I've heard Dr. Josh and Dr. Kill discuss this blended pair of stories as well. I love it, how it's just one more confirmation of the multiple authorship of the Pentateuch.
Once you see this, you can't unsee it. There are 2 different stories going on here, and someone DECIDED to blend them together. It's not a history. It's not inspired. It's editing.
I mean, it's the same with the story of the flood. How many animals did God tell Noah to take: one pair of all animals (Gen 6:19-20), or a pair of just the unclean, and 7 of the clean (Gen 7:2-3)?
@4everseekingwisdom690 I know this. In this case, it seems to be at least 2 versions of the same myth that have been blended into a single story. This sort of thing seems to happen a lot in what has been claimed to be a single, historical record of events.
More Bible contradictions, please 🤗 As a Christian I found them delightful. It’s help me to not being dogmatic anymore as I use to be in the pass 😊 Thank you Dan for your work 🙏
It helped me to reject Christianity because Jesus of the Nt confirms the torah to be God's word and written by Moses and to be preserved. So he was wrong. And that's only the tip of the iceberg, basically every fundamental of todays chrisitianity is wrong...
@@LeaSinn-nx7bm I understand. A same journey can take us to a diffrent path. in my case, I reject nothing. I pick and choose every Wisdom and philosophy wherever they come from, whether it’s greek philosophy, taoism modern philosophy etc.. I’m not a traditional Christian anymore (I have no church or denomination) but I still find some helpful wisdom in the teaching of the Nazarean. The Bible never pretend to be the word of God neither jesus said only christians said so. On the contrary, jesus contradicted and rebuked in many occasions the Torah of "Moses." His teaching abolish religious morals and institutions, that’s why one of the reasons he get killed. Remember that Jesus and his apostles were men of their time with limited knowledge of the world around them. What Matters the most it’s not the accuracy of their knowledge but whether their teaching is relevant today. Some of them are stil relevant and some are not. Loving your neighbor for example is still relevant.🙂
@@LeaSinn-nx7bm "...Jesus of the Nt confirms the torah to be God's word and written by Moses and to be preserved." If you make an argument that goes like, "When X said Y he had exactly Y set of subtextual precepts without any nuance," I'm pretty sure the burden of proof is on you. I get that modern Christians make the same silly argument. And, in some cases it's valid. But, in this case I think it's a little more nuanced than how you both are arguing. "X of Y" constructs (The Torah of Moses) in Scripture aren't nearly this neat.
@@angelonzuji2457 John 10:35 If he called them 'gods,' to whom *the word of God came* -and *Scripture cannot be set aside* John 7:19 Has not *Moses* given you *the law?* Yet not one of you keeps it. Matthew 5:18, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest *letter,* not the least *stroke of a pen,* will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” *Luke 16:17But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for a single stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law*
@@angelonzuji2457 Expositor's Greek Testament on Mt 5 18: *"Jesus expresses here in the strongest manner His conviction that the whole O. T. is a Divine revelation, and that therefore every minutest precept has religious significance which must be recognised in the ideal fulfilment."*
It’s also kind of strange that the story calls one of the involved groups Ishmaelites. Joseph’s father was Jacob/Israel. Jacob’s father was Isaac, the son of Abraham. Isaac’s half brother, also the son of Abraham, was Ishmael, whom this group is named after. Is it it weird to anyone for the story to treat these Ishmaelites as a distinct tribe of foreigners, despite only being two generations in the past?
I left Christianity years ago in my late 50’s. Even then I thought I knew the Bible but never even saw this particular inconsistency until today! Thanks Dan.
When you can't admit that there are obvious conflations of various versions of older stories you have to work ridiculously hard to convince yourself and others that this isn't the case.
What's even better, is if you take the story on its face, Ishmael was their father's uncle. Just 2 generations down the line, and now there's enough descendants of Ishmael that they form a whole tribe. Who would have bought their 2nd cousin as a slave.
I have a problem that I have rarely if ever seen addressed. Ishmael and Midian were both children of Abraham. That would make the Ishmaelites and Midianites cousins to Joseph and his brothers, not some distant tribe.
