed his brothers / But what made them mad / Was the way that he would talk about / The dreams he often had!" (Great musical!) Enough has been said about that already. It's old hat.

No. I'm talking about later in the story, after Pharaoh put him in charge of all his kingdom. For seven years he collected up a fifth of all the Egyptians' grain. Fine. He put it into storage for the disaster he knew was coming. All well and good. But when the bad years came, did he give it back to them as famine relief?

Did he heck as like!

He made them pay through the nose for it! (A cheek if you ask me, considering it had come FROM them in the first place.)

But it doesn't end there. When the Egyptians had no more money , he took their land and their livestock. And when all THAT was gone, he made them sell themselves into slavery!

They never tell you this stuff in kiddies' Sunday School class. (Just as they never tell you what Joshua did to the people of Jericho after "the walls came tumbling down"...but that's another story.)

It's kinda poetic justice that a few generations later, the Israelites found themselves slaves in Egypt!

Read the Bible closely and carefully, and you see a lot of stuff like this - things that you never knew because you thought you knew the story - while in reality you only ever knew the Enid Blyton or Hollywood version. For example, I'd be interested to know how many Christians are aware of the interlude in the Joseph narrative, the (quite literally) sticky story of Onan and Tamar! I expect it was more in the past - after all, it's where we get the term "onanism" from!

I suspect (but cannot prove) that Joseph’s brothers may not have been so eager to sell him off if he weren’t something of a self-righteous little snot.

That said, in dealing with the Egyptians Joseph is dealing as Pharoah’s agent; with the proceeds and power going primarily to Pharoah.  I also suspect that the story is being told in such a way to emphasize similarities and differences between Egyptian and later Israelite culture—both peoples covenant themselves into servitude to a god-king in exchange for material support, but in Egypt the king is visible, in Israel He is invisible; Egypt’s god  rules by force, Israel’s God by love; in Egypt the priestly caste is the only one with any land left, whereas in Israel the Levites are the only cast who doesn’t get an inheritance of land . . . and so on.

But, yes; the Mosaic Law includes some specific injunctions about how to treat the poor and strangers in their midst; and the earlier Patriarchs sometimes would have been spared some grief if they had adhered more closely and consistently to those same principles. 

(And yeah, I’m aware of Tamar and Onan . . . and Judah.  Which, by the way, is alluded to in Jesus’ genealogy as given in the New Testament.  I don’t remember whether it was in reference to Matthew’s or Luke’s genealogy, but a professor once pointed out to me that every woman named in Jesus’ genealogy was at the center of a sex scandal.)

Edited October 18, 2019 by Just_A_Guy

[Jamie123]

1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:

OT Prophetic jerkiness is a pretty hefty response to most criticisms of our latter-day prophets voiced by Christians.  It's a pity that our church is about the only one left that spends any time in the Old Testament.

I have known some LDSs to be dismissive about the Old Testament, and I once spoke to a missionary who didn't even know that Joshua massacred the children of Jericho. But a lot of mainstream Christians don't know that stuff either, which is hardly surprising considering that this...

...is so often the way it is presented. (Skip to 22:43 for the climax.)

I've recently been reading Genesis very slowly and carefully and making notes, and one thing that has struck me is how often the phrase "in your offspring all nations shall be blessed" (or variations) appears: the promise of the coming Messiah really does appear that early in the Bible!

Edited October 18, 2019 by Jamie123

[Still_Small_Voice]

I just read through Genesis Chapter 47.  This is what Joseph did to the people of Egypt:

For seven years he collected up a fifth of all the Egyptians' grain. 
He put it into storage for the disaster he knew was coming. 
When the bad years came, he sold it instead of giving it to the Egyptians.

When the Egyptians had no more money, he took their livestock. 

And when all the livestock was gone the Egyptians traded their land for grain and seed.
Joseph then told them for in the future they would give 20% of their harvests to Pharoah.

They were not sold into slavery.  I did not find the information you posted about selling themselves into slavery in Genesis chapter 47.

