To be continued . . .

Well, school started this week, so I got behind immediately. Hopefully I can continue! I still have about 50 more chapters before I reach the farthest point I have ever gotten to. But I have finished Genesis!


Old Testament
Book 1: Genesis
Joseph in Egypt (cont'd)
Chapter 47: Pharaoh acquires everything
Chapter 48: Jacob blesses Ephraim and Manasseh
Chapter 49: Jacob blesses all of his children
Chapter 50: Joseph's dreams come true, and he dies

There are also many bizarre, random, unexplained moments in the Bible. One of them happens at the beginning of Chapter 47. At the end of Chapter 46 Joseph tells his brothers, "whatever you do, don't say you're shepherds!" (Lying is a real theme, almost a virtue, in the old testament.) Then he takes them to see Pharaoh. What's the first thing they say? "We're shepherds!" There's no explanation for it, no consequences.

In chapter 47, the famine is getting really bad. Joseph continues feeding the people with his stores, but he keeps exacting a dearer and dearer price, until the entire country has sold themselves into slavery in order to eat. Then it's time for Jacob to die. He makes Joseph promise to bury him in the Abraham cave where Sarah is buried. Joseph agrees.

Chapter 48 is another story that is completely foreign to modern audiences, concerning rules of inheritance (which again, although they are in the bible no longer obtain). Joseph stands in front of Jacob with Ephraim on one side and Manasseh on the other. But when Jacob blesses them, he reaches across and blesses the wrong one. (This is reminiscent to me of how Jacob tricked Isaac.) This cross-blessing explains, according to the note, Ephraim's emergence to a position of great power in Israel. The note says that this story is another "manifestation of God's mysterious freedom" (Gen. 48:17-19n). Whatever.

Now we are very close to the end of the story of Genesis. One fascinating thing about this story, something that I cannot think of another example of literature, is the arc of this story. It is not the story of one human--it is the story of generations of humans. The main "character" is not a person, it's a whole group of people, Israel, and how they relate to God. It's a fascinating thing. The motivations of any one character in the bible is just to deal with God for his time, to secure the promise of God one more time for his descendants. I just thought of one example, sort of, where the story spans generations and yet one of the characters lives throughout the whole time: Lord of the Rings--Gandalf never gets older as he deals with generation after generation in Middle Earth. Now I can think of more. Highlander is similar. Dracula. But even most of these stories really involve one generation. The concept that the character at the end is behaving relatively independently of the earlier generations is very unusual.

Chapter 49 is Jacob's long blessing to all of his 12 sons. We're wrapping up. This is like the end of Return of the King, when the story ended about 30 minutes ago, but we're still going on. It's interesting that each of the twelve children represent a real tribe in Israel, each with different fortunes. And it's interesting that they put all that in the bible. (Notice that the notes always just assume the bible was written AFTER these events. The story about Judah, for example, was written and inserted because later on his branch of the family becomes important. Same here. They wrote this chapter to fit with what they later find out happens to the tribes. The note for vv. 8-12 says that it refers to the reign of David, which gives a clue as to when it was written. It is very refreshing to me to read this edition of the Bible, which blithely and unquestioningly implies that the book is man-made.

It's cool how powerful Joseph became. All of Egypt mourned for 70 days when Joseph's father Jacob died. One last moment of tension. After Jacob died, Joseph's brothers become afraid that he will now exact his revenge. Joseph says no, and they all start to cry, and they prostrate themselves before him. And so Joseph's dream from the beginning comes true on the last page. It's actually pretty good writing--there was foreshadowing and everything. How to explain this? Why would God be a decent writer at some points and a terrible writer at others?

Joseph died, and made his children promise that when Israel leaves Egypt they will take his bones with them. They agree. The end of book one of the holey bible.


--bibletoenail