Also (if I recall correctly) Joseph is referred to a Hebrew by the Egyptians, which seems weird considering that Jacob and his sons are the only Hebrews at the time. It seems to me that for the most part, once the bible has its origin story for something, it’s basically assumed to be in roughly it’s “modern” (at the time!) state, without dealing with any in between steps. For instance, we go from Adam and Eve to cities in one generation.
I guess if Adam and Eve really went at it, given their inhuman lifespans, and their children fucked the bejesus out of each other, they could fill a city or three. They'd be horribly inbred. Like the South or England. But yeah.
It all seems to come down to the one-line, Genesis 37:28 "So when the Midianite merchants came by his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt", but that has the name change within the single sentence, so seems unlikely the author didn't understand the name change. The apologists would say the two groups are related, perhaps Ishmaelites are a subgroup of Midianites, a tribe within a regional group. Like being a New Yorker and an American, both true at the same time while applying to a single person. I don't know if we know enough about these ancient groups to tell if this could be the case, but when I was a Christian, I would have found such a claim plausible (and of course not dug any further).
If anyone wants more detail about the multiple sources in the Torah (including Genesis), Dr. Joel Baden has a ton of great lectures on the topic. He's a Yale professor and the best respected current champion of the "Documentary Hypothesis", which proposes that 4 distinct versions of the Law got stitched together like how this video shows. When pulled apart, these sources have unique and relatively coherent theologies. For instance, the Priestly source imagines an orderly universe guided by an omnipotent deity who merely speaks the world into existence in 7 days. It painstakingly reports the exact measurements of the ark and tabernacle. It gives us the tedious laws of Leviticus. Meanwhile, the J and E sources imagine a more personal deity that creates man out of the Earth. This god plays around and changes his mind frequently. It has humor and folklore about local heros. Finally, the D source is all of Deuteronomy. The entire text is one speech from Moses giving the law all his people need to follow. It is clearly written to replace laws that were known before. It has one thuddingly obvious thesis - worship Yahweh alone and you will prosper. Worship other gods and you won't.
@@davidm5707 I think you're probably not a comic book reader hahaha Isolated, a comic book does have a planned outline and a single author, but these characters have been around for many decades, after one author leaves, another comes in and often there are retcons, sometimes it is intentional because they want to take the story in another direction, sometimes unintentionally (the author wasn't aware of a certain element introduced before), sometimes it's due to editorial influence. That's similar to what is said in the video, different stories that contradict each other but are internally consistent.
This editing of the narrative by authors thousands of years ago sounds a lot like listening to Jordan Peterson trying to explain most of his current day talking points.
Dan, I've heard that the story of Noah's flood is also two different tellings which have been dovetailed together: One version is the forty days and forty nights of rain, the other is that it rained for a year. In one story, Noah collects two of each kind of animal, the other he collects seven of each "clean" animal and two of each unclean. And so on. Have you come across this hypothesis before?
One of the things I find fascinating is that the Hebrew Bible generally takes this approach - merging different versions of the story into one text, while the NT preserved the different versions as separate texts. Probably because the temple cult in Jerusalem had centralized power that no one had in the early Christian church. Not until the different versions were broadly known and accepted. It's still an interesting difference though.
Heard he was lost in a game of UNO and they couldn’t prove the guy cheated. Oh well, that was normal back then. Like child marrying old old old dudes, yuk, some still think that.
In the Hebrew the 2 tellings stand out, not only in this short passage, because there are 2 separate vocabularies that show up throughout the Joseph story. The words for sack/saddlebag, Jacob/Israel, as well as the names Judah/Reuben flash by in a coherent fashion (coherent within each telling). My only surprise is discovering that the J and E documents are no longer considered separate by scholars, because they seem to define the contrasting stories.
I see how its two stories that were blended together. But in the version that has been passed down to us, it is definitively the Midianites who sold Joseph into slavery. The text doesn't mention anyone else selling Joseph into slavery that I know of. The question is: Who did they sell him to? the ishmaelites? Potipher? Or did they sell him, then buy him back, then sell him again?
I have to ask, hopefully I can make a livestream to do so, but how plausible is the idea that these versions came about because someone wrote out an ancient study version of the tales?
