Charles F Aling
Charles F. Aling, Ph. D., is professor of history at North western College in Minneapolis MN and President of The Institute for Biblical Archaeology. He is author of Egypt and Bible History, Baker Books, 1981.
The events narrated in the Joseph Story, Genesis 37–50, have long been a favorite topic of investigation for both Biblical scholars and those Egyptologists with an interest in the Old Testament1. No reference to Joseph has turned up in Egyptian sources, but given the relative paucity of information about Egyptian officials before the New Kingdom and the lack of consensus regarding Joseph’s Egyptian name, this should not surprise us.
Any specific reference to Joseph in any recognizable form will probably not be discovered any time soon. But, if we believe in the historicity of Joseph and the accuracy of the events recorded in Genesis about his life and career, we can ask two questions with some hope of receiving an answer from the written and archeological sources: what is the best date for Joseph, and, once that has been posited, do the Biblical events fit in that period of Egyptian history?
In answer to our first question, two major positions exist regarding the data of Joseph among serious students of the Joseph Story who accept its historicity. The majority of such modem scholars date Joseph to the Second Intermediate Period of Egyptian history, ca. 1786–1570 BC (Vergote 1959; Kitchen 1962; Stigers 1976), a time when an Asiatic group called the Hyksos2 ruled the delta of the Nile.
This view is based primarily on two assumptions: first, that the so-called Late Date of the Exodus (during the reign of Ramses II) is correct, and second, that the rise to power of an Asiatic can best be placed during a period of Egyptian history when his fellow Asiatics, the Hyksos, controlled the government. Let us briefly examine these two arguments.
If the Exodus occurred in the 13th century BC, and the Sojourn lasted approximately 400 years (430, according to Exodus 12:40), Joseph would belong in the 17th century BC. But if the Exodus took place in the 15th century BC, Joseph’s career would be shifted back to the 19th century BC, during the days of the 12th Dynasty of the Middle Kingdom.
If the Biblical numbers are taken
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literally and at face value, the probable kings during the enslavement and subsequent rise to power of Joseph would have been Sesostris II (1897–1878 BC) and Sesostris III (1878–1843 BC).3 This argument then rests on how one interprets 1 Kings 6:1, to be seen which dates the Exodus 480 years before the fourth year of Solomon, ca. 966 BC.
There seem to be three commonly held ways to regard this verse. One may accept it at face value, thus dating the Exodus to the 15th century BC;4 one may totally disregard the verse’s historical accuracy, which allows one to date the Exodus to any period one chooses, or indeed to deny it altogether;5 or one may interpret the numbers given in it to mean something less than a literal 480 years, thus invoking support from the verse for a late Exodus.6 It is not our purpose here to argue these positions, although I personally hold to an early Exodus. My only point is that one’s view on the date of the Exodus is a determiner of one’s date for Joseph.
The second idea, that Joseph should best be thought of as serving when fellow Syro-Palestinians ruled part of Egypt seems to be unsound. It assumes that Syro-Palestinians, regardless of specific nationality, would favor one another. Our emerging knowledge of Canaan, with its political division and inter-city warfare, and indeed the rivalries between groups visible in the Biblical narrative, casts great doubt in my mind that a Canaanite group such as the Hyksos would be automatically friendly to a Hebrew.
It has long ago been observed that certain features of the Joseph Story fit well in the 12th Dynasty. A survey of some of these might be helpful.7
Supporters of a 12th Dynasty date for the Joseph Story begin their arguments with a strict literal acceptance of the Biblical chronology of the Exodus and Sojourn. 1 Kings 6:1 is seen as dating the Exodus to ca. 1446 BC, and Exodus 12:40 is seen as placing the entrance of Jacob and his family from him into an Egypt where Joseph holds high office under the reign of Sesostris III, ca. 1876 BC. Joseph’s career of him as an Egyptian governmental official would
Sesostris III, possibly the second pharaoh under whom Joseph served.
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thus begin under Sesostris II and would continue into the reign of Sesostris III.
Specific elements of the Joseph Story are normally cited in support of such a Middle Kingdom date. A few examples will illustrate.
Potiphar, the official who first bought Joseph, is called an Egyptian and commander of the king’s guard in Genesis 39:1. It is argued that if the king were a Hyksos ruler, it would not make sense for a native Egyptian to have been commander of the royal bodyguard. Further, Joseph is described several times (Gen 41, 42, and 45) as ruler over all the land of Egypt. The Hyksos controlled only the northern part of Egypt, but the 12th Dynasty ruled the entire nation. And when the king wanted to reward Joseph, he gave him the daughter of a priest of On, or Heliopolis, to be his wife of him. The argument there is that a Hyksos king would more probably give Joseph the daughter of the priest of another god, such as Seth, who was a more important deity to the Hyksos than were the solar deities venerated by the native Egyptians.
