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Ancient biographies, history, and the Gospels

This new book (Biographies and Jesus, edited by Edward T. Wright and myself) provides essays analyzing ancient biographies’ use of sources, etc., showing that biographers saw their genre as requiring dependence on prior information. Biographies written within a few generations normally preserved considerable information about their subjects, a matter with relevance for the Gospels. It is somewhat technical (so it is not for everybody), but it provides serious research and documentation for subsequent work on which I and others will be able to build.

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https://www.amazon.com/Biographies-Jesus-What-Does-Gospels/dp/1609471067/

“This collection deserves a wide circulation.”—Richard Burridge

“… a great book that will go a long way toward setting the record straight.”—Craig A. Evans

“Keener’s collection is to be praised.”—James H. Charlesworth

“The implications of these findings demand careful consideration by scholars of the Gospels and the Historical Jesus alike.”—Helen K. Bond

“Keener, Wright, Walton et al. have moved the needle forward in advancing our knowledge of the Jesus of the Gospels”—David P. Moessner

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Sin’s fear and God’s grace—Genesis 43:16-25

To preserve their family from starvation, Joseph’s brothers journey to Egypt with their brother Benjamin, money to buy new grain, and money to pay again for the first quantity of grain they had purchased (Gen 43:15). When they arrive, however, they are taken directly to Joseph’s personal house (43:16-17).

Joseph’s brothers do not recognize that this is a dinner invitation (43:16). Being taken to Joseph’s personal house frightens them; previously accused of being spies, now they expect to be enslaved (43:18). They reason among themselves that it is because of the money in their sacks (43:18); if the Egyptians’ records indicated that the money was not paid, they could be accused of having failed to pay (and thus essentially of having stolen the grain) and therefore could be enslaved to cover the debt. One of this official’s rank would not have much personal need for more slaves and their donkeys, but as an efficient administrator he would want the debt covered.

Again, they have attributed the money in their sacks to God (42:28), but as a punishment and not as a gift (contrast 43:23). They are aware of their horrendous guilt concerning their brother Joseph years earlier (42:21), when they valued money more than their brother. In the world of their fears, they are now in the same position that Joseph was in many years earlier: about to be enslaved for money (37:28). This fear also foreshadows the apparent danger of Benjamin being enslaved for what would be found in his sack.

Their insistence that they “do not know” who put the money in their sacks (43:22) is a protestation of innocence (cf. 4:9; 21:26). Joseph’s steward, however (who holds the rank in Joseph’s household that Joseph once held in Potiphar’s), responds that he received their money, and the treasure in their sacks is simply a gift from their God and the God of their father (43:23). Lest we think that Joseph and his steward are merely toying with the brothers without a strategy, however, the affirmation that God is the one who put the money in their sacks is meant to make them attribute to God the silver cup that would later appear in Benjamin’s sack. Thus, later, when the official is ready to take Benjamin as a slave, Judah acknowledges that God has exposed their sin, all of them along with Benjamin (44:16). Indeed, God has exposed their sin, though in a more direct way than they imagine!

They probably believe that God is now punishing them for their past sin against Joseph (cf. 42:22; 50:17). They soon discover that they have been invited instead to dinner. What they will not discover until the following day, however, is that God really has exposed their sin—yet is also giving them a second chance to prove that they have changed.

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Jacob has to let Benjamin go—Genesis 43:1-14

As noted in the post on Genesis 42:36-38, Jacob was unwilling to let his son Benjamin go—either physically with his brothers or figuratively from under Jacob’s overprotective shadow. But the time comes when he has no choice.

Jacob initially resists Reuben’s assurance that he will bring Benjamin back, even though Reuben offers the lives of his own two sons as surety (42:37). Reuben, the eldest, and his full brother Judah have emerged as leaders among the brothers. Thus, later, Judah, who has lost two sons of his own already (38:7, 10), similarly offers to bear responsibility for Benjamin (43:9), just as Reuben and Judah in different ways spoke against killing Joseph in 37:21-22, 26-27.

Jacob’s lament that any harm to Benjamin would bring him down to Sheol in grief (42:38) echoes his expectation that he would continue mourning over Joseph until going down to Sheol (37:35). His sons will continue to recall Jacob’s stark words when they stand before Joseph; they dare not bring their father down to Sheol in mourning (44:29, 31).

Nevertheless, in Jacob’s resistance to allowing Benjamin to go to Egypt, Judah reminds his father, he is preventing them from getting food for the camp, thus ensuring the starvation of Jacob, all his children and all his grandchildren (43:8). By implication, even Benjamin will surely die if they do not risk traveling again to Egypt. Having waited until they were nearly out of food (42:2) means that they have already delayed too long, given the time needed to travel to Egypt and back (43:10). (The edible foods that they will take as a gift [mentioned in 43:11] are not perishables like grain, but neither would the camp have large enough quantities of such goods to subsist on very long.)

In his relationship to his father and brothers, Benjamin has become a surrogate for his full brother Joseph: none of them wants to make the same mistake twice. Reuben earlier called Joseph “the boy” (37:30; 42:22; a “youth” in 37:2; 41:12), a title transferred now to Benjamin (44:20; a “youth” in 43:8; 44:22, 30-34).

Meanwhile, ironically, Joseph is (still unknown to his father and brothers) “the man, the lord of the land” (42:30, 33), thereafter abbreviated “the man” (43:3, 5, 6, 7, 11, 13, 14). (This might not be a contrast with his former status as a “youth,” however; although “man” sometimes contrasts with “youth,” as in 25:27, it is contrasted or coupled with “woman” far more often.) Obviously Joseph is not the only “man” in Genesis or even in this section of Genesis, but the repeated use of this title in the family’s reference to this powerful yet seemingly anonymous figure appears significant (cf. 41:33, 38). Then again, they may have found the Egyptian name “Zaphnath Paneah” (41:45) difficult to pronounce! In any case, this “man” is now “the lord of the land” (42:30, 33) and “like Pharaoh” (44:18). (Nor are their expressions far from the mark; God made him as a father to Pharaoh, lord of his house [i.e., steward; cf. 24:2 in Hebrew], and ruler in all Egypt; 45:8-9.)

Jacob is finally persuaded to release Benjamin (43:13). He provides the resources that are in his power (43:11-12), musters some hope for the best (43:12), and most important of all calls on God to watch over them. Jacob prays that “God Almighty” (El Shaddai) will be with them (43:14). Isaac had once blessed Jacob in that way: “May the Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, so that you become an assembly of peoples” (28:3). These are no idle words. God later will appear to Jacob, declaring himself to be “El Shaddai” (as he had with Abram in 17:1). At that time God will instruct Jacob to be fruitful and multiply; an assembly of nations will come from him (35:11).

Jacob’s own invoking El Shaddai will not prove vain in this case. Jacob will recognize this, for later he will recall the promise of 35:11 in blessing also his lost-and-found son Joseph (48:3; 49:25).