Gin up, which is different from Juice up, and both are completely different from Gin-n-juice up, which is what you do when you're rollin' down the street smokin indo.
I heard Prof. Joel Baden use this very same example as one of the most clear evidence for the documentary hypothesis. I understand scholars disagree on the details but it seems to me more a fact than a hypothesis that the pentateuch is the result of editing of pre existing sources.
My Bible says this book is just a story about ordinary people like ourselves and one person really worshipped the story and found one follower and over the years time knew up it a life story about people just like us if this worl.owna fight between Good and evil then the devil is kicking Jesus ass
It seems as when you read the book the brothers threw him into the pit and conspired to sell him to the Ishmaelites but the Midianites arrived before the brothers got back to the pit and and they( Midianites) sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites.
You know, the thought occurs, what if the Midianite version of the story was the one ginned up by Joseph's brothers and their descendants, to deny their guilt in selling their brother into slavery While the "Joseph's brothers did it" story came from Joseph and the tribes who identified themselves as his descendants? And post Babylonian Exile, there were enough representatives of both groups in the surviving Judeans that excluding one over the other would have helped fracture the very tender unity of the surviving post Exile community?
The biggest problem with this view is dating. In order to justify multiple sources going in a straight line throughout the pentateuch you’re basically left with ezra as a cutoff point (typically dated to 458-445 BCE, but some crafty scholars will object to this). If it can be demonstrated that what’s in Genesis 37-50 is no earlier than about 425 BCE (when egypt begins to employ a 7-year famine motif) then whatever the compositional integrity or lack thereof of Genesis 37 cannot be explained by the documentary hypothesis. Meaning: It is much more likely that the text is a complete unity than a reflection of documentary stitching and there are valid reasons for thinking the text displays an overall unity. P.S.: Genesis 37-50 is more at home in the 3rd century BCE than the 5th/4th (alexander lll, cleomenes of naucratis, and ptolemy [edit. Oops.] l soter).
Sold by his brothers to the Ishmaelites (who were midianite traders). They inturn sold him to Potiphar. Am I missing something or what is the problem ? There is a tradition in Judaism that Keturah (Abraham’s wife and Midian’s mother) is the same as Hagar (Abraham’s wife and Ishmael’s mother). The incident with Joseph also has several explanations. One is that there were two caravans, and that one caravan sold Joseph to the other. Another is that the Ishmaelite caravan had Midianite traders travelling with it. Each 3 of these scenarios are as likely as what Dan is saying. For instance, look at Judges 8:23-26 where we see the Ismealites and midianites being likened again.
Well, your first problem is that you just arbitrarily conflated Ishmaelites and Midianites even though the narrative itself explicitly distinguishes the Midianites from the Ishmaelites and describes the former finding Joseph and then selling him to the latter entirely unbeknownst to the brothers. Judges 8:24 is from an entirely different time and author, and it's using social conventions to account for the perception of some kind of relationship between the Midianites and Ishmaelites. It doesn't govern all references to either group. It's presupposing univocality to insist you can leverage that text to overrule the author of Genesis 37 and conflate the identities that they explicitly distinguish.
@maklelan It would seem that it is only Ruben that did not know Joeseph was sold as a slave. So that is your first problem. None of the brothers know that he has been sold again to Putiphar. It is Juda who suggests selling him to the Ishmaelites after seeing them. Then, when they (Ismealites / Midianites / both as per original comment) pass by, the brothers (except Ruben) pull him from the well and sell him. Second, you don't have concrete evidence of who the midianites were, so whatever majority of scholars you have agreeing with your theorm here would need to know that before writing it off as unlikely, no ? Who are the Midianites? That's why what I have noted is just as likely as what you have said, as you don't know who they were & thus cannot rule out that they are the same or lived with each other. Also, it doesn't matter that Judges and Genesis have different authors whenever you are trying to distinguish who a group of people are / were & they are mentioned in two different accounts with a likeness.
