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JOSEPH AND ASENETH

An apocryphal romance now often included in the OT Pseudepigrapha. The work narrates the conversion of the gentile Aseneth to the God of Israel, her marriage to the patriarch Joseph, and the social and religious conflicts surrounding that conversion and marriage. Genesis provides the point of departure for this fictional tale with its brief references to Joseph’s marriage to Asenath (LXX Aseneth), daughter of a pagan priest (Gen. 41:45, 50-52; 46:20). Joseph and Aseneth was composed in Greek and is extant in 16 Greek manuscripts and numerous versional witnesses. There is a strong, though not unanimous, consensus that it dates between ca. 100 b.c.e. and 115 c.e., that it is Jewish rather than Christian, and that it was written in Egypt. Opinion varies on the purpose of the work. Some see it as missionary propaganda designed to win Gentiles to Judaism, while others maintain that it was written for Jewish readers and designed to address such intramural issues as the status of gentile converts within the Jewish community and the propriety of marriage between a Jew by birth and a gentile convert to Judaism. Although long neglected by biblical scholars because certain influential early interpreters declared it to be a late Christian composition, Joseph and Aseneth has become the subject of considerable scholarly research. Conceptions of sin, salvation, and conversion, a positive image of women, possible ritual practices behind the language about the “bread of life,” “cup of immortality,” and “ointment of incorruption,” and the potential of the prayers in the narrative to illuminate the history of liturgy are among the elements of this work which illustrate its importance for the study of both early Judaism and early Christianity.

Randall D. Chesnutt

Prayer Tents Bible References - Prayer Tents

JOSEPH AND ASENETH

Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (2000)