Bible and
Spade 15.2 (2002) 35-38 [text only]
Copyright © 2002 by Bible
and Spade. Cited with permission.
Joseph in
Second of Six Parts
By Charles Aling
Joseph began life in
saw in Part
I of this study, these events in the life of Joseph
should be
dated to the great Middle Kingdom period of
Egyptian
history (2000-1782 BC).
It is important to note that during the
Middle Kingdom,
slavery as
an institution of society flourished in
Evidence
from Egyptian texts, indicates that at this time
in
in bondage
in the
(Aling 1981:
30, note 14). While some of these Asiatic
slaves must
have been prisoners of war captured by the
Egyptian
army in raids to the north, the majority certainly
were not
obtained by violence (Aling: 30). Most
of the
slaves were
female; prisoners of war would have been
predominantly
male. Also, there are no Egyptian
records
of any major
wars being fought by
in the
Middle Kingdom. It is best to conclude that most of
the Asiatic
slaves entered
the slave
trade. This, however, brings up an
interesting
question:
why is there no written evidence at all of a slave
trade
between Syria-Palestine and
First, let it be said that dismissing
something on the basis
of a lack of
evidence is a dangerous business. Today,
we have
very few of
the written documents composed in the Ancient
when we
realize that the slave trade would have centered in
the Nile
Delta (northern
becomes even
less likely due to the high water table there.
Very few
papyrus documents have been recovered from that
region,
especially from the earlier periods of Egyptian
history. Also, the slave trade would have been in all
probability
in private
hands rather than under government control.
This
page
35a
would have
made preservation of documentary evidence even
more
remote. Lastly, it is very possible that
the slave trade
would have
been in the hands of foreigners rather than
Egyptians,
as the Bible implies in the case of Joseph.
Records in
so far as they were kept at all, would thus not be
kept by
Egyptians but by the
page
35b
Asiatics who were selling other Asiatic men and women to the
Egyptians.
We are fortunate to have a papyrus from the
Middle
Kingdom that
deals with slaves. This papyrus was
studied
and
published some years ago by the American
Egyptologist
William C. Hayes (Hayes 1972). We will
have
occasion to refer to this remarkable document in the
next issue
of Bible and Spade, since the reverse side of
this same
papyrus contains a discussion of Egyptian
prisons,
another topic of vital importance for the Joseph
story. But this papyrus' main significance lies in
its list
of Middle
Kingdom slaves with names, nationality and
titles or jobs
held by these slaves. The list contains
95
entries. Of the 95 slaves listed, about 30 can be
identified
as
non-Egyptian, either by their non-Egyptian names or
by the
designation "name", meaning an Asiatic (Hayes:
92).
Two things of great interest emerge from a
study of the
Asiatic
slaves on this list. First, the names
are very
significant
to the student of the Bible. Several of
them
are either
identical to or very similar to some names
familiar to
us from the Old Testament itself. A
female
version of
the Hebrew name Menahem is present; Sk-ra-
tw, also the
name of a woman, is paralleled by the Hebrew
name
Issachar; Ashra is most certainly the feminine version
of Asher;
and Shepra is known to us in the Old
Testament as
Shiphrah, the Hebrew midwife in the Book
of Exodus
(Hayes: 95-96). Secondly, the duties
assigned
to the
Asiatic slaves in our list provide some important
correlations
to Joseph's career. The kinds of jobs
performed by
the Asiatic slaves are generally less onerous
than those
assigned to native Egyptian slaves, and are in
fact
classifiable as skilled labor (Hayes: 93).
Let us
examine some
of the titles held by the Asiatic slaves.
One of the most common titles held by male
Asiatic
slaves was
that of "Household Servant" (Hayes: 103 ff).
This is not
only a confirmation of the accuracy of Scripture,
which
assigns this title to Joseph, but also helps us to get
page 36
a better
idea of what kinds of work Joseph would have
been
involved in while a slave of Potiphar.