@@Thelad-sx6kw No, the antecedent of וימשכו ויעלו את יוסף is the Midianites. You don't even realize you're making a bunch of implausible interpretive decisions that are founded entirely on the presupposition of univocality. As I explained in the video, apologists have to gin up a bunch of scenarios that aren't in evidence to convince themselves their reading is possible, but if that's not your priority, the most likely interpretation is that they are two different stories that were woven together. I understand that you can convince yourself your univocal reading makes sense to you. That was never in question. What you can't do is show that it's plausible to someone who's not already committed to the presupposition of univocality.
@maklelan So, you know who the Midianites are ? You can say, under no doubt whatsoever, that these Ismealites where not from midian then ? I would say it is your preposition that does not allow you to alter your view. If you gave me a solid argument, I would consider it. But you can't as, again, you don't know who the Midianites were.
@@Thelad-sx6kw You're assuming ignorance he can't possibly possess, since the origins of the Midianites within the Biblical text is very clearly drawn. Abraham married Keturah before he married Sarai. Midian was one of their sons. Ergo, the Midianites were not the Ishmaelites. For heck's sake, this is Genesis 25. Read your Bible again.
🎶🎶🎶 Next day, far from home, The brothers planned the repulsive crime Let us grab him now, Do him in, while weave got the time This they did and made the most of it Tore his coat and flung him in pit Let us leave him here, All alone, and he's bound to die When some Ishmaelites, A hairy crew, came riding by In a flash the brothers changed their plan We need cash. Let's sell him if we can Poor, poor Joseph, what'cha gonna do?
The Bible's multiple story lines strikes me as a director's handbook for dramaturgical performances. Tonight we will be performing under the stars before the tents of the Medianite King. Better amend the script to satisfy our benefactor and audience.
Did the editor know how confusing his work was but didn’t care because he wanted to preserve elements from both stories or did the final story seem fine ?
That's what I'm curious about. What were they thinking? Why write the stories this way? I get that they're blending two traditions, but it seems very obviously clunky.
They didn't share our preoccupation with literal-factual materialist descriptions. They were more interested in preserving the different accounts and expected the hearer to be smart enough to get the real message instead of focusing on irrelevant details. Obsessing over the question of exactly who it was who sold Joseph is silly and completely misses the point. Its irrelevant. What matters is that Joseph rose from being a slave to being one of Pharaoh's chief advisors and saved people from famine.
@@roytee3127 But is that something the original editor would have cared about? Or even considered? Did he think his work would be treated as the "inerrant Living Word of God"?
This man is just an atheist who is trying to make other people atheist He simply ignores all the commentaries, explained this in a perfectly logical way
You should do a video on how the Joseph narrative mimics the Jesus narrative., like both are saviors. . 12 brothers/12 disciples. Or Joseph was a shepherd and Jesus is the good Shepherd or my favorite Jesus is sold out for 30 pieces of silver by Judas and Joseph was sold or pieces of silver by judah.. there's no way they could be allegories for the same thing? No couldn't be
I think they killed Josef as planned. Scripture is not written as play by play documentary ever. It's an afterthought with the points being written from the end result (and personal unaccountability interests). Josef's coat, or covering was torn to pieces.....so I would surmise some manner of Josef's identity was sold. Always seeking to be blameless, when; not only are they in the think of it, but the instigators as well. The procurement and recovery of the body of Yeshu goes very much the same. Dead as a doornail... the Lords way is very curious in this manner where bodies are repeatedly torn or broken to pieces. To begin the cycle of creating people from DIRT. That's one hell of a way to view a presumably innocent human being, or even another "righteous" Jew if you will.
It so ingrained in their culture" seemingly. "There but for the grace of God go I"..... instead what we have is Jews placing that which is before them.....under them. Under their feets and below the line.
Not plausible & Not possible? Changing the story dsnt prove ur right. Yes there might have been 2 different stories or the same story was told differently by different groups. So it’s impossible to know which is correct so both are included. Orr the story is correct as it is.Ur version isn’t truth at all.
