A Skeptic Reads the Bible 14: Chairman Joseph Socializes the Egyptian Economy

Follow along in the New International Version: Genesis 37, and Genesis 39 through Genesis 50.

Joseph, like Abraham, gets one of the biggest sections of the book of Genesis. And again, it's not necessarily a good thing, because while I always believed he had a very good reputation, actually he's got a bit of a cruel side himself. Understandably, perhaps, under the circumstances. Three attributes repeatedly mark Joseph in this story: his unbelievable luck, usually attributed to God's blessings; a business sense more opportunistic than a used car salesman (or maybe a gym membership salesperson); and a knack for annoying people, possibly unintentionally.

Joseph is the youngest of Jacob/Israel's sons through Rachel, but he's also his father's favourite kid, and is therefore given a "coat of many colours." Such overt favouritism predictably excites the jealousy of his brothers -- who are even more irate when Joseph eagerly shares his interpretation of a dream in which he supposedly came to rule over the rest of his family. In a case of bizarre over-reaction (but depressingly typical within the Bible, which so far seems prone to over-reactions of every kind), Joseph's brothers decide to kill him near Shechem and tell their father "that a ferocious animal devoured him." One of them, Reuben, has an attack of conscience, and instead of killing Joseph, they trade him into slavery with some "Midianite merchants."

The site of this would-be fratricide is a disturbingly ironic one. Recall that these brothers have all committed a massacre at Shechem already. And Joseph was presumably one of the murderers on that occasion, but it's not clear. The implication that the writer of Genesis may want us to take away from this is that such bad things happened because traditional authority was undermined: Jacob the father obviously plays no part in this, and the brothers now seem somewhat out of the control of Reuben, who is the oldest son. Things go wrong in this book when the patriarchs don't command full authority.

Jacob buys the story that his son has been killed, and meanwhile Joseph ends up serving the Pharaoh's guard captain in Egypt. The story then stops for the Genesis 38 interlude, which I covered previously, involving Judah's decision to leave the family and set up shop with the Canaanites. Possibly Judah was feeling a little down over the abuse of Joseph, or the massacre of Shechem, or both sorry affairs. Joseph, as all this is happening, is rapidly promoted to "live in the house of his Egyptian master," where things go pretty well until Potiphar's (the captain's) wife accuses Joseph of attempting to sleep with her.

Genesis, naturally, takes Joseph's side in this story and insists that Potiphar's wife first tried to seduce Joseph, and then grew angry and bitter when he refused to go to bed with her, and accused him of trying to assault her. Potiphar has Joseph imprisoned. But this is only another opportunity for opportunistic Joseph, who through unspecified means wins the favour of the Pharaoh's "cupbearer" and baker with his magical dream interpretations. Eventually Pharaoh is quite taken with Joseph's dream skills as well, and orders him released from prison so that he can take up the new post of first minister to the Pharaoh.

If this seems somewhat unlikely, it pales with what follows, which, by the way, has no parallel in the archaeological record to confirm it. One of Joseph's dream interpretations is that Egypt will have seven years of good crops, followed by seven years of total crop failures. So they will need to save their grain for the bad years. And they do.

This is an unlikely dream and I wonder if the Pharaoh is more impressed by the interpretation or whether he is more attracted by the extremely politically convenient solution that Joseph offers: in essence, Joseph proposes that to fight the famine, the Pharaoh use his political power to take over the entire government and most of the economy and run it for his own benefit. Here's what happens: Joseph suggests a new 20% tax be imposed on all farmers, which will be paid in grain stored in the Pharaoh's granaries. Joseph spends the next seven years administering the tax plan on behalf of the Pharaoh.

And then, as the long-anticipated famine arrives, they spring the next part of their grand plan. Joseph "opened the storehouses" and proceeded to make himself and the Pharaoh obscenely wealthy: he "sold grain to the Egyptians," not to mention "all the countries," even while "both Egypt and Canaan wasted away because of the famine."

