The biblical figure of Joseph offers one of the most fascinating narratives of the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 37-50 tells the intricate and adventurous story that begins with Joseph portrayed as the favorite son of Jacob.
Joseph’s special status angers his brothers, who sell him into slavery-to either Ishmaelites or Midianites, who then bring him to Egypt. There Joseph gains the favor of Pharaoh, is promoted into the highest office, and acquires grain supplies that eventually save Egypt during a famine. When his starving brothers come from Canaan to Egypt, Joseph allows their entire households to settle in a region called Goshen.
Joseph overseeing the gathering of grain during the seven years of plenty (Genesis 41:47-48). Dating to about 1275, this mosaic appears in a cupola in the atrium of St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. Interestingly, the artist made Joseph’s granaries to look like pyramids.
Are these action-packed stories from Genesis credible? Is there any independent historical evidence that Joseph ever existed? You guessed it-we don’t know of any evidence for Joseph outside the Bible.
Like other patriarchal narratives, Joseph’s story seems impossible to pin down historically. What if instead of looking for the historical Joseph, we examine our sources for the broader historical period in which the biblical story could have been set?
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In her article “Does Archaeology Confirm Joseph’s Time in Egypt?” published in the Fall 2021 issue of Biblical Archaeology Review, Rachel Hallote looks at Joseph’s story from an historical perspective.
A professor of history at Purchase College of the State University of New York, Hallote examines the archaeological record from different periods of Egyptian history and tries to anchor the biblical story in reliable historical and archaeological sources.
Historical Context and Archaeological Evidence
Looking for a plausible historical setting, Hallote points to the fact that from the early second millennium B.C.E. people from Canaan were infiltrating the northeastern regions of Egypt.
“In the period known as the Second Intermediate Period [c. 1750-1550 B.C.E.], Canaanites who had been living in the region had expanded and taken over much of the eastern Nile Delta, essentially conquering Egypt from within.
This gold-mounted, steatite scarab of the Hykosos king Khyan dates from c. 1620-1581 B.C.E. Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Theodore M. Davis Collection, Bequest of Theodore M.
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Building on archaeological evidence from the eastern Nile Delta, Hallote affirms that the Hyksos were Canaanites. So should we see in the Hyksos the proto-Hebrews of the Bible?
The biblical storyline does, indeed, align with the Egyptian sources for the Hyksos: people originating in Canaan come to Egypt, gain in prominence, and finally leave for Canaan, being pursued by the Egyptian army.
Is it possible that, despite this major difference, the historical reality is somehow reflected in the biblical narrative, which was written down centuries after the events it purports to recount?
This golden diadem featuring heads of gazelles and a stag with alternating rosettes mixes Egyptian and Levantine artistic traditions. It attests to the power and grandeur of the Hyksos kings.Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift,1968.
Genesis 41 tells of a lengthy famine which, according to the text, lasts seven years. The famine is so deadly that people have nothing to eat, not only in Egypt, but in the surrounding lands as well. This famine provides the background for the story of how Jacob and his extended family end up in Egypt.
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They are just one group out of many that come to Egypt to buy food. But does this dramatic account of a regional famine have any basis in Egyptian history? In other words, do we have any historical record of a dramatic or widespread famine that might bring many people to move to Egypt on a quasi-permanent basis?
Towards the end of the Bronze Age, in the last decades of the 13th century and the early decades of the 12th century B.C.E., the Mediterranean world suffered a decades-long series of draughts and famines.[1] Many of the more vulnerable lands in the Levant and the Mediterranean were in desperate need of food.
Jacob and his extended family are suffering in Canaan from the famine, and go to Egypt with bags of hacksilver in order to buy grain.[10] This group would have been one of many to do so, and we can hardly expect to find any description of it in Egyptian records.
Gen 42:6 Now Joseph was the vizier of the land; it was he who dispensed rations to all the people of the land. This verse suggests that a foreigner from Canaan becomes a vizier in Egypt so powerful that he effectively has control of the government.
Baya (bꜣy, 𓃝 𓇌-more on this name later) was an important scribe and palace official of northern origin (i.e., Canaan, Transjordan, or Syria)[14] during the reign of Merneptah’s son Seti II (1203-1197). In two different inscriptions, Baya is described as the one “who established the king on the seat of his father.”[19]
To quote University of Bristol Egyptologist Aidan Dodson, “Bay[a]’s boast is particularly striking: for a man to claim to have been installed by a king in his father’s place is quite normal; for a man to have done so for the king is without parallel.”[20] This claim is unprecedented, since according to Egyptian religio-political beliefs, one of the gods was responsible for choosing the next pharaoh.
Perhaps Baya’s foreign origin made him less sensitive to Egyptian cultural norms. According to Egyptian records, Baya’s title was both Treasurer and Vizier or Chancellor (scholars seem to use these translations interchangeably), and in his letter to Ugarit, he signs as Egypt’s Major General.
The name Baya is unusual. As Baya has no obvious meaning in Egyptian, most scholars assume it is a Semitic name. But what does it mean?
Ps 68:5 Sing to God, chant hymns to His name; extol Him who rides the clouds; Beyah is His name. The term “rider of clouds,” was the epithet in ancient times for the western-Semitic storm God Adad/Hadad, known by his epithet Baʿal (“the master”).
