Joseph (Genesis)

Joseph (/ˈdʒoʊzəf, -səf/; Hebrew: יוֹסֵף, romanized: Yōsēp̄, lit. 'He shall add') is an important Hebrew figure in the Bible's Book of Genesis and in the Quran. He was the first of the two sons of Jacob and Rachel (Jacob's twelfth named child and eleventh son). He is the founder of the Israelite Tribe of Joseph. His story functions as an explanation for Israel's residence in Egypt. He is the favourite son of the patriarch Jacob, and his jealous brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt, where he eventually ends up incarcerated. After correctly interpreting the dreams of Pharaoh, however, he rises to second-in-command in Egypt and saves Egypt during a famine. Jacob's family travels to Egypt to escape the famine, and it is through him that they are given leave to settle in the Land of Goshen (the eastern part of the Nile Delta).

The majority of modern scholars agree that the Joseph story is a Wisdom novella and that it reached its current form between the 5th century and 1st century BCE. Thomas Römer, who has written extensively about Joseph, stated in 2021, "The date of the original narrative can be the late Persian period, and while there are several passages that fit better into a Greek, Ptolemaic context, most of these passages belong to later revisions."

In Jewish tradition, he is the ancestor of a second Messiah called "Mashiach ben Yosef", who will wage war against the forces of evil alongside Mashiach ben David and die in combat with the enemies of God and Israel.