So far this is merely a get-rich-quick scheme for the Pharaoh, but the second part is incredibly cynical. Recall, first of all, that this grain shouldn't actually belong to Pharaoh in the first place. He "taxed" it from the farmers, and now he is selling it back to the farmers at a profit! Eventually, the starving poor of Egypt run out of money for grain, so Joseph demands that they bring their livestock to sell to the government. Of course, the livestock run out soon, too, so Joseph demands that they surrender their fields to the Pharaoh in exchange for food. Finally, Joseph promises to give them seed and food if they agree that the 20% income tax will be extended forever, rather than being cancelled as an emergency measure that is no longer necessary.

Interestingly, the priests are exempted from these demands. Probably this is because Joseph and Pharaoh realize, as most totalitarian dictators always have, that religion is a useful ally. It's particularly disturbing in this case, because the priests are pagan. Joseph is supposed to be a servant of God, and here he's impoverishing an entire country for the sake of a pagan king, and saving the pagan priests in the process.

Notice also, you cynics, that this income tax scheme is disturbingly similar to the way we got saddled with income tax during World War I, when Western governments introduced the tax as a temporary "war measure" but then decided it was far too profitable to let go of.

But I digress. There is no archaeological proof that Joseph and the Pharaoh ever did any of these things. But if (as Genesis claims) they did, it is an incredibly disturbing episode for those who believe the Biblical patriarchs are moral models. Joseph, acting as Pharaoh's prime minister, convinces the Egyptian people to pay a 20% income tax to prepare for the coming famine, and then turns around and attempts to sell their own grain back to them. When this impoverishes them, he (and the government) seize all of their money, all of their animals, and all of their lands, plus change the "temporary" emergency tax into a permanent income tax.

Later on, in the book of Exodus, the Bible describes Jacob's descendants as becoming slaves to the Pharaoh. (Their liberation from this slavery by Moses and God is the basis for the later Jewish religion.) But if the book of Genesis is to be taken at face value, the Pharaoh was only powerful in the first place because Joseph made him that way. Later Joseph offers an incredibly cynical and self-serving rationalization: even when men have evil intentions in their hearts, their actions will be turned to good by God as part of his master plan for the universe.

There is one further element of this story of dictatorship that I have not yet mentioned. Joseph's own brothers have also run out of food and, hearing that Egypt has plenty, come to buy some. Only ten show up: Jacob orders the next-youngest, Benjamin, to stay home. (Apparently he is only devoted to his youngest kids, not the oldest ones.) His own brothers fail to recognize Joseph when they arrive, so he plays a cruel trick on them, first accusing them of being spies and then saying that they can have food but only if they go home and fetch their youngest brother (he forces them to cool their heels in a prison in Egypt for a few days first).

The brothers leave with some food, but it soon runs out and they are forced to return again, this time bringing Benjamin with them. You might think this was enough punishment, but Joseph isn't finished. He plants evidence (a silver cup) in Benjamin's grain purchase and uses it to frame them for theft. When soldiers at the gates discover the "crime," Joseph is informed and pretends to be outraged. By the way, his time in Egypt has changed him: he used to say that God helped him see things through clairvoyance, but on this occasion he actually insists that he knew Benjamin had stolen the cup because of pagan "divination." After a lengthy prayer for clemency from the good-hearted Judah, Joseph finally relents and agrees to release Benjamin provided that his entire family, including Jacob and Rachel, accept an offer to move south into Egypt and become guests of the Pharaoh.

So it's a happy ending of sorts: the family is finally reunited, happily, and they end up quite wealthy to boot. Of course, you're probably not supposed to look too closely at that wealth, because Joseph "earned" it all by oppressing the Egyptians, destroying their market economy and their private ownership of land, tricking them into paying an income tax, and ultimately helping Pharaoh gain the power that he will later use against the Israelites themselves.

Read more of the "A Skeptic Reads the Bible" series, published on AssociatedContent.com:

"Abraham (Nearly) Murders Isaac in a Human Sacrifice" (Genesis 21-22)

"Deceitful Jacob, as Great a Swindler as his Grandfather Abraham" (Genesis 24-26)

"The Israelite Massacre at Shechem" (Genesis 34)

"Judah, The First John" (Genesis 38)

Check out the index to all published "A Skeptic Reads the Bible" commentaries.