words to the twelve tribes, 49:1–28
G70 The death and burial of Jacob, 49:29—50:14
G71 Joseph comforted his brothers, 50:15–21
G72 The death and embalming of Joseph, 50:22–26
1. Gesenius, §145i, p. 463.
2. For another example, note Gen 6:11 in this translation: “The earth was found corrupt before the gods . . .” This is a court scene in the assembly of the gods.
3. E.g., Porphyry and Celsus among the Church Fathers (see Origen, Contra Celsum IV, 42) and Abraham Ibn Ezra among Jewish authors.
4. See Gen 12:6; 36:31; and 50:10.
5. Some scholars who have given up on the traditional literary criticism have actually gone ahead to something new. This is the case with John Van Seters (see Van Seters, Abraham in History and Tradition). His “something new” is a supplement theory. For the Abraham traditions the sources are literary not oral. There are five stages in the development of this tradition, and each stage or source supplements the earlier source. He sets it up as follows: Pre-Yahwistic first stage, Pre-Yahwistic second stage, Yahwist (exilic), Priestly (post-exilic), and Post-Priestly.
6. We will have to deal with Num 28 and 29 in a new way. See Fisher, “A New Ritual Calendar From Ugarit.”
7. For an example, see Gen 32:33.
8. Gen 46:8–27 is a separate source. Some say that it is P, but it is different from other sections that are said to be P. It is best to say that it is an unknown source.
9. One reason is that there is a movement, just now, away from consensus. I do not think that this movement will succeed, but there are several scholars who date most of the traditions in the Hebrew Bible to late Persian and early Hellenistic times (including the traditions about David). Also, they reinterpret Israel’s material remains as pertaining to much later times. These people see David and his monarchy as fiction. There is a good article on this matter by Knoppers, “The Vanishing Solomon: The Disappearance of the United Monarchy from recent Histories of Ancient Israel.” These scholars (Philip R. Davies, Thomas L. Thompson, Niels Peter Lemche, and others) would not agree with the position taken in this introduction. For them, Genesis could not be published during the Davidic monarchy if there was no Davidic Monarchy. But this group makes a lot of very basic mistakes. For example, they try to argue that there is “no evidence of a Jerusalem in the LB period,” but in order to say this, they have to set aside the six Amarna letters (EA 285–290) from the king of Jerusalem at that time. See Lemche, “From Patronage Society to Patronage Society,” 119 n. 32.
10. This is a form-critical question. Many ask about the kind/type/genre of small units and of oral tradition; but when one asks such a question of a book it is a much more difficult question.
11. At this point, it is important to ask the question, “Did private parties ‘publish’ books?”
12. This is based upon about thirty years of work on this material (e.g., see Fisher, “The Patriarchal Cycles”). Also, note the discussion of this material by Rummel in RSP III (285–95). Rummel suggests that I have a lot more work to do on this topic, and this introduction aims to get at the task once again.
13. I cannot prove that we are dealing with David’s scribes. Perhaps Genesis was produced during the time of Solomon or even later. But I am prepared to argue that it was pre-exilic. I have at times argued that Genesis was put together during David’s time, because I want to emphasize that this is a real possibility. Robert Alter, “Introduction to the Old Testament,” 30, deals with this in a more general way. He says, “The golden age of Hebrew narrative was the First Commonwealth era, when the great sequence of works from Genesis to Kings was given its initial formulation . . . most of the new Hebrew narratives created after 586 BCE are distinctly the products of a postclassical age.” Benjamin Mazar adds to this conversation (“The Historical Background of the Book of Genesis,” 74) when he says, “It is within reason that Genesis was given its original written form during the time when the Davidic empire was being established, and that additional supplements of later authors were only intended to help bridge the time gap for contemporary readers, and had no decisive effect on its contents or overall character.”
14. Kings gave their loyal officials land grants that were “forever,” but that did not mean that the grants were unconditional. One had to remain loyal.
15. Van Seters in Abraham in History and Tradition, 153, makes no sense to me when he says, “Nothing in Genesis suggests a concern for royal legitimation of any kind.”
16. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness, 191.
17. Gordon and Rendsburg, The Bible and the Ancient Near East, 43–44.
18. There is a growing bibliography on the cult of the dead. Note the following: Lewis, Cults of the Dead in Ancient Israel and Ugarit; also his article “The Ancestral Estate in 2 Samuel 14:16”; Bloch-Smith, Judahite Burial Practices and Beliefs about the Dead; also her review of Lewis’ book, and her article “The Cult of the Dead in Judah: Interpreting the Material Remains”; Smith, “The Invocation of Deceased Ancestors in Psalm 49:12c”; and Murphy, “Ideologies, Rites and Rituals: A View of Prepalatial Minoan Tholoi.” Schmidt, Israel’s Beneficent Dead, presents a different view of the cult of the dead, at odds with these authors. For details on these and others see the Bibliography.
19. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, vol. 1, 3–4.
20. Ibid., 211.
21. This is Jacob/Israel.
22. The LXX replaces “Joseph” with “them” referring to Joseph’s sons. This seems to make more sense, but it is difficult to account for such a mistake in the MT. It is much easier to have Jacob doing two things: he is blessing Joseph by blessing his sons and by giving Joseph Shechem.
23. This is the blessing on the sons. Also note v. 20, which shows how all of this is continued.
24. The phrase “from my birth until this day” is literally “from