[Jamie123]

2 hours ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

I just read through Genesis Chapter 47.  This is what Joseph did to the people of Egypt:

For seven years he collected up a fifth of all the Egyptians' grain. 
He put it into storage for the disaster he knew was coming. 
When the bad years came, he sold it instead of giving it to the Egyptians.

When the Egyptians had no more money, he took their livestock. 

And when all the livestock was gone the Egyptians traded their land for grain and seed.
Joseph then told them for in the future they would give 20% of their harvests to Pharoah.

They were not sold into slavery.  I did not find the information you posted about selling themselves into slavery in Genesis chapter 47.

In the niv verse 21 says he "reduced the people to servitude" but a footnote says that this is from the Samaritan Pentateuch and the Septuagint. In the Masoretic Text this is "moved the people to the cities". The kjv and nkjv seem to favour this version. Bit of a difference! Interesting.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Jamie123

[NeuroTypical]

Verse 18: "buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh"

Sounds like they offered to sell themselves, either into slavery or indentured servitude, yes?

[Still_Small_Voice]

23  Then Joseph said unto the people, Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh: lo, here is seed for you, and ye shall sow the land.

24  And it shall come to pass in the increase, that ye shall give the fifth part unto Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones.

25  And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be Pharaoh's servants.

26  And Joseph made it a law over the land of Egypt unto this day, that Pharaoh should have the fifth part, except the land of the priests only, which became not Pharaoh's.

=========================

It sounds to me like the Egyptians offered themselves to be Pharoah's servants (or slaves) out of desperation but Joseph instead placed a tax of 20 percent on all the people except the priests.

[Guest Mores]

10 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

I'm not even going to talk about him being a spoiled brat...

Remember that this is a narrative to get a story across.  I don't know how much of it we can accept as "direct quotes".    Maybe he was a spoiled brat.  Maybe he was just that good, and his father wanted to reward him.  Not to mention the fact that back in the day, wealthy men would always treat their heir apparent as something special.  Out of twelve sons, that alone would tend to make the others jealous.

Short response:  Who knows? -- and quite frankly, who cares?

Quote

He made them pay through the nose for it! (A cheek if you ask me, considering it had come FROM them in the first place.)

Your underlining is what I have a problem with.  How do you know it wasn't simply the fair value of the grain?  For all we know, Joseph kept records of how much grain traded for during the times of plenty and sold it back at that lower price.  How much it was sold for isn't written anywhere.

If you have a problem with the government taking things then selling things back to you, then you should have a great problem with socialism or communism.

Still, we have to remember that it would appear that this "fifth part" was bought, not simply "taken".  I don't know that with certainty.  But it seems like it was.  If not, it seems like a decent income tax by a governing body during a time of plenty -- with a somewhat noble motivation -- to save the world.

Another thing to remember is that if 20% was enough to feed the entire world, surely that same amount would have been enough to make all of Egypt fat.  So, doing some math, there was another 60% that the farmers had.  What did they do with it?  Why didn't they have food storage?  While it's not written anywhere, I'm just thinking from an LDS perspective that Joseph would probably have preached to all of Egypt that they needed to have food storage themselves.  They didn't obey.  Well, they paid the price for their lack of obedience and/or foresight.

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But it doesn't end there. When the Egyptians had no more money , he took their land and their livestock.

No, they sold it.  It was not a compulsory exchange by power of the crown.  It was what the populace used as currency for food.

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And when all THAT was gone, he made them sell themselves into slavery!

They offered it because they had no more to pay with.  The food supplies had to be rationed out in some way.  And on such a large scale, simple market exchanges were the most efficient way to do it.  If they ran out, their freedom was all they had to pay with.  That was simply the economics of the day.  Remember that Joseph still obeyed the Law of Moses.  He remembered who he was.  And there were rules about debt and purchasing without money.  There were also rules about slavery.

Additionally, Joseph had to act as an agent of Pharaoh.  That was his job.  He needed to make sure that Pharaoh was properly treated as king during this time.

Quote

They never tell you this stuff in kiddies' Sunday School class. (Just as they never tell you what Joshua did to the people of Jericho after "the walls came tumbling down"...but that's another story.)