Was Jacob sold into slavery by his brothers or by the medianites? The bible claims both, but both can't be true at the same time. Hence it's a contradiction
Just based on what Dan said, there are two different groups, Ishmaelites and Midianites, "credited" with selling Joseph into slavery in Egypt. The contradiction is that two different groups couldn't have made the sale. (Sorry for mansplaining, I'm trying to keep it straight in my own head.) Either the brothers pulled him out of the pit and sold him to Ishmaelites, who sold him to Potiphar, or the Midianites pulled him out of the pit and sold him to Potiphar, leaving the brothers high and dry. Both couldn't have happened unless, after selling him, the Midianites brought him back and put him back in the pit for the brothers to retrieve and sell to the Ishmaelites. It's like an Old Testament episode of "As the World Turns."
@@donaldwert7137 Oh okay. I have gotten you well now. You said, "The contradiction is that two different groups couldn't have made the sale" Why do you think "two different groups" couldn't have made the sale? U didn't answer my question in the first message. I asked, what is a contradiction?
@@originalkwao3365 Ah, I misunderstood you. A contradiction is two things that can't be true at the same time. The reason I say there is a contradiction is the way the two "arcs" of the story lay out the sequence of events. The brothers put Joseph in the pit. In one arc of the story, the brothers then remove him from the pit and sell him to the Ishmaelites, who sell him to Potiphar. In the other arc, the Midianites remove him from the pit and sell him to Potiphar, the brothers aren't involved at all. The two arc contradict one another as they both can't be true without some extra narrative. Either the brothers removed him from the pit or the Midianites did. Either the Ishmaelites sold him to Potiphar or the Midianites did. The only way for both story arc to be true would be for Joseph to have been returned to the pit after being sold to Potiphar, then pulled from the pit and sold to Potiphar a second time. There are missing pieces. Once he was sold to Potiphar, how and why would he have been returned to the pit? If returned to the pit after the first sale, why would Potiphar buy him a second time? At the very least, the story is missing a middle pieces that makes the two sales to Potiphar hang together. The story also clearly shows the Ishmaelites and Midianites to be two different groups. The Ishmaelites bought Joseph from the brothers after the brothers pulled him from the pit, where the Midianites pulled him from the pit without the knowledge or consent of the brothers, who returned for him only to find him gone.
What a LAZY take. The Midianites and Ishmaelites were used interchangeably in the bible yes although not all Midianites were Ishmaelites they were really closely related so it's almost like North Koreans and South Koreans. So there's no contradicting there lil bro. Reuben is part of the brothers
Genesis 25 makes the difference clear. Midian was the son of Abraham and Keturah. In Genesis 16, Ishmael was the son of Abraham and Hagar, the slave he owned when married to Sarai. How is this so difficult?
@@lysanamcmillan7972 Ishmaelites lived with Midianites and inter mingled with them, they shared culture and probably language however not all Ishmaelites were Midianites that's why the bible talks about them interchangeably It's like kushites and Ethiopians
I think there are contradictions in the Bible. But if you admit that it's not impossible, then why push this so hard? Unlikely things happen all the time. You say you like to combat misinformation, but 99% of your content is only trying to discredit the reliability of the Bible. I will admit: the Bible has some mistakes, contradictions, etc. But why do you rarely respond to people who push anti-biblical things that are also often misinformation? It's just that you seem one sided. I'm not even against critical biblical scholarship. But I'm questioning your branding.
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Dan's (podcast) mission is "increasing public access to the academic study of the bible and religion, and combat misinformation about the same". What anti-biblical topic are you thinking of that are both misinformation and the subject of academic study that Dan doesn't cover? His pushing on the "not impossible" crowd is, in my view, largely due to the literalist disregard for academic consensus - the effort to maintain dogma in the face of far more plausible interpretation.
He's a woke apologist-that's his brand-to be fair though, he attacks anti-christian misinformation often enough too (maybe you don't watch every single one of his videos)
@@tsemayekekema2918 Hmm... I'm trying to think of any definitions of "woke" and "apologist" that could be combined and apply to Dan. Not coming up with anything...
Most of the misinformation comes from the people with a vested agenda in the argument that the Bible is univocal and infallible. For the people critical of that stance, they rarely need to rely on Biblical misinformation, because the Bible itself already proves their point by being multivocal and full of contradiction and errors and immoral clauses. When Dan responds to misinformation from the anti-Christian side, it's usually extra-Biblical, like what happened at the Council of Nicea, or the origins of Christmas and Easter.
