Genesis 48-50
Feb. 24th, 2010 01:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wolfpurplemoon posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
wolfbiblemoonGenesis ends with Jacob's and Joseph's deaths.
* Jacob and Joseph both live over 100 years, and Joseph somehow dies before all his (older) brothers aged 110 years
Not much else to say about these two chapters, there's a slightly bizarre moment when Jacob blesses Joseph's two sons back to front or something. And Jacob gets to curse and/or bless each of his 12 sons for their past actions before passing away peacefully.
At the end of my Illustrated Book of Genesis, the illustrator, R. Crumb, talks about the research he did while making this book. Interestingly, the current incarnation of the bible stories come off as pretty patriarchal and anti-feminist, but a lot of the stories were originally matriarchal, as the society at the time would have been.
So references to Sarah (and others) being barren may have originally been because high priestesses were not allowed to bare children until they have finished their duties. Also a few wives seem to easily get their way over their husbands, and despite Abraham having a second wife, only the children he had with Sarah continue to be mentioned (suggesting that her lineage was the important one rather than his).
That's the end of Genesis, tomorrow I start on Exodus.
* Jacob and Joseph both live over 100 years, and Joseph somehow dies before all his (older) brothers aged 110 years
Not much else to say about these two chapters, there's a slightly bizarre moment when Jacob blesses Joseph's two sons back to front or something. And Jacob gets to curse and/or bless each of his 12 sons for their past actions before passing away peacefully.
At the end of my Illustrated Book of Genesis, the illustrator, R. Crumb, talks about the research he did while making this book. Interestingly, the current incarnation of the bible stories come off as pretty patriarchal and anti-feminist, but a lot of the stories were originally matriarchal, as the society at the time would have been.
So references to Sarah (and others) being barren may have originally been because high priestesses were not allowed to bare children until they have finished their duties. Also a few wives seem to easily get their way over their husbands, and despite Abraham having a second wife, only the children he had with Sarah continue to be mentioned (suggesting that her lineage was the important one rather than his).
That's the end of Genesis, tomorrow I start on Exodus.