Well, maybe, just maybe, there is a healthy dose of interpretation and characterization in your take on what happened.  Maybe, just maybe,  your take is not really correct.

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It's kinda poetic justice that a few generations later, the Israelites found themselves slaves in Egypt!

Under completely different rules, circumstances, and motivations.  But sure, why not, right?

Quote

Read the Bible closely and carefully, and you see a lot of stuff like this - things that you never knew because you thought you knew the story - while in reality you only ever knew the Enid Blyton or Hollywood version.

Again, you really have to read a lot into the story (because it isn't actually written there) to come to the conclusions and characterizations you're talking about.  Sure, you could make that interpretation from the sparse information found in the text (plus a healthy dose of expansive imagination).  But it is in no way clear from simply reading the text cold.  And once you add into it the specifics of the Law of Moses (which we know via Potiphar's wife that Joseph still adhered to as best he could) the probability is that the way he went about it was far different than the characterization that you're spitting out.

Edited October 18, 2019 by Mores

[Vort]

Others have already said a lot of what I have to say, but when has that ever stopped me?

The Old Testament is absolutely awesome—raw, unsanitized, and shockingly honest. Most ancient literature reads as a panegyric to whatever king is being spoken of. Ancient Middle Eastern literature tends to be more impartially factual than most, but Hebrew literature takes that to an extreme. Moses is portrayed as the greatest of prophets, yet even he is shown to have faults and weaknesses. Israel's greatest king was without doubt David, and he is praised almost without end in scripture, yet his treachery is portrayed in full color, completely unvarnished.

This is simply not how it was done, not from the most ancient times up through Rome, and even after, throughout the middle ages and into the Renaissance. The very idea of an "impartial" history might be naive, but a warts-and-all history was pretty uncommon until very recent times.

Except for the Old Testament. Adam, father of us all? Misled by his own wife and the voice of Satan. Moses, greatest of prophets? Weak in speech, rebuked by his wife (!) for disobeying God, divinely cursed for mishandling the incident at the waters of Meribah. Saul, the great and mighty, first king of Israel? Fallen and depraved. David, the very picture and example of the mighty prophet/king of Israel and her God? Treacherous. Solomon the wise? Disillusioned, humbled by the queen of Sheba, cynical. Jonah, the mighty prophet? Miserable, weak, rebellious, unhappy.

And these are the heros!

The New Testament continues this trend to some degree, but the Old Testament freely and more forcefully uses historical characters (and, imo, some extra-historical characters, or at least some perhaps real people whose trials were mythologized—I'm looking at you, Job) as examples of what we should do and what we should not do. Pray that you never get written up in scripture, because very few come through that process without their warts being pointed out, exposed, and closely examined.

So, with this in mind, what of Joseph?

On 10/18/2019 at 3:53 AM, Jamie123 said:

I'm not even going to talk about him being a spoiled brat - the only son (apart from Benjamin) Jacob had with his beloved Rachel, instead of ugly old Leah or one or other of his two mistresses (I've forgotten their names and can't be bothered to get the Bible out). "Joseph's coat annoyed his brothers / But what made them mad / Was the way that he would talk about / The dreams he often had!" (Great musical!) Enough has been said about that already. It's old hat.

(By the way, the "mistresses" part is simply wrong. The fact is that both concubines—not mistresses—were wives. Concubinage in ancient Israel never involved "mistresses". The women were indeed wives, but wives of lesser standing, whose children might not have the same inheritance rights as the children of the "full" wives.)

Note that the "spoiled brat" part is an interpretation on our part, and a very modern interpretation at that. Jacob made no secret, ever, at any time, that he loved and wanted Rachel. He got Leah only through his father-in-law's duplicity; the fact that he kept her, had children by her, and honored her as his wife and mother of his children is a deep testament to Jacob's character, however much we tend to miss that fact today. Leah is not said to be "ugly", but "tender-eyed". What that means, I don't know; maybe she was prone to crying a lot, especially when she thought of how she, as the older daughter and first wife, should be exalted, but instead was loved less than her younger sister. Life can be so unfair.

