Abstract
This paper critically examines practices that follow violence in the Bible and early Jewish literature. It focuses on the story of Joseph, often read in different faith communities and in scholarship as a narrative of forgiveness. I analyze the story as it is told in the Hebrew Bible and in one of its late antique reinterpretations, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. These texts illustrate different ways of interrupting the cycle of violence. In contrast with modern conceptions, interpersonal forgiveness and reconciliation are absent (also Konstan, Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea, Cambridge University Press, 2010; Morgan, Mercy, Repentance, and Forgiveness in Ancient Judaism. In Ancient Forgiveness, ed. Charles L. Griswold and David Konstan, 137–157, Cambridge University Press, 2012). Instead, the texts describe other kinds of techniques, such as a complex set of role plays or reenactments in the Hebrew Bible and an inner softening of the self in the Testaments.
Thank you to Jennifer Quincey for carefully copyediting this chapter.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The role plays also compel the brothers to give successive accounts of their experiences; see Grossman, Story of Joseph’s Brothers.
- 3.
See Exod 15:15; the verb (nivhal) also indicates that the subject perceives imminent danger or death (Judg 20:41; 1 Sam 28:21; 2 Sam 4:1; Jer 51:32).
- 4.
The verb “to be pained” (‘atsav, Niphal or Hitpael) specifically describes the grief felt after a vulnerable relative or beloved has been wronged (e.g., 1 Sam 20:34; 2 Sam 19:3); it connotes powerlessness at preventing the beloved’s humiliation or death.
- 5.
Morgan 2012; Konstan 2010, 105–106. The rhetorical question “Am I in the place of God?” repeats Jacob’s rebuke to Rachel, complaining about her lack of children, well before Joseph’s birth (Gen 30:2). In both cases, the main character denies his responsibility, arguing that the task at hand falls within the deity’s remit.
- 6.
Joseph’s escalating weeping should not be interpreted necessarily as an expression of his internal states. On the role of tears in recognition scenes, see Bosworth 2015.
- 7.
Hollander and de Jonge 1985, 90.
- 8.
For example, Josephus uses the verb malakizomai in scenes where men are feminized; see Ant. 13:232 (cf. War 1:59); Ant. 19:29; War 6:211.
- 9.
Also Philo, Joseph 237, 246–248; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities 2:163.
- 10.
The verb is used in LXX Gen 50:15; see also Jewish Antiquities 2:162.
References
Alter, Robert. 1980. Joseph and His Brothers. Commentary 70 (5): 59–69.
———. 1981. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books.
Beauchamp, Paul. 2002. Joseph et ses frères: offense, pardon, réconciliation. Sémiotique et Bible 105: 3–13.
Blum, Erhard, and Kristin Weingart. 2017. The Joseph Story: Diaspora Novella or North-Israelite Narrative? Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 129 (4): 501–521.
Bosworth, David A. 2015. Weeping in Recognition Scenes in Genesis and the Odyssey. Catholic Biblical Quarterly 77: 619–639.
de Bruin, Tom. 2015. The Great Controversy: The Individual’s Struggle Between Good and Evil in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and in Their Jewish and Christian Contexts. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
deSilva, David A. 2013. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs as Witnesses to Pre-Christian Judaism: A Re-Assessment. Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 22 (4): 21–68.
Fischer, Georg. 2001. Die Josefsgeschichte als Modell für Versöhnung. In Studies in the Book of Genesis: Literature, Redaction and History, ed. André Wénin, 243–271. Leuven: Peeters.
Gereboff, Joel. 2019. Peace, Reconciliation and Forgiveness: Early Rabbinic Stories and Their Implications for People’s Peace. In People’s Peace: Prospects for a Human Future, ed. Yasmin Saikia and Chad Haines, 101–118. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press.
Griswold, Charles L., and David Konstan, eds. 2012. Ancient Forgiveness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Grossman, Jonathan. 2013. The Story of Joseph’s Brothers in Light of ‘Therapeutic Narrative’ Theory. Biblical Interpretation 21 (1): 171–195.
