Tag: Joseph

An ancient Egyptian stone quarry at Hatnub. These quarries were sometimes used as jails.
Bible

Crime and Punishment in Ancient Egypt

Egyptian society generally had no laws.  Instead, the Egyptians governed their society by an ethical concept called Maat, “order.”  This concept led to a pretty permissive society.  If an act did not disrupt the community and was not an act against the king, it was generally permitted.

 

Punishment for Crimes

We have to remember that Egyptian ruled by a brutal military dictatorship.  So magistrates maintained order by force and corporal punishment.  Acts against the king were usually met with the death penalty.  But for lesser offenses beatings were commonplace.

However, magistrates did not only use beatings to punish crime but also as an interrogation method.  The way the Egyptians used beatings was that they would beat you first before asking any questions, ask their questions, then beat you again if they felt like you needed it.   Interrogators only believed that they got honest answers when an interrogation first started with a beating.

 

Egyptian Jails

If the magistrate or king could not decide what to do with you, they would send you to jail.  In Genesis 39, we read about Potipher’s wife falsely accusing Joseph of rape.  As a slave, this crime would earn more than a beating.  But if the accuser was less than reputable, it would not necessarily warrant the death penalty.  Perhaps, Potipher understood the character of his wife.  So Joseph was sent to Egyptian jail [Gen 39:20].

Now, the Egyptian concept of jail might not be what you expect.  The Egyptians used their rock quarries as jails.   Quarries existed that were the operated by skilled professional stone cutters [see featured image].  However, quarries were also used as prisons.

Egyptian jails had no doors, bars, or walls.  Succinctly put, these jails needed no restraints.  Quarries typically were found in remote locations with very little water.  If anyone tried to escape, they would be subject to the heat of the desert and die of dehydration in short order.  This was strong incentive to stay and do one’s time.

 

The "Dream Book" a papyrus held in the British Museum. A catalog to interpret dreams.
Bible

Dreams and their Interpretation

The Egyptians believed that dreams could foretell the future.  And as such the interpretation of dreams played an important part of ancient Egyptian culture.  In fact, the interpretation of dream persists among modern Egyptians today.

 

The Dream Book

Two so-called “dream books” have survived from ancient Egypt.  Perhaps the most interesting is Papyrus Chester Beatty III, a fragmentary papyrus written in hieratic.  This papyrus is a catalog of dreams and their interpretations.

The format of the interpretations is quite formulaic.  All the dreams are predicated upon you appearing your dream.  The dream is then summarized.  The book then gives a one-word appraisal of the  dream, either “good” or “bad.”  And then the book predicts what’s going to happen to you.

A couple of examples from  the dream book are as follows: “[if a man sees himself in a dream] seeing the god who is above–good; it means much food.”  Or, “[…] seeing himself [in] mourning–good; the increase of his possessions.”  Or, “[…] looking in a deep well–bad; his being put into prison.”  Or, “[…] seeing an ostrich–bad; harm befalling him.”

The content of these dreams were not limited by propriety or societal mores.  Dream books provided interpretations for dreams involving drinking wine, engorged genitals, and copulating with one’s mother.  Also, some of these dreams could be quite cringe worthy, such as, drinking one’s own urine or blood, or copulating with a pig.  Counter-intuitively, the dream books considered some of these noxious dreams to have good outcomes.

 

Joseph and Dream Interpretation

One cannot refer to dream books without being reminded of the dream interpretations found in the Bible, most notably those interpretations done by Joseph.  Joseph was sent to prison where he interpreted the dreams of his fellow prisoners.  Joseph interpreted the dream of a cupbearer:

So the chief cupbearer told his dream to Joseph, and said to him, “In my dream, behold, there was a vine in front of me; and on the vine were three branches. And as it was budding, its blossoms came out, and its clusters produced ripe grapes.  Now Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand; so I took the grapes and squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup, and I put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand.”  Then Joseph said to him, “This is the interpretation of it: the three branches are three days; within three more days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your office; and you will put Pharaoh’s cup into his hand according to your former custom when you were his cupbearer. [Gen 40:9-13]

The Chester Beatty papyrus has a similar dream.  “[…] seeing himself with one greater than he–good; it means his promotion by his (own) agency.”  The cupbearer saw himself serving the king, so a promotion or restoration of position was the expected interpretation.

 

Pharaoh’s Dream and the Dream Book

The cupbearer remembered Joseph as an interpreter of dreams and suggested to the king that Joseph could interpret his dream.   Joseph interpreted the king’s dream as foretelling seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.  The king described his dream as follows:

Now it happened at the end of two full years that Pharaoh had a dream, and behold, he was standing by the Nile.  And lo, from the Nile there came up seven cows, sleek and fat; and they grazed in the marsh grass.  Then behold, seven other cows came up after them from the Nile, ugly and gaunt, and they stood by the other cows on the bank of the Nile.  The ugly and gaunt cows ate up the seven sleek and fat cows. Then Pharaoh awoke.  He fell asleep and dreamed a second time; and behold, seven ears of grain came up on a single stalk, plump and good.  Then behold, seven ears, thin and scorched by the east wind, sprouted up after them.  The thin ears swallowed up the seven plump and full ears. Then Pharaoh awoke, and behold, it was a dream.  [Gen 41:1-8]

The Chester Beatty papyrus has some favorable interpretations that reference bovines.  “[…] seeing a dead ox–good; it means seeing [the demise?] of his enemies.”   “[…] killing an ox–good; killing his enemies.”  “[…] carving up an ox with his (own) hand–good; killing his (own) adversary.”  And, “[…] bringing in the cattle–good; the assembling of people for him by his god.”

