Eight parallel patterns that constitute the Joseph story (Genesis 37 – 50)
Like a artist, let’s step back from the story a bit to consider what constitutes the Joseph story:
Joseph in the house of his father
Joseph in the hands of his brothers
Judah’s temptation and response
Joseph’s temptation and response
Joseph interprets two dreams of his prison mates
Joseph interprets two dreams of Pharaoh
Joseph’s brothers make first trip to Egypt for grain
Joseph’s brothers make second trip to Egypt for grain
Joseph’s joyful reunion with his brothers
Joseph’s joyful reunion with his father
Joseph prospers his family through the famine
Joseph enslaves Egypt through the famine
Jacob blesses Pharaoh
Jacob blesses his family
Jacob dies and is buried in Canaan
Joseph dies and is embalmed in Egypt
Why does the author of the Joseph story so carefully structure his account like this? How do parallels like the ones above function in a story? Correspondences of this kind invite comparisons. For example, the account of Judah’s response to sexual temptation in Genesis 38 is juxtaposed to the account of Joseph’s response to sexual temptation, recorded in Genesis 39. Now some biblical commentators on Genesis, apparently unaware of the structure underlying the text, have objected to the account of Judah in chapter 38 as being an intrusion into the text of the Joseph story, added by a later writer. But as the pattern of parallels demonstrates, the structural analysis is compelling evidence that the account has been preserved as the author first composed it.