In those times, and in fact up until very recent times (aw, who are we kidding? still even today), many people made no bones about proclaiming one child, usually a son, as their favored child. As the first son of the favored wife—the wife Jacob always meant to marry, whatever deceptions his father-in-law pulled—it is not in the least historically unusual that Joseph should be shown favor. I don't think it's even our place to find fault with that practice, though I certainly would never do such a thing with my own children. Similarly, it was not Leah's sons' place to resent or envy their brother's favor. And note: Of all the brothers who might have a grudge against Joseph, surely Reuben would be at the head of that list. He really was the eldest son, and should have been in the highest favor. Yet it was that same Reuben, "weak as water", who worked to save Joseph's life. Judah seems to have been the natural leader of his brothers, and it was Judah who spearheaded the charge against Joseph.

Was Joseph annoying? Probably. He told his dream to his brothers and his father, and even dear old dad was appalled at such seeming arrogance. Yet—Joseph really did have that dream, and it really did predict what would happen. Impolitic though it might have been, it was true. Joseph was ever a speaker of truth, uncomfortable thought it might have been.

Quote

No. I'm talking about later in the story, after Pharaoh put him in charge of all his kingdom. For seven years he collected up a fifth of all the Egyptians' grain. Fine. He put it into storage for the disaster he knew was coming. All well and good. But when the bad years came, did he give it back to them as famine relief?

Did he heck as like!

To be clear: Joseph warned Pharaoh and all of Egypt that a famine was coming. It was through Joseph's actions, implemented (or at least approved) by Pharaoh, that Egypt survived the famine at all without the entire civilization collapsing. The Egyptians, all of them, very literally owed their lives to Joseph. And in ancient times, when you owed your life to another, that often created a "life debt". This idea is extremely common in the ancient and even the modern world. The denizens of ancient Rome had the patron/client relationship, an outgrowth of that very idea. That was but one expression of the old idea, that when someone preserves your life, your life and fealty then belongs to that person.

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He made them pay through the nose for it! (A cheek if you ask me, considering it had come FROM them in the first place.)

Not at all. Joseph didn't profit from this. Pharaoh's coffers were filled, not Joseph's personal accounts.

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But it doesn't end there. When the Egyptians had no more money , he took their land and their livestock. And when all THAT was gone, he made them sell themselves into slavery!

I think JAG explained this. Joseph didn't "take" their land; he accepted it as payment from those who had no other means to pay. And when that ran out, rather than letting them starve, he accepted what we might think of as an indentured servitude. Doubtless there were some few who saved and hoarded food, and managed to eke out the seven years without selling their possessions and themselves. Good for them. How about the rest? Joseph provided a way for them to survive. If it doesn't meet our modern-day standards of moral rectitude, well, too bad. It's not like slavery was uncommon or rejected as an institution.

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They never tell you this stuff in kiddies' Sunday School class. (Just as they never tell you what Joshua did to the people of Jericho after "the walls came tumbling down"...but that's another story.)

And that's for the best. Children have no context for understanding everything in scripture. Even as adults, we are given by the Spirit line upon line and precept upon precept, little by little as we can understand things. And wo unto those who seek information past what they can understand! These are they who look beyond the mark, seeking for things they are not ready for. Bad results always follow.

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It's kinda poetic justice that a few generations later, the Israelites found themselves slaves in Egypt!

I see why you might think that, but I disagree. Joseph should have been (and probably was) hailed as Egypt's savior, as much so as with his own brothers. Joseph's divine inspiration and hard work preserved tens or hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, from dying in a famine. He should have been lauded by those descendants for all time, and his own seed should have been given place forever among them, at least as equals and fellow-citizens.

Quote

Read the Bible closely and carefully, and you see a lot of stuff like this - things that you never knew because you thought you knew the story - while in reality you only ever knew the Enid Blyton or Hollywood version. For example, I'd be interested to know how many Christians are aware of the interlude in the Joseph narrative, the (quite literally) sticky story of Onan and Tamar! I expect it was more in the past - after all, it's where we get the term "onanism" from!