I know your videos are short but maybe you should consider at least to present some of the counter arguments and then we decide if those are not sound. Also, you are biased, too.
Sorry, but your preacher was telling you only one version, the one we all hear. Read verse 28. To be fair, the first version makes a better, more compelling story.
@@roytee3127 they are both in the same chapter. The Ishmaelites, midianites merchants - but it was his brother's - according to the verses, the Ishmaelites were merchants as seen in their merchandise. Also, consider they are from the same father, it's of no surprise if they called them midianites in verse.
No no no. Please please think for yourself. Forget what losers say and just use your brain. You really think in v28 the author wouldn't have just removed the word midianites but instead preserves two contradictory readings? Two contradictory readings *that can't be found in any Hebrew text?* Ishmael was the son of Abraham by Hagar and Midian the son of Abraham by keturah (see judges 8:22-27). Have you read Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter
Likely? Isn't this data over dogma? Data doesn't use words like "probably" and "likely" Data is a collection of facts and statistics. But here you are claiming data over dogma and doing the exact opposite.
@@Nickesponja you forgot "facts" in your attempt to keep your idol correct. It's facts AND statistics. Not one or the other. I understand fanboys trying to defend their idol but at least make an attempt
Statistics and historical evidence is all about what is most likely and probable given the evidence. Dogma is taking things that are likely (or unlikely) and probably (or improbable) and declaring them as things that MUST BE.
@redwebmonk Data = facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis. Sorry, the actual definition of data doesn't align with yours. Please try again when your definition and the actual definition meet. Otherwise, your attempts are moot.
uhh there are TONS of contradictions in the "bible" because parts of it are a stumbling block, if you do not read it a ton and study it youll never see it, but there ar e two different groups of thought, one represented by Paul and one by Jesus. Most follow Paul but you are talking Old Testament and just saying "Bible" which isnt very untrollish of you as usual. On this particular story it doesnt really matter.
"God put mistakes in there to test you, but _I_ know the right way to read the fallible infallible text!" 🤪 Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities indeed.
I've heard Dr. Josh and Dr. Kill discuss this blended pair of stories as well. I love it, how it's just one more confirmation of the multiple authorship of the Pentateuch.
I’ve also heard Dr Joel S Baden discuss this also.
This is a brilliant job of demonstrating redaction. And in 3 minutes. Brilliant.
Once you see this, you can't unsee it. There are 2 different stories going on here, and someone DECIDED to blend them together. It's not a history. It's not inspired. It's editing.
Hack editing at that.
That's because they're myths
I mean, it's the same with the story of the flood. How many animals did God tell Noah to take: one pair of all animals (Gen 6:19-20), or a pair of just the unclean, and 7 of the clean (Gen 7:2-3)?
@@robertmauck4975 the flood narrative is also a myth and myths are highly complex symbolic allegories
@4everseekingwisdom690 I know this. In this case, it seems to be at least 2 versions of the same myth that have been blended into a single story. This sort of thing seems to happen a lot in what has been claimed to be a single, historical record of events.
More Bible contradictions, please 🤗
As a Christian I found them delightful.
It’s help me to not being dogmatic anymore as I use to be in the pass 😊
Thank you Dan for your work 🙏
It helped me to reject Christianity because Jesus of the Nt confirms the torah to be God's word and written by Moses and to be preserved. So he was wrong. And that's only the tip of the iceberg, basically every fundamental of todays chrisitianity is wrong...
@@LeaSinn-nx7bm I understand. A same journey can take us to a diffrent path. in my case, I reject nothing. I pick and choose every Wisdom and philosophy wherever they come from, whether it’s greek philosophy, taoism modern philosophy etc..
I’m not a traditional Christian anymore (I have no church or denomination) but I still find some helpful wisdom in the teaching of the Nazarean.
The Bible never pretend to be the word of God neither jesus said only christians said so. On the contrary, jesus contradicted and rebuked in many occasions the Torah of "Moses."
His teaching abolish religious morals and institutions, that’s why one of the reasons he get killed.
Remember that Jesus and his apostles were men of their time with limited knowledge of the world around them.
