Joseph: Prophet or Charlatan?
The story of Joseph, as with so many of the prophets, requires us to make a choice to accept the Christian version. Joseph, in the traditional view, is blessed by God with dreams of his role as the leader of his elder brethren (and their families), the inheritor of the birthright blessing and the priesthood. He alone remains righteous and faithful. As a young man, he shared some divinely inspired dreams with his elder brothers who, rather than be happy with his spiritual insights, become angry with him and sell him to Egypt. Rather than complaining about it, he works hard, and is blessed, only to be brought low through the guile and lust of his master’s wife. In prison, he again works hard, doesn’t complain, and is elevated. Inspired by God, he interprets 2 dreams that will later work to bring him before Pharaoh. Again, inspired by God, he interprets the dream and is blessed for his diligence and obedience. When his brothers come, he forgives them and saves the whole family. His example to us is that out of trials come blessings and our approach to dealing with our hardships is the key to both success and happiness in this life. He humbly serves in every capacity, and is blessed for his obedience, diligence, and humility.
On the other hand, if you do not accept that his actions were guided by God, the story appears otherwise. We see a power-hungry man who tries to dominate his brothers by sucking up to his father and claiming to have divinely inspired dreams of authority. They don’t go for it and sell him to Egypt where his divine authority is less important. He attains power in Pharaoh’s house but tries to violate his boss’s wife; she has physical evidence that he was the aggressor. (His kids wrote the history, though, so they put down his version.) He lands in prison, but by kissing up to the warden, is again elevated. He has an opportunity to tell the butler and the baker their eventual ends (something that he probably heard through his association with the warden), and all he wants in return is to get out of prison. When he meets with the Pharaoh, I’d lay odds that Egypt was on the up-tick from an economic downturn, and thanks to his work at Potipher’s house, he probably had recognized that economics run in cyclical patterns. He advises the king on sound fiscal policy (levy taxes when the economy is booming, balance your budgets, save for the future, etc.), and makes a big bet that there will be a recession after the growth. He picks seven years because the Pharaoh dreamed of seven cows and corn, but if the dream had been about five, he would have picked five. It’s even possible that in his elevated position as chairman of the Federal Reserve, he was uniquely placed to bring about an economic downturn at the appropriate time. He then basically rapes the Egyptian people as they give him everything they own in exchange for food and the famine conveniently ends when they run out of stuff to give the government. When his brothers show up, he tricks them and scares the crap out of them just for fun and so that they will finally acknowledge that he has complete control over their lives. The end result of his actions is bondage in Egypt for all his descendents for 400 years.
I won’t tell you which to believe, but it’s definitely true that the victors write the history books, and in their version, they were always in the right. I wonder what Reuben’s children would have written if Joseph had died and they had just bought the food from Egypt and gone back to Jacob’s house and stayed living in Canaan.
The odd thing is, all the prophets have issues. Abraham went out to kill his own son, for crying out loud. Isaac was duped into blessing his younger son with the blessings he intended to give to his older son, Noah cursed his son and grandchildren because Ham laughed when he saw his dad passed out drunk; how is that fair?
I suppose I ought to end on some kind of positive note, but I don’t feel like it. If you can be distracted by the problems you find with ancient prophets, there is no way you are going to get past the imperfections your own bishop has; I guarantee he has issues. Faith in God cannot be dependent on faith in people. If it is, you will be disappointed every time.
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