Biblical Profile: Aseneth of Egypt

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Many know the tale about Joseph, Jacob’s beloved son who was sold into slavery by his jealous brothers, exploited, and imprisoned, but who eventually rose to become second-in-command over Egypt (Genesis 37-50). Buried in this story is a brief reference that fascinated Jewish writers in antiquity: Joseph’s wife, Aseneth, was Egyptian. According to Genesis, she was the daughter of an Egyptian priest (Potiphera in Hebrew; Pentephres in Greek), and she married Joseph and bore Manasseh and Ephraim (Genesis 41:45, Genesis 50–52). Aseneth is never mentioned again in the Tanakh or Christian Bible, and Genesis expresses no concern that she […]

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Endnotes

1.
Patricia D. Ahearne-Kroll, “Joseph and Aseneth,” in Louis H. Feldman, James L. Kugel, and Lawrence H. Schiffman, eds., Outside the Bible: Ancient Jewish Writings Related to Scripture, vol. 3 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013), pp. 2525–2589.

2.
Patricia D. Ahearne-Kroll, Aseneth of Egypt: The Composition of a Jewish Narrative (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2020).

3.
The most thorough argument advocating for a late antique, Christian setting is Ross Shepard Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1998).