Looking at the Egyptian evidence together with that of these biblical poems, it seems as if YHWH/Yahwa is both the name of the deity and the name of the land. This pattern is attested in the ancient Near East: Ashur, for example, was the name of both the area of Assyria and its high god.
On this day, the scribe of the tomb Paser came announcing “Pharaoh-Life! Prosperity! This suggests that in the fifth year of his reign, Siptah has Baya executed as a traitor.
According to the records, Egypt did not suffer during the famine, and Baya didn’t get his position by interpreting a Pharaoh’s dream. The famine was fifty years not seven, and Baya did not live to see years of plenty because he was executed by the Pharaoh.
As Oxford professor of Bible Jan Joosten has recently shown,[36] the language in which the Joseph story was written is Classical Biblical Hebrew (CBH), from the monarchic period. This, however, does not mean that the story dates to this period.
Thus, I suggest that the memory of the powerful Hebrew Baya/Beyah, who became Egypt’s vizier, more powerful than Pharaoh himself, was the basis for the story of Joseph the vizier, who ran Egypt during the time of the great famine.
Is This Evidence Joseph Was in Egypt?
The 4.2 kyr Event and Its Impact
One of the best methods is uranium-thorium dating, which relies on the radioactive decay of uranium to thorium, and can give dates with an uncertainty as small as 1%. But if a stalagmite never had much uranium in the first place, or has been heavily contaminated with other substances, the dates become fuzzy.
Most likely this drought (which would have caused a regional, large regional, or possibly even worldwide famine) is the one mentioned starting in Genesis 41:26, where Joseph (30 years old at the time) relates the meaning of Pharaoh’s dream to him.
Of note is the extended passage in Genesis 41:56-57, which states, “So when the famine had spread over all the land, Joseph opened all the storehouses and sold to the Egyptians, for the famine was severe in the land of Egypt.
Some versions translate the Hebrew word erets as “countries” and “lands” instead of “earth,” which are also legitimate translations of the Hebrew, and most versions do vary the translation between or within verses 56 and 57.
Remembering that erets can also mean the inhabitants of the earth, another viable interpretation that AiG geneticist Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson has explained to this author-is his contention that it is possible people had not spread out very far from Babel and the Middle East/Mediterranean/Northern Africa area at this time (c. 1700 BC).
Interestingly, the authors and quoted experts in the Nature article are also equally divided about this drought (which would have caused famine and the collapse of some societies).
According to the article, archaeologist Harvey Weiss is quoted as saying, “We’ve got Mesopotamia, the Nile, the Aegean and the Mediterranean all the way to Spain.” In all these places, Weiss says, there is evidence from around 4,200 years (kyr) ago for a drying climate, for the collapse of central authorities, and for people moving to escape the newly arid zones.
Answers in Genesis does not take a particular position on the geographical extent of the famine, but this author believes that the famine was likely not worldwide since the Hebrew word erets can have several different meanings, and much of the focus on chapters 41-47 is either the land (erets) of Egypt, the land (erets) of Canaan, and/or Joseph’s family.
Most likely the famine was multi-regional, spreading from Egypt and outward over the Mediterranean basin.
Of particular interest is the fact that drought is mentioned as the primary cause of famine and civilization collapse in the Nature article.
Additionally, it would arguably have been difficult for one country to supply food to the entire world (if that is the intended meaning of erets) for several years by setting aside only one-fifth of their grain production (Genesis 41:34) from the seven years of plenty.
According to conventional Egyptian dating and using a long sojourn, Joseph holds high office under the reign of Sesostris III (c. 1878-1843 BC). According to Ussher’s dates (based on a short sojourn) this would have been in 1715 BC, with the famine then starting in 1708 BC.
As time went on, people ran out of money and bartered their livestock, lands, and ultimately their freedom to buy food, as mentioned in Genesis 47:13-21.
Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, in exchange for the grain that they bought. And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes?
The Bible tells us that Adam was a farmer, as was Cain, and that Abel was a herdsman. Cain built a city, and his sons built musical instruments and forged iron and bronze.
Contrary to evolutionary anthropology dogma, there was no thousand- or ten-thousand-year gap between stone, bronze, and iron tools. However, different people groups who dispersed from Babel would have had varying levels of technological knowledge among them. Some would have had ore-mining and smelting/forging knowledge; some would not.
While not deliberately meaning to, this study fits nicely with the biblical account of the famine of Joseph’s time and closely ties in with paleoclimatic data (when radiocarbon and radiometric dates are adjusted to biblical timescales), which shows a desertification creeping across India, Saudi Arabia, and northern Africa.
All these countries (and the rest of the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern region) almost certainly came to Egypt for grain.
Historical Evidence of the Famine and Joseph (Genesis 41)
When Joseph is 30, after another two years of imprisonment, God brings about another major step in the plan He is working out. He gives Pharaoh a prophetic dream that no one is able to explain. Finally, the butler remembers the amazing events relating to his prison dream and Joseph's interpretation.
Joseph is summoned by Pharaoh and tells him the meaning of his dream: Seven years of plenty were to be followed by seven years of famine.
Historical confirmation of this time of abundance succeeded by a long period of great food shortage is believed to exist.
A fascinating inscription confirming the Bible's account of the "seven years of great plenty" followed by the "seven years of famine" (Gen. 41:29, 30) was discovered during the nineteenth century in southern Saudi Arabia.
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