What Matters the most it’s not the accuracy of their knowledge but whether their teaching is relevant today. Some of them are stil relevant and some are not.
Loving your neighbor for example is still relevant.🙂
@@LeaSinn-nx7bm "...Jesus of the Nt confirms the torah to be God's word and written by Moses and to be preserved."
If you make an argument that goes like, "When X said Y he had exactly Y set of subtextual precepts without any nuance," I'm pretty sure the burden of proof is on you. I get that modern Christians make the same silly argument. And, in some cases it's valid. But, in this case I think it's a little more nuanced than how you both are arguing.
"X of Y" constructs (The Torah of Moses) in Scripture aren't nearly this neat.
@@angelonzuji2457 John 10:35 If he called them 'gods,' to whom *the word of God came* -and *Scripture cannot be set aside*
John 7:19 Has not *Moses* given you *the law?* Yet not one of you keeps it.
Matthew 5:18, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest *letter,* not the least *stroke of a pen,* will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.”
*Luke 16:17But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than for a single stroke of a pen to drop out of the Law*
@@angelonzuji2457 Expositor's Greek Testament on Mt 5 18:
*"Jesus expresses here in the strongest manner His conviction that the whole O. T. is a Divine revelation, and that therefore every minutest precept has religious significance which must be recognised in the ideal fulfilment."*
It’s also kind of strange that the story calls one of the involved groups Ishmaelites.
Joseph’s father was Jacob/Israel. Jacob’s father was Isaac, the son of Abraham. Isaac’s half brother, also the son of Abraham, was Ishmael, whom this group is named after.
Is it it weird to anyone for the story to treat these Ishmaelites as a distinct tribe of foreigners, despite only being two generations in the past?
Well, they did start the story by saying, “Call us Ishmaelites.”
@@billcook4768😏🐋
Continuity checkers failed again!!!
Well both Abraham and Jacob lived about 150+ years, so it could have been a couple centuries without regular contact. 😅
@@billcook4768 🐳🐋🐳🐋🐳🐋
I left Christianity years ago in my late 50’s. Even then I thought I knew the Bible but never even saw this particular inconsistency until today! Thanks Dan.
Thanks again Dan. ❤
This is my favorite example of explaining the multi-source theory of the Torah
When you can't admit that there are obvious conflations of various versions of older stories you have to work ridiculously hard to convince yourself and others that this isn't the case.
Poor kid just wanted to wear his princess dress and live his life
What's even better, is if you take the story on its face, Ishmael was their father's uncle. Just 2 generations down the line, and now there's enough descendants of Ishmael that they form a whole tribe. Who would have bought their 2nd cousin as a slave.
I have a problem that I have rarely if ever seen addressed. Ishmael and Midian were both children of Abraham. That would make the Ishmaelites and Midianites cousins to Joseph and his brothers, not some distant tribe.
Also (if I recall correctly) Joseph is referred to a Hebrew by the Egyptians, which seems weird considering that Jacob and his sons are the only Hebrews at the time. It seems to me that for the most part, once the bible has its origin story for something, it’s basically assumed to be in roughly it’s “modern” (at the time!) state, without dealing with any in between steps. For instance, we go from Adam and Eve to cities in one generation.
I guess if Adam and Eve really went at it, given their inhuman lifespans, and their children fucked the bejesus out of each other, they could fill a city or three. They'd be horribly inbred. Like the South or England. But yeah.
What we seem to have is an early example of Apologetics failing to unify two versions of a tale.
They'll swear up and down and sideways that it's consistent and univocal.
❤❤❤❤❤❤ thanks Dan!!
It all seems to come down to the one-line, Genesis 37:28 "So when the Midianite merchants came by his brothers pulled Joseph up out of the cistern and sold him for twenty shekels of silver to the Ishmaelites, who took him to Egypt", but that has the name change within the single sentence, so seems unlikely the author didn't understand the name change. The apologists would say the two groups are related, perhaps Ishmaelites are a subgroup of Midianites, a tribe within a regional group. Like being a New Yorker and an American, both true at the same time while applying to a single person. I don't know if we know enough about these ancient groups to tell if this could be the case, but when I was a Christian, I would have found such a claim plausible (and of course not dug any further).
