The Story of Joseph

A movie, depicting the story of Moses, was filmed in either the late 60s or early 70s (I remember it from my childhood of those days). It starred Burt Lancaster as Moses; and if my childhood memory is correct, the movie was long because it extended over more than a single night.  It was something my family and I watched on TV, prompting my memory to see it as a TV movie, though I doubt such was ever the case as it carried the look and weight of a film.

The one aspect of the film, aside from Lancaster's performance, which was sterling, that I recall even today was the reference to Joseph’s bones.  The Israelites were to carry the bones of Joseph with them when they left the land of Egypt.  As a boy, hearing that for the first time, I could not understand how they could have the bones of Joseph, the husband of Mary, with them in Egypt.  I was yet to become familiar with the story of Joseph, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac, the son of Abraham.

Since that time, having read the story of Joseph on multiple occasions, and even seen it depicted through the Hollywood mindset in movies of various mediums, I understand a little more than I could claim from those early days; I see a bit more than I could from that initial introduction.

Joseph's story is a remarkable study to ponder.  First off, the characteristic most people might association with him, the multi-colored coat his father gave him, having been developed into a popular stage production, it is rather insignificant to the overall tale.  It serves as a catalyst for his brother's anger and then evidence, his brothers use, to perpetuate the lie of his own death.  Aside from these two appearances, it carries no relevance to Joseph's tale in the least.

Unless, that is, one assumes the position of allegory.  If his coat is perceived allegorically to Joseph's person himself, in such an instance it would be present throughout the entire tale; for Joseph, as a person, was consistently his own 'coat of many-colors'.  He stood out from amongst the crowd of throngs. He did not blend into the background, being one of the many faces in the crowd.  In every setting from which the story takes place, he rose above - because God was with him.  God had a plan; and that plan was executed - even beyond what Joseph himself was able to comprehend.

There is one aspect of the story, true students of the Word will ponder with every reading.  What was Joseph's sin?  He comes across as a righteous man who never committed any wrong, proposed through all the wrongs committed against him.  The presence of the crimes committed against him, absent any retaliation on his part, make him appear as righteous a soul as any could ever hope to be.  Yet, as any believer will know by heart, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

So what was Joseph's sin?

The best response to that question that I have heard is his own self-righteousness.  He tells his family of his dreams with a near pompous, self-important manner that puts them down as not important - or, at least, not as important as himself.  It runs akin to what people say of Job and his problems - though God Himself called Job a man of integrity.

Joseph and his Brothers

As one who never had a brother (I was blessed with one older sister and one younger sibling miscarried before I ever knew it as ‘brother’ or ‘sister’) I may lack the necessary qualifications to fully comment on the relationship occurring between brothers, especially when that number reaches a dozen, as is recorded between Joseph and his own.  My mother was one of ten kids, while my father was one of five; and within family gatherings, mixing all the cousins and aunts and uncles together, I did experience the sizable brood of relatives to a certain degree.  Even so, I still could never broach the realization of being the second youngest of twelve boys - spread across four different mothers.

What was Joseph thinking when he told his brothers of dreams he had, not once but twice, of them bowing down to him?  He was a teenage kid.  Granted.  But even so, why would you suggest your supremacy to ten adult men over whom you had no power to control?  Did he trust his position as their father’s favorite to protect him?  Probably.  As much as his brothers hated him, they respected their,  father, and they would do nothing to damage their own relationship with Jacob, making their eventual action against the boy, when the opportunity arose, not premeditated.  They simply saw the opportunity available to them, the boy removed from their father, and they acted.

Joseph, when he saw his brothers again, the positions of authority now being reversed, what thoughts must have passed through his mind at that moment? He spoke harshly to them.  He declared they were spies.  Was he intent on paying them back for all the harm he suffered because of them?  His own flesh and blood?  As second highest ruler over the land of Egypt, he was in a position to enact vengeance most severely.  He could have rendered punishment for their sins against him, revealed himself as Joseph or not, and walked away justified.  He was the legal authority, after all; and his brothers could be viewed as criminals for what they did to him.

For many, many years, reading through the story of Joseph again and again, I always saw Joseph’s action as part of his plan to bring about what eventually occurred: Israel and his family moving into Egypt to grow into a nation of God’s people.  However, after viewing one of the old Hollywood depictions of the story of Joseph, where Joseph orders harsh treatment against his brother Simeon (the brother who remained in Egypt as a hostage while the others returned to Canaan with food), something not stated in the Scriptural account, I began to wonder.  Joseph was a Godly man who held to God’s righteous decrees (that much is detailed in the account), but he was still a man.  He was as human as his brothers, susceptible to the same failings as themselves.  So that initial sighting must have stirred some animosity within him somewhere.  Think of the temptation.  Think of the vengeance he could have rendered.  He could easily have done to all of them precisely what they had done to him.

But he didn’t...