It should be observed, however, that the Hyksos did not in any way suppress the worship of Re, the sun god of On. Also, proponents of a 12th Dynasty date for Joseph argue that when Joseph is called from prison to meet Pharaoh in Genesis 41:14, he has to shave and put on clean clothing. This would reflect native Egyptian customs rather than those of the Syro-Palestinian Hyksos.
An argument that has been used to date Joseph to the Hyksos period is the mention of chariots on the account of Joseph’s promotion and rewarding by Pharaoh. It is often pointed out that since the war chariot was probably introduced into Egypt by the Hyksos, Pharaoh’s gift to Joseph would best fit in the Second Intermediate Period and not in the earlier Middle Kingdom.8
But need we connect this vehicle used for transportation by a high official of government with war chariots? Nothing is said in the Joseph Story about chariots being used in battle, and in fact the chariot given to Joseph is called the second chariot of Pharaoh, thus leaving the impression that there were not many of them. When a horse was found by the excavators of the fortress of Buhen, from a period well before the Egyptians began to use chariots for war, the conclusion of the archeologists was,
It is likely that, at least in the early periods, horses were owned by the most top-ranking members of society and that they were only used for drawing chariots on state occasions (Emery, Smith and Millard 1979: 194; cf. B. Wood 1993).
Lastly, mention ought to be made of a papyrus in the Brooklyn Museum and published by William C. Hayes (1955). This late Middle Kingdom document is of great importance for the study of the Joseph Story, and can only be summarized here. It contains information on Asiatic slaves in Egypt during the late Middle Kingdom, only a few generations after Joseph, assuming a 12th Dynasty date for him. The most striking thing about these Asiatic slaves is that one of the most common jobs they were assigned was a household servant, just like Joseph (Hayes 1955:103). Joseph’s servitude thus fits the pattern for the Middle Kingdom period of Egyptian history.
Our purpose here, assuming a 12th Dynasty date for Joseph to be most in accordance with the Scriptural chronology,
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Egyptian tomb painting depicting a caravan of Asiatics, very much like Jacob and his
is to examine what new evidence there may be that would both support and further illustrate a career for Joseph in the Middle Kingdom. But first let us note an area for further research, involving the seven years of plenty followed by the seven years of famine so important to the Joseph Story.
About 20 years ago Barbara Bell studied the 12th Dynasty Egyptian records of Nile levels at the Middle Kingdom Nubian forts (1975). Collating this information with an analysis of statuary, and with the well-known literary work entitled “The Complaint of Khahkeperre-Seneb,”9 Bell concludes that the mid-12th Dynasty suffered erratic Nile levels which caused crop failure and the resultant social disruption mirrored in the Complaint.
One might ask why an unusually high Nile would hurt crops; Bell’s answer is that under such conditions it would take longer for the water to drain off the fields, and would thus impede the year’s planting. As more information comes to light and as our knowledge of Nile fluctuations becomes more complete, we may be better able to consider Joseph’s famine in a 12th Dynasty context.
In recent years our archaeological knowledge of the Nile delta has increased significantly. Much of this advance is due to the work of the Austrians under Manfred Bietak at Tell el-Daba Khatana-Qantir. This region is now the accepted location of the Biblical city of Ramses and the earlier Hyksos capital of Avaris. Our knowledge of the northeast delta and Asiatic influence in the region is much greater than it was 20 years ago. One discovery, made by Bietak’s team between 1984 and 1987 and pointed out recently by John J. Bimson, is of extreme significance for the 12th Dynasty historicity of the Joseph Story (Bietak 1990).
A palace and accompanying garden dating to the 12th Dynasty were found. There is no evidence that the palace was any kind of royal residence; Bietak hypothesizes on the basis of inscriptional material that it was the headquarters of an official who supervised trade and mining expeditions across the northeastern border (Bietak 1990: 69).
But what is most interesting about this find is the cemetery located in the palace garden, and particularly one of the tombs in it. All of the
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family, entering Egypt in the sixth year of Sesostris II.
other graves (there are approximately 12 altogether) seem to date to a slightly later period, perhaps the early years of Dynasty 13, and were on the basis of their orientation, definitely not part of the original palace-garden complex. But the largest and most impressive tomb of the lot, consisting of a single brick chamber with a small chapel in front of it, was oriented to the structures of stratum E (early-to-middle 12th Dynasty) (Bietak 1990: 61).
While the tomb had been robbed and badly damaged, a most interesting find was discovered in the robbers’ tunnel between the tomb chamber and the chapel. A statue, almost certainly of one of the officials who lived in the palace in the late years of the 12th Dynasty, had been removed (probably from the tomb chapel) and had been smashed to pieces. All that remain are a few fragments of the head; the facial features have been very deliberately destroyed (See cover photo). The statue was approximately 1 1/2 times life size, and exhibits no characteristics of a royal personage. But the most interesting thing is that this official was clearly an Asian. This is demonstrated by the yellow coloration of the skin, which was, as Bietak observes, typical for the depiction of male Asiatics, and by another Asiatic…