All who read the Bible carefully will know these things. They are not hidden. These Biblical characters were human beings, with passions and weaknesses and rotting teeth and disease and aspirations and, occasionally, Godly actions and exalted knowledge. The Bible is a faithful spiritual history, and if it has flaws, that doesn't diminish its importance. (I would also suggest that, as Joseph Smith said about himself, so is true with the Bible: It has imperfections, but they are not the imperfections people claim against it.)

Edited October 19, 2019 by Vort

[Guest Scott]

I hope I'm not stirring the pot too much here, but I don't know how much of the Joseph story is literal or accurate, even though there are great lessons in the story.  According to archeological finds and studies, at least some of it seems to be "borrowed" from Egyptian fables that were written long before any texts that have been found concerning Joseph.   So the story of Joseph is in all likelihood a combination of several stories, both Hebrew and Egyptian.   Some of ancient Egyptian fables have almost certainly been incorporated into the story, at least in part.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Scott

[Guest Scott]

Oh, and as far as the Old Testament goes, I once tried to memorize it in order to strengthen my testimony.  I succeeded in memorizing more than 1/3 of the Bible, but it had the opposite effect on my testimony.   

Obviously, the parts they teach in Sunday school are cherry picked and sugarcoated.

I’m intentionally not going to provide the sources here since I want others to research them out, but some of the stories that really bothered me had to do with human sacrifice supposedly done by one of the good guys; David sacrificing people unto God (likely by the method of impaling, but possibly crucifixion); the supposed God’s support and commanding of rape; kidnapping and sex trafficking by the supposed “good guys”, genocide, terrorism, enslavement, treating women as property, etc.

I guess the only way I can still believe is to remember to take all this with a grain of salt.

Those who really read into the Old Testament see that the most common theme is real estate.   Whether talking about genealogy, wars, fables, or stories, most of it is about this theme.   It basically says that because of genealogy, God’s support and intervention of the wars, and God’s promises, that the land of Israel belongs to the Hebrews and everyone else has to leave.       

Again, I'm not trying to stir the pot here, but only sharing the feelings I had from my attempt of memorizing the Bible. 

Edited October 19, 2019 by Scott

[Guest Scott]

3 hours ago, Vort said:

Leah is not said to be "ugly", but "tender-eyed". What that means, I don't know; maybe she was prone to crying a lot, especially when she thought of how she, as the older daughter and first wife, should be exalted, but instead was loved less than her younger sister.

According to the Torah, her eyes were indeed tender because she would weep from sadness.  She would cry when she prayed to God because she wanted God to change her pre-destined mate, knowing that she would unloved.

Both the Bible and Torah say that Leah was not loved (KJV says hated); see Genesis 29:31.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Scott

[JohnsonJones]

6 hours ago, Scott said:

According to the Torah, her eyes were indeed tender because she would weep from sadness.  She would cry when she prayed to God because she wanted God to change her pre-destined mate, knowing that she would unloved.

Both the Bible and Torah say that Leah was not loved (KJV says hated); see Genesis 29:31.

It can be a rough thing.  I believe Leah's story is one of the things that those who try to show polygamy is not a good thing turn to occasionally (among other stories).

I do find it interesting that despite how Jacob apparently loved Rachel more, it was through Leah that the King of King's came.

[PS: For clarification - I believe that the story about weeping to change her pre-destined mate is in regards to Esau, not Jacob though.  The idea being that she would marry Esau who is not seen as faithful, while Rachel would marry the younger brother (Jacob).  In this, her prayer's were fulfilled, in that she did not marry Esau...or I suppose).

Edited October 19, 2019 by JohnsonJones
Clarification

[Colirio]

.

Edited October 19, 2019 by Colirio
Boredom of debating non-believers.

[Just_A_Guy]

10 hours ago, Scott said:

According to the Torah, her eyes were indeed tender because she would weep from sadness.  She would cry when she prayed to God because she wanted God to change her pre-destined mate, knowing that she would unloved.

Both the Bible and Torah say that Leah was not loved (KJV says hated); see Genesis 29:31.

You mean the Talmud?

[Just_A_Guy]

10 hours ago, Scott said:

. . .the supposed God’s support and commanding of rape; kidnapping and sex trafficking by the supposed “good guys”, genocide, terrorism, enslavement, treating women as property, etc.