But there are also some unfavorable interpretations.  “[…] feeding cattle–bad; it means roaming the earth.”

Grain is also referenced.  “[…] seeing barley and spelt [given?] to those yonder–good; it means the protection of him by his god.”  “[…] measuring barley–bad; it means the arising of words with him.”

Likewise, dreams provided predictions for harvests.  “[…] seeing a large cat–good; it means a large harvest will come to him.”

 

What can we make of Dream Interpretations?

Although the Chester Beatty papyrus is far from complete, we can see that the interpretation of dreams was codified knowledge.  A lot of questions remain regarding how the ancient Egyptians interpreted dreams.  How did the Egyptians interpret more complex dreams?  How extensive were these dream books?  Did the Egyptians standardize dream books?  How many editions were in circulation?  Fortunately, the Chester Beatty papyrus gives us a tantalizing start to this fascinating subject.

 

A Levantine Asiatic with a colorful coat from tomb 3 at Beni Hasan.
Archaeology

The Tomb of Joseph, Good or Bad Biblical Scholarship?

One of the occupational hazards of being both an Egyptologist and a Bible scholar is that one is frequently confronted with fringe theories.  And typically I don’t feel the need to pay those views a lot of attention.  Yet, some views have been affirmed by otherwise respectable scholars that are not so good.  Thomas S. McCall (a ThD in Semitic languages and Old Testament) published an article affirming the work of David Rohl who claimed that the tomb of Joseph had been discovered.  But is this good or bad biblical scholarship?

 

David Rohl and his “New Chronology”

McCall in his article endorses a view of chronology held by Rohl.  Both believe that the Exodus occurred around 1450 BC, a date consistent with the “early Exodus” perspective. Unfortunately, McCall is not alone in his support of Rohl.  Many Christian ministries have endorsed Rohl’s views.

For most Egyptologists, a 1450 BC date would place the Exodus during the reign of Thutmosis III (mid New Kingdom).  However, McCall and Rohl have a divergent view of chronology.   Rohl believes that the Exodus occurred instead during the reign of Dudimose (a king that reigned 2 years at the end of the Middle Kingdom). 

This “new chronology” blithely ignores all the synchronistic evidence.  And there is a lot of evidence that precludes Rohl’s chronology from serious consideration (e.g. the Amarna letters).  Rohl is definitely outside of the mainstream of modern archaeology and scholarship.

 

The Tomb of Joseph?

But what about the so-called tomb of Joseph?  Regrettably, all that remains are fragments of a single statue.  These fragments suggest part of a Semitic hair style and a varicolored tunic.  From the account of Joseph having a varicolored tunic (Gen 37:3) and this being the tomb of an important Semite, McCall and Rohl conclude that this must be the tomb of Joseph.

I think that there are problems with how McCall and Rohl arrived at this conclusion.  First is the problem of Joseph’s varicolored tunic.  Joseph had a varicolored tunic that was a gift from Jacob.  But his brothers took Joseph’s tunic and they covered it in goat’s blood to prove to their father that Joseph was dead (Gen 37:23, 31-32).  Nothing in the biblical text suggests that Joseph obtained another varicolored tunic.

The other issue is that many Semites had varicolored tunics.  For example, from tomb 3 at Beni Hasan, a painting portrays an Asiatic wearing a varicolored tunic while he tends an ibex (see featured picture).  This is a problem since the location of Rohl’s so-called tomb of Joseph was at Avaris, a predominantly Semite culture.  Many people could have had varicolored tunics, and thus a varicolored tunic would not have been an identifying symbol.

How can we know that this is the tomb of Joseph versus any other Hyksos or Asiatic official?  We can’t.  The evidence is simply insufficient to determine one way or the other.

 

Scholarship Gone Bad

So why does McCall accept Rohl’s chronology?  Because what Rohl says fits with a chronology that McCall expects from the Bible.  The problem here is confirmation bias.

Biblical studies is by no means alone in having confirmation bias.  But when bible scholars seek to take an apologetic approach to their research, the desire to prove what they already think is true often becomes a driving imperative.  This often leads them down wrong paths by ignoring contradictory evidence in the pursuit of evidence that supports their position.

Now, I think that there is evidence that supports various aspects of the biblical texts.  However, making the purpose of our scholarship the finding (or manufacture) of evidence does more harm than good.  As responsible scholars, we must carefully weigh the evidence both for and against whatever hypothesis we may hold, and then go with the evidence.  This way we can learn about biblical texts in ways that may not have even occurred to us.

I honestly think that starting with specific dates and looking for evidence that fits is really poor scholarship. What if your chronology is wrong?  What if we are reading the biblical texts in a way that is different from what the ancient writer intended?  What if by some chance you find the real Joseph?  In McCall’s case, his acceptance of Rohl’s defective chronology is almost certainly wrong.

McCall and Rohl are looking to find Joseph, and that is what both find in spite of the evidence.  While I believe that Joseph was a real person, I just don’t think that either Rohl’s chronology or his evidence is sound.  This is why confirmation bias is such a terrible thing.  Confirmation bias blinds us to any hard truths or bad scholarship that might be before us.