Not always as what it appears

Would it be fair to say a certain level of redundancy can crop up for the frequent visitor to the stories of Genesis? Perhaps “redundancy” is not the appropriate word.  Monotony also does not fit, for the stories never lack interest.  They are never absent the valued depth a good tale needs to remain relevant over time.  The stories of Genesis are neither redundant nor monotonous, but they are read over and over and over again, which can then often result in an association with the era in which they are read, i.e. the characteristics of that particular time period being imposed upon the time of the story.  When this occurs some of the essence of the original story can be lost.

I am not here to claim any great wisdom that I know all the subtle nuances and all the intricacies related to a people and an era long passed.  I am able to say, though, we can notice things, different from our own experience, consider it from their vantage point of living it, and perhaps acquire a greater depth to the stories than our surface-level reading offer.

Consider, for example, the story from Genesis 12, where Abram goes down to Egypt to live due to a famine that has stricken the land of Canaan.  He tells his wife Sarai to say she is his sister because he fears the Egyptians will kill him so they can have his wife, a woman who was very beautiful.  Ironically, when Pharaoh hears all the people praising Sarai, he takes her for himself, only to be rebuked by God,  returning her to Abram when he discovers she is his wife.

The same story replays itself in Genesis 26, when Isaac, Abraham's son, goes to live in the land of Gerar, where we find Abimelech, king of the Philistines, to whom he tells the same deception as his father decades earlier:  his wife was his sister, not his wife, because he feared for his life, just as his father Abraham had feared for his own.

Viewing these two stories from our 21st century eyes, we can easily conclude both Abraham and Isaac had justified reasons for their fear.  They lived amongst a people who were not their own, hence no reason existed to believe they adhered to the same standards of behavior ordered by God Almighty.  What would prevent such a people from taking whatever they saw as desirable, i.e. a beautiful woman like Sarah?  Or like Rebekah?

Yet what was the end result in both tales?  Both kings were appalled at the deception.  Not for the lie itself, but rather for the potential consequences of that lie.  As Abimelek declared to Isaac, 'What is this you have done to us? One of the men might have slept with your wife and brought great guilt upon us.'

Remarkable how the rulers of those days, considered by the mindset of our days as pagan and godless, exhibited some sense of respect for the marriage of a man to his wife.  A third story exists in Genesis 20, where Abraham goes to live in Gerar this time and encounters Abimelek with the same plan and the same results.  This time, however, God speaks to Abimelek in a dream, revealing the truth of Sarah as Abraham's wife.  Abimelek is thunderstruck with the revelation, showing a clear understanding of the sin in which he was nearly to engage himself.

Granted, other sins do exist outside of taking another man's wife.  The world was a sinful place back then just as it is today.  Yet it is the comprehension of a man's wife is a man's wife, and no other man should even think of possessing her - no matter how great her beauty - that seems to have been a clear reality back then, though it is fading away today.

Green Lights are a Go: in the beginning...

It’s a short journey, to reach my favorite coffee place, only around a mile from where I live to where I currently sit.  Some days, when the weather permits, I can even be found to don my walking shoes and hoof it, enjoying the sunshine overhead, the birds chirping their song in the trees, the peaceful quiet of the approaching day ahead.

Not this day, however, as I slid into my car for the journey, and every light was a go.  As green as an emerald, the road to my destination for this new adventure was clear sailing; and since the road was new, what better place is there to begin, with this invitation to my daily embrace of coffee and the Scriptures, than In The Beginning...

I utilize a variety of translations (is “translations” the proper term for the different Bibles?  “Versions” doesn’t suffice, as there should be one Bible, interpreted from different eyes), one being the Amplified Bible which adds more of the intent from the original Hebrew and Greek; and the Amplified adds to the opening verse “God created [by forming from nothing] the heavens and the earth.”  This simple concept begs the question, what is “nothing”?  Can we conceive of such a thing? If it is even a thing.

The next verse adds to the mystery by declaring “the earth was formless and a void or a waste and emptiness”.  How can there be something which exists, the earth, without possessing a form?  Does not the mere fact of existence constitute the presence of a form?  Perhaps “formless and void” refers best to a lack of structure, an order to its presence that made sense.

Verse 3 declares, “And God said ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”  What precisely was that light?  It has always fascinated me, and I have yet to hear any commentary on this matter from those far wiser than myself, what was the light God created here in the beginning?  For it wasn’t our conception of light because He didn’t create the sun until later - day 3, I believe.  So what was this light?  And how can there be day 1, which is declared at the end of verse five, without the presence of the sun, created on day 3?

Obviously, what our conception of “day” entails (the length of time it takes the earth to revolve one complete revolution) is not God’s.  In other words, why should our limited conception of ‘day’ be applied to other recesses of the illimitable, vast universe?

My father pointed this out to me one time during some show, I believe it was one of the Star Trek incarnations, commenting on the passage of time amidst deep space.  When one is theoretically far removed from the earth, how is time measured when the means of doing so is not within one's sphere of reality?  It's a question none of the series, nor any science fiction story I am aware of, ever attempts to address.  At what point does the human brain lose conception for the measure of time, when the means time is measured by becomes far removed from that human's reality?  Just a few thoughts to begin the day and this new adventure called exploration,