God’s occasional ordering of wars of extermination, marrying female war prisoners, permitting slavery, and promulgating a relatively unenlightened views of women’s rights, I’ll grant you.  David being a near-all-around dirtbag, I’ll also grant you.  

On God ordering sex trafficking, kidnapping, and forcible rape—I’m gonna need some refs on that.  

[estradling75]

21 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

God’s occasional ordering of wars of extermination, marrying female war prisoners, permitting slavery, and promulgating a relatively unenlightened views of women’s rights, I’ll grant you.  David being a near-all-around dirtbag, I’ll also grant you.  

On God ordering sex trafficking, kidnapping, and forcible rape—I’m gonna need some refs on that.  

Indeed...  We can also grant that many do not read or understand the Old Testament.  However we can categorically reject that there is only one way to understand the verses written by those that have and do read it.  For example the Joseph is a jerk understanding verses the various counters given in this thread.    In many cases those calling out their interpretation as the only true and correct one are telling us more about themselves then they are about God

[Jamie123]

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back, and thanks for all the great responses. Plenty of food for thought!

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Remember that this is a narrative to get a story across.  I don't know how much of it we can accept as "direct quotes".    Maybe he was a spoiled brat.  Maybe he was just that good, and his father wanted to reward him.  Not to mention the fact that back in the day, wealthy men would always treat their heir apparent as something special.  Out of twelve sons, that alone would tend to make the others jealous.

Short response:  Who knows? -- and quite frankly, who cares?

What you mean of course is that you don't care, because you consider the matter to be of no material importance. I agree with you on the whole, but its human nature to want to fill in the characters a bit, and guess what they might really have been like. (Otherwise why would Cecil B. DeMille have bothered making The Ten Commandments?) Even if the "spoiled brat" theory is right, you don't sell your kid brother into slavery just for being a spoiled brat, so either way there was something for Joseph to forgive - but like I said, this wasn't what I wanted to talk about anyway.

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Your underlining is what I have a problem with.  How do you know it wasn't simply the fair value of the grain?  For all we know, Joseph kept records of how much grain traded for during the times of plenty and sold it back at that lower price.  How much it was sold for isn't written anywhere.

A "fair price" for anything is basically what you can get for it. I had an argument with my family a few months ago when I told them over lunch (I'm full of random gems like this) that if you can find a 1973 Rupert Bear annual, in which Rupert has a brown face on the cover, then that's worth about £20,000. They reacted that it may be worth that much, but no one would pay it. But its the very fact that there are people willing to pay £20,000 that makes it worth that much. If no one was willing to pay anything for it, it wouldn't be worth nowt.

Whatever's scarce is by its nature valuable - particularly if what's scarce is also vital for survival. This is how war profiteers thrive. We rely on them during the war, but once the war is over are we grateful to them? As Jesus might have said, "they have their reward".

Whatever Joseph charged for the grain, it was clearly more than the Joe Schmo Egyptian could reasonably afford; Joseph and Pharaoh between the pair of them used the famine as an opportunity to screw the common man over, swell the royal treasury and increase the power of the central government at the expense of the common citizen.

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

If you have a problem with the government taking things then selling things back to you, then you should have a great problem with socialism or communism.

I would indeed, if that were what socialism really taught. The way I see it, the money which is taken from my salary to pay for the National Health Service still belongs to me, and I claim it back whenever I go to see the doctor. It was a socialist government that established the NHS, but none of the conservative governments that followed it have presumed to reverse this policy. (Communism is another matter, and I'm not going to be drawn into an argument about the relationship between that and socialism.)

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Still, we have to remember that it would appear that this "fifth part" was bought, not simply "taken".  I don't know that with certainty.  But it seems like it was.

Well if it was, then fine. I'm barking well and truly up the wrong tree. But if so (and the writer of Genesis is presenting the facts fairly) why doesn't it say?

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

If not, it seems like a decent income tax by a governing body during a time of plenty -- with a somewhat noble motivation -- to save the world.