———. 2016. Different Dreams: Two Models of Interpretation for Three Pairs of Dreams (Gen 37–50). Journal of Biblical Literature 135 (4): 717–732.
Hollander, Harm W. 1981. Joseph as an Ethical Model in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Leiden: Brill.
Hollander, Harm W., and Marinus de Jonge. 1985. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs: A Commentary. Leiden: Brill.
Jacobs, Mignon R. 2003. The Conceptual Dynamics of Good and Evil in the Joseph Story: An Exegetical and Hermeneutical Inquiry. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 27 (3): 309–338.
de Jonge, Marinus. 2003. Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament as Part of Christian Literature. Leiden: Brill.
Konstan, David. 2010. Before Forgiveness: The Origins of a Moral Idea. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kugel, James L. 2010. Some Translation and Copying Mistakes from the Original Hebrew of the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. In The Dead Sea Scrolls: Transmission of Traditions and Production of Texts, ed. Sarianna Metso et al., 45–56. Leiden: Brill.
———. 2013. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. In Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, ed. Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman, 1697–1855. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
Kugler, Robert A. 2001. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press.
Lambert, David A. 2015. How Repentance Became Biblical: Judaism, Christianity, and the Interpretation of Scripture. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lasater, Phillip M. 2019. Facets of Fear: The Fear of God in Exilic and Post-Exilic Contexts. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Longacre, Robert E. 1989. Joseph: A Story of Divine Providence. A Text Theoretical and Textlinguistic Analysis of Genesis 37 and 39–48. Winona Lakes: Eisenbrauns.
Marcus, Joel. 2010. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs and the Didascalia Apostolorum: A Common Jewish Christian Milieu? Journal of Theological Studies 61 (2): 596–626.
McConville, J. Gordon. 2013. Forgiveness as Private and Public Act: A Reading of the Biblical Joseph Narrative. Catholic Biblical Quarterly 75 (4): 635–648.
McCullough, Michael E., and Charlotte vanOyen Witvliet. 2005. The Psychology of Forgiveness. In Handbook of Positive Psychology, ed. C.R. Snyder and Shane J. Lopez, 446–458. New York: Oxford University Press.
Mitchell, Stephen. 2019. Joseph and the Way of Forgiveness. New York: St. Martin’s Essentials.
Morgan, Michael L. 2012. Mercy, Repentance, and Forgiveness in Ancient Judaism. In Ancient Forgiveness, ed. Charles L. Griswold and David Konstan, 137–157. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Murphy, Jeffrie G. 2012. Punishment and the Moral Emotions: Essays in Law, Morality, and Religion. New York: Oxford University Press.
Römer, Thomas. 2015. The Joseph Story in the Book of Genesis: Pre-P or Post-P? In The Post-Priestly Pentateuch: New Perspectives on Its Redactional Development and Theological Profiles, ed. Federico Giuntoli and Konrad Schmid, 185–201. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Sandage, Steven J., and Ian Williamson. 2015. Forgiveness in Cultural Context. In Handbook of Forgiveness, ed. Everett L. Worthington, 41–55. New York: Routledge.
Sarna, Nahum M. 1989. The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis בראשׁית. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society.
Schipper, Bernd U. 2019. The Egyptian Background of the Joseph Story. Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 8: 6–23.
Ulrichsen, Jarl H. 1991. Die Grundschrift der Testamente der zwölf Patriarchen. Eine Untersuchung zu Umfang, Inhalt und Eigenart der ursprünglichen Schrift. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Wenham, Gordon J. 1994. Genesis 16–50. Dallas: Word Books.
Wénin, André. 2005. Joseph ou l’invention de la fraternité: Lecture narrative et anthropologique de Genèse 37–50. Brussels: Lessius.
Zornberg, Avivah G. 2009. The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious. New York: Schocken.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mirguet, F. (2022). Interrupting the Cycle of Violence Without Forgiveness? The Story of Joseph in the Bible and Early Jewish Literature. In: Lotter, MS., Fischer, S. (eds) Guilt, Forgiveness, and Moral Repair. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84610-7_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-84610-7_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-84609-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-84610-7
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)