Why Does Genesis Love EGYPT?

Jim S · Little Guppy Joined: 21 Nov 2002 Posts: 30

Why Does Genesis Love EGYPT?

The Book of Genesis has a love affair with Egypt. Why?

1. Bountiful Egypt vs. Famine in the Promised Land

In Genesis 12: 5, right after Abraham first makes the Covenant with Yahweh, Abraham , Sarah and Lot “arrived in the land of Canaan….”, the Promised Land, for the first time. Yet just 5 short lines (one short paragraph) later, in Genesis 12: 10, we read: “There was a famine in the land [of Canaan], and Abram went down to EGYPT to sojourn there, for the famine was severe in the land.”

Isn’t that a most peculiar way to introduce the concept of the Promised Land? The first encounter with the Promised Land is famine! Abraham and his clan must go to bountiful Egypt.

2. Egypt as the Garden of Eden

When Abraham and his nephew Lot later leave Egypt, they decide to go their separate ways, because each has such large herds that they need a great deal of land on which to pasture their flocks. In this connection, Genesis 13: 10 says: “Lot looked about him, and saw that the plain of the Jordan was well watered everywhere like the garden of the Lord, like the land of EGYPT….”

Why is Egypt being compared here to the Garden of Eden?

3. Bountiful Egypt Feeds the Hebrews and the World

Near the end of Genesis, when Joseph has risen to be the grand vizier of Egypt and is in charge of food supplies, Egypt is the only place in the world with food.

(a) Whole World Needs Food from Egypt. Genesis 41: 54: “There was famine in all lands, but throughout the land of Egypt there was bread.” Genesis 41: 57: “So all the world came to Joseph in Egypt to procure rations, for the famine had become severe throughout the world.”

(b) Egypt Saves the Hebrews from Starvation. Genesis 42: 2: Jacob said to his sons in Canaan: “[T]here are rations to be had in Egypt. Go down and procure rations for us there, that we may live and not die.”

(c) Egypt Saves the Hebrews from Starvation Again. Genesis 43: 1 - 2: “But the famine in the land was severe. And when they had eaten up the rations which they had brought from Egypt, their father [Jacob] said to them [Jacob’s sons in Canaan]: ‘Go again and procure some food for us.’”

4. All the Hebrews Decide to Live in Wondrous Egypt

In addition to saving all his people from starvation, heroic Joseph even talked the pharaoh of Egypt into inviting all the Hebrews to move to Egypt permanently and settle on fine land in northeast Egypt. Genesis 45: 17 – 18: And Pharaoh said to Joseph. ‘Say to your brothers, “…Take your father and your households and come to me; I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you shall live off the FAT OF THE LAND.”’” Genesis 47: 27: “Thus Israel settled in the country of Egypt, in the region of Goshen; they acquired holdings in it, and were fertile and increased greatly.”

Genesis seems to be excited about the fact that the monotheistic Hebrews are going to able to live in Egypt “off the fat of the land”. This even seems, for the moment at least, to be a “happy ending” to the riveting tales of the three Patriarchs and the 12 tribes of Israel in Genesis (though that “happy ending” quickly evaporates in the next book of the Bible, Exodus).

Conclusions

Why does the Book of Genesis have such a love affair with Egypt? Why is the Promised Land so often depicted as a land of famine in Genesis, whereas Egypt is consistently portrayed as being bountiful beyond belief?

Genesis even compares Egypt with the Garden of Eden!

Yet beginning with the very next book in the Bible, Exodus, Egypt is portrayed differently. The Pharaoh “who knew not Joseph” is cruel to the Hebrews, and eventually the Hebrews make a triumphal Exodus out of Egypt. Once again, it seems that the mindset of Genesis is quite different than the mindset of many of the later books in the Bible. Why?

Do we not have another clue here as to who may have originally told the stories that, many centuries later, eventually got written down as the Book of Genesis in the Bible? Could this man have been an Egyptian? If not, then why does Genesis have such a love affair with Egypt?

Tiger75 · Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 8:34 am Post subject: Why Does Genesis Love EGYPT?

quote:
Originally posted by Jim S:
Do we not have another clue here as to who may have originally told ...

I've got a big clue:

2 Timothy 3:16.

Jim S · Little Guppy Joined: 21 Nov 2002 Posts: 30

Tiger75:

2 Timothy 3:16 says: "3:16 All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness."

Yes, I think that the person who originally told the stories that later got written down as Genesis honestly believed that he was telling these stories pursuant to "inspiration of God". And I further think that the Hebrew scribes in 7th century BCE Jerusalem honestly believed that in their transcription and editing of ancient Hebrew traditions, they were working pursuant to "inspiration of God". In fact, one of the central tenets of my analysis is that the 7th century BCE Hebrew scribes did NOT change very much in these very old stories that had become an integral part of Hebrew lore over many centuries.

So I don't think that divine inspiration is too much in question here.

But what is interesting is that the mindset of the stories in Genesis, beginning with Abraham, seems to me to be quite different from the mindset of the other 4 books of the Bible that are traditionally ascribed to Moses. Why? Why is Egypt portrayed consistently in Genesis as a virtual Garden of Eden, and yet the very next book of the Bible portrays a triumphal Exodus OUT of Egypt?

And why would the Promised Land be portrayed in Genesis as a place of frequent famine?

It just seems to me that the person who originally told the stories of Abraham through Joseph and Judah must have been a different person from the person who related the stories of the next 4 books in the Bible. Genesis has such a peculiar and fascinating mindset. Why is each anointed leader in Genesis a younger son of the previous Patriarch's royal wife #1? Why is "necessary" incest approved of in Genesis? Why is Egypt portrayed as a virtual Garden of Eden in Genesis? The next 4 books in the Bible seem to me to have a different worldview. Yes, the Bible consistently champions monotheism, and the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament consistently champions the Hebrews. But as to most everything else, Genesis seems, to my mind, to have its own mindset.

Do you think that the same person, with the same mindset, wrote both Genesis, and the books of Exodus and Deuteronomy? All three books are divinely inspired, but it seems to me that Genesis has its own original author (very old stories told orally), with its own original and peculiar ideas.