Things that are bought with income tax (schools, the police, prisons, the army, law courts...) - or indeed any other form of tax - we are not expected to pay for again when we benefit from them.

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Another thing to remember is that if 20% was enough to feed the entire world, surely that same amount would have been enough to make all of Egypt fat.  So, doing some math, there was another 60% that the farmers had.  What did they do with it?  Why didn't they have food storage?  While it's not written anywhere, I'm just thinking from an LDS perspective that Joseph would probably have preached to all of Egypt that they needed to have food storage themselves.  They didn't obey.  Well, they paid the price for their lack of obedience and/or foresight.

Well you could be right there, but if so then the writer has missed an opportunity for a "consider her ways..." type lesson.

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

No, they sold it.  It was not a compulsory exchange by power of the crown.  It was what the populace used as currency for food.

Call me cynical, but I tend to think that it comes to the same thing. Joseph/Pharaoh had them over a barrel, and it made very little difference whether he/they took their property by force or not.

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

They offered it because they had no more to pay with.  The food supplies had to be rationed out in some way.  And on such a large scale, simple market exchanges were the most efficient way to do it.  If they ran out, their freedom was all they had to pay with.  That was simply the economics of the day.  Remember that Joseph still obeyed the Law of Moses.  He remembered who he was.  And there were rules about debt and purchasing without money.  There were also rules about slavery.

I need perhaps to brush up on Mosaic law before responding to this - though I wonder if it is quite correct to talk about "The Law of Moses" at a time long before Moses was even born. I suspect though that you're going to tell me that the principles already applied, even though they had not yet been codified. (Just as Newton's laws existed before Newton.) Very interesting though - I need to look into this further. (Having finished my slow-read of Genesis I'm moving into Exodus now - so I'll doubtless be ranting about Moses soon enough!)

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Additionally, Joseph had to act as an agent of Pharaoh.  That was his job.  He needed to make sure that Pharaoh was properly treated as king during this time.

You may have something there - you didn't mess around with kings (especially Pharaohs) in those days!

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Well, maybe, just maybe, there is a healthy dose of interpretation and characterization in your take on what happened.  Maybe, just maybe,  your take is not really correct.

Well I can only speak about the scripture classes I had as a child - but from what I've heard from others, their experiences weren't much different from mine. Of course you don't tell kids all the gory details of the OT, and not expect them to grow up scarred for life...and therein lies the problem.

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Under completely different rules, circumstances, and motivations.  But sure, why not, right?

Why indeed? Yes, I know the "new" Pharaoh was worried about the growing size and power of the Israelite community in Egypt, and who they might side with in a war, but I can't help wondering if just perhaps the chickens were coming home to roost.

On 10/18/2019 at 10:40 PM, Mores said:

Again, you really have to read a lot into the story (because it isn't actually written there) to come to the conclusions and characterizations you're talking about.  Sure, you could make that interpretation from the sparse information found in the text (plus a healthy dose of expansive imagination).  But it is in no way clear from simply reading the text cold.  And once you add into it the specifics of the Law of Moses (which we know via Potiphar's wife that Joseph still adhered to as best he could) the probability is that the way he went about it was far different than the characterization that you're spitting out.

Maybe you're right: perhaps I'll change the title of my book to "Joseph: He wasn't really as bad as all that, you know!"

On 10/19/2019 at 1:12 AM, Vort said:

(By the way, the "mistresses" part is simply wrong. The fact is that both concubines—not mistresses—were wives. Concubinage in ancient Israel never involved "mistresses". The women were indeed wives, but wives of lesser standing, whose children might not have the same inheritance rights as the children of the "full" wives.)

By "mistress" I mean "woman you have sex with who is not your wife" - but if you think "concubine" is the correct word, OK I'll use it in future.

I was talking about this with my wife last night and my 15-year-old daughter heard us and wanted to know what a "concubine" was. When I attempted to explain, I found myself having to explain why a concubine is different from a mistress - not easy as (to put it in my daughter's words) "they both mean cheating on your wife"

On 10/19/2019 at 1:12 AM, Vort said:

Leah is not said to be "ugly", but "tender-eyed". What that means, I don't know; maybe she was prone to crying a lot, especially when she thought of how she, as the older daughter and first wife, should be exalted, but instead was loved less than her younger sister. Life can be so unfair.