When we
examine
Egyptian monuments that picture or discuss
household
servants, we find that such slaves performed
the normal
kinds of tasks we would expect. For
example,
they are
often shown in tomb paintings bringing food and
drink to
their masters (Hayes: 104). An Asiatic slave
could
also be a
cook, a teacher, or a brewer (Aling: 35).
A final fact to note from Hayes' papyrus is
that slaves in
the Middle
Kingdom were commonly owned by private
individuals. It has always been known that the
governments
of the
numbers of
slaves, many of whom would have been used
in the vast
construction projects of the state such as temple
building,
palace repair, and the construction of
fortifications. It may be assumed that slaves would also
have been
employed as laborers on both the large
agricultural
estates of the king and of the temples.
But
here, in the
papyrus published by Hayes, we have evidence
(p. 134)
that officials of wealth and standing also could
own
slaves. The Potiphar of Genesis must
have been such
a man.
Joseph's entire life and career were indeed
remarkable.
As the Bible
repeats again and again, the Lord was with
Joseph and
blessed what he did. God's blessing was,
in
fact, so
obvious that Joseph's Egyptian masters were able
to recognize
it! (Gn 39:3) We find in Genesis 39:4
that
Potiphar,
Joseph's first Egyptian master, promoted Joseph
from being
merely a household servant to become his
steward, the
one over his household. What did this
entail?
From the far
better documented
of Egyptian
history (1570-1085 BC), we have information
on the
duties of the steward (Aling: 35-36).
Under Mery,
the High
Priest of the god Amon for King Amenhotep II,
a man named
Djehuty served as steward. Two of his
subsidiary
titles were "Scribe of Offerings" and "Chief of
Agricultural
slaves." The first proves that he was literate,
page 37
and the
second shows us his primary duty, the supervision
of his
master's agricultural estates. Several
other stewards
known from
indicates
two things about Joseph. First, he was literate.
He would
have to be to hold a stewardship. How
and
when he
learned to read and write the complex Egyptian
language is
not known. Perhaps it was when he was a
household
servant of Potiphar. In any case, we may
assume
that Joseph
was a quick and diligent student.
Secondly,
as a
steward, Joseph would have been in charge of the
agricultural
holdings of his master, Potiphar. We
should
remember
that ancient
economy as
we know it today, and officials such as Potiphar
would have
been paid for their work by being allowed the
use or
ownership of farmlands. Potiphar would
not have
the time or
perhaps even the skills to supervise the land
and its
cultivation himself; hence the necessity for a
steward. We remember too that Joseph came from an
agricultural
family, and presumably already had extensive
knowledge of
farming techniques and farm animals.
From a practical point of view, there are
two reasons
why it is
important for the modern student of the Bible
to realize
all this about Joseph. First, through a
knowledge
of what an
Egyptian steward did, we can see the accuracy
of the book
of Genesis, even in minute details. Note
for
example
Genesis 39:5. At the end of this verse,
we are
told that
Potiphar's holdings were blessed for Joseph's
sake, both
in the house and in the field. When we
understand
that Joseph was a steward, and when we learn
what kinds
of things a steward did in both the house and
the field,
we have a far clearer appreciation of this verse
and what it
is telling us. Second, when we see that
Joseph
was an
Egyptian steward, we see him getting the kind of
on-the-job
training he would need for the ultimate task
God had for
him, the task of preserving the people of
during the
coming time of great famine. As we will
see
in a later
article, Joseph will eventually become the head
of
agriculture for the entire
he received
vital experience on a smaller scale for the far
page 38a
greater
responsibility he will have later. He
was faithful
over a small job; God would therefore give him a more
important
one (Lk 16:10).
In our next article, we will find Joseph in
prison. This
same papyrus
published by Hayes will give us much
information
on this aspect of the life of Joseph.
Bibliography
Aling, C. F.
1981
Book House.
Hayes, W.
C., ed.
1972 A
Papyrus of the Late Middle Kingdom in the
Reprint.
page
38b
Associates
for Biblical Research
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