Well OK - "ugly old Leah" was a bit of silly hyperbole on my part. What I really meant was that Jacob never fancied her, and only married her because Laban tricked him. (The trickster got tricked - now that was poetic justice - even though Jacob paid him back later.) But I should be more sensitive. (There's a nasty part of my personality which would have done well as a tabloid writer!)

On 10/19/2019 at 1:12 AM, Vort said:

And note: Of all the brothers who might have a grudge against Joseph, surely Reuben would be at the head of that list. He really was the eldest son, and should have been in the highest favor. Yet it was that same Reuben, "weak as water", who worked to save Joseph's life. Judah seems to have been the natural leader of his brothers, and it was Judah who spearheaded the charge against Joseph.

Absolutely! I was going to bring this up myself in another post, but you beat me to it. Poor old Reuben: he had one moment of weakness (well, one that we know about anyway) and as a result his tribe becomes the "also rans" of Jewish history. And lets not forget that Judah had sex with his daughter-in-law; unwittingly I grant you, but he thought that she was a prostitute - which doesn't quite absolve him. Having it away with your father's concubine (in your father's bed to boot!) would seem to be in a different league to that!

On 10/19/2019 at 1:12 AM, Vort said:

To be clear: Joseph warned Pharaoh and all of Egypt that a famine was coming. It was through Joseph's actions, implemented (or at least approved) by Pharaoh, that Egypt survived the famine at all without the entire civilization collapsing. The Egyptians, all of them, very literally owed their lives to Joseph. And in ancient times, when you owed your life to another, that often created a "life debt". This idea is extremely common in the ancient and even the modern world. The denizens of ancient Rome had the patron/client relationship, an outgrowth of that very idea. That was but one expression of the old idea, that when someone preserves your life, your life and fealty then belongs to that person.

I hear you - though another part of me retorts that just because Joseph/Pharaoh had a legal right to screw the people over, they didn't have to do it - or at least not as badly as they did. But it's not easy to read about the ancient world without the lens of the 21st century, or consider what we would have done in the protagonist's place and judge him/her on that basis. We have to remember also that it was God who sent (or at least allowed) the famine in the first place, and could easily have stopped it at any time - just as he commanded the great massacres later in the Bible. I'm reminded of the end of the movie Time Bandits, when the kid (forgotten his name) asks God why so many people had to die; God replies "You might as well ask why we have to have death at all!" The kid then retorts: "OK, why do we?" but gets no reply.

[I've run out of time - I'll have to carry on later.]

[Colirio]

On 10/18/2019 at 5:40 PM, Mores said:

 And once you add into it the specifics of the Law of Moses (which we know via Potiphar's wife that Joseph still adhered to as best he could) the probability is that the way he went about it was far different than the characterization that you're spitting out.

 

In what way was Joseph living the law of Moses? 

[Vort]

3 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

By "mistress" I mean "woman you have sex with who is not your wife" - but if you think "concubine" is the correct word, OK I'll use it in future.

I was talking about this with my wife last night and my 15-year-old daughter heard us and wanted to know what a "concubine" was. When I attempted to explain, I found myself having to explain why a concubine is different from a mistress - not easy as (to put it in my daughter's words) "they both mean cheating on your wife"

You're missing my point, Jamie. In ancient Israel, a concubine was a wife. That's the whole point. Bilhah and Zilpah were wives, not mere "mistresses" or "kept women". The Bible makes this explicit.

3 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

I hear you - though another part of me retorts that just because Joseph/Pharaoh had a legal right to screw the people over, they didn't have to do it - or at least not as badly as they did.

Again, you're missing my point. Joseph did not "screw the people over". He saved them. Joseph acted only to serve the best interests of Egypt and the Egyptians, not out of self-interest. One does not ever use one's divine prophetic gifts to line one's own pockets.

[anatess2]

It always becomes problematic when one reads history by placing the historical event into the modern era with our modern selves instead of shedding one's modern self and putting one's blank slate into the historical era.