Oh jeez. I always bought into the narrative that it was just Joseph's brothers. The Midianites were never mentioned.
This is so interesting! Thank you!
They're very good at ginning up stories. Especially when making up sermons to preach.
They may have been hitting the gin before thinking through these sermons
Ouu, this is really interesting. Thanks.
The scribe did "the weave"
I'm mostly familiar with the musical 🎶
If anyone wants more detail about the multiple sources in the Torah (including Genesis), Dr. Joel Baden has a ton of great lectures on the topic. He's a Yale professor and the best respected current champion of the "Documentary Hypothesis", which proposes that 4 distinct versions of the Law got stitched together like how this video shows. When pulled apart, these sources have unique and relatively coherent theologies.
For instance, the Priestly source imagines an orderly universe guided by an omnipotent deity who merely speaks the world into existence in 7 days. It painstakingly reports the exact measurements of the ark and tabernacle. It gives us the tedious laws of Leviticus.
Meanwhile, the J and E sources imagine a more personal deity that creates man out of the Earth. This god plays around and changes his mind frequently. It has humor and folklore about local heros.
Finally, the D source is all of Deuteronomy. The entire text is one speech from Moses giving the law all his people need to follow. It is clearly written to replace laws that were known before. It has one thuddingly obvious thesis - worship Yahweh alone and you will prosper. Worship other gods and you won't.
Just your daily reminder
that the bible has been retconned as much as a comic book
More. I'm sure comic books have a planned outline and a single author and editor.
You don't see any comic book outtakes.
@@davidm5707 I think you're probably not a comic book reader hahaha Isolated, a comic book does have a planned outline and a single author, but these characters have been around for many decades, after one author leaves, another comes in and often there are retcons, sometimes it is intentional because they want to take the story in another direction, sometimes unintentionally (the author wasn't aware of a certain element introduced before), sometimes it's due to editorial influence. That's similar to what is said in the video, different stories that contradict each other but are internally consistent.
This editing of the narrative by authors thousands of years ago sounds a lot like listening to Jordan Peterson trying to explain most of his current day talking points.
Well... what do you mean by 'explain', what do you mean by 'day', what do you mean by 'talking'?
What do you mean by Jordan, or Peterson? You might think you know! But do you, bucko?!
We are the smartest humans to ever exist.
@@GeoffBosco Thanks.
Dan, I've heard that the story of Noah's flood is also two different tellings which have been dovetailed together: One version is the forty days and forty nights of rain, the other is that it rained for a year. In one story, Noah collects two of each kind of animal, the other he collects seven of each "clean" animal and two of each unclean. And so on.
Have you come across this hypothesis before?
One of the things I find fascinating is that the Hebrew Bible generally takes this approach - merging different versions of the story into one text, while the NT preserved the different versions as separate texts. Probably because the temple cult in Jerusalem had centralized power that no one had in the early Christian church. Not until the different versions were broadly known and accepted.
It's still an interesting difference though.
Yes. Thanks Dan
Heard he was lost in a game of UNO and they couldn’t prove the guy cheated. Oh well, that was normal back then. Like child marrying old old old dudes, yuk, some still think that.
In the Hebrew the 2 tellings stand out, not only in this short passage, because there are 2 separate vocabularies that show up throughout the Joseph story. The words for sack/saddlebag, Jacob/Israel, as well as the names Judah/Reuben flash by in a coherent fashion (coherent within each telling). My only surprise is discovering that the J and E documents are no longer considered separate by scholars, because they seem to define the contrasting stories.
I see how its two stories that were blended together.
But in the version that has been passed down to us, it is definitively the Midianites who sold Joseph into slavery. The text doesn't mention anyone else selling Joseph into slavery that I know of. The question is: Who did they sell him to? the ishmaelites? Potipher? Or did they sell him, then buy him back, then sell him again?
Is there any Egyptian evidence for Joseph's story?
I have to ask, hopefully I can make a livestream to do so, but how plausible is the idea that these versions came about because someone wrote out an ancient study version of the tales?
Gin up, which is different from Juice up, and both are completely different from Gin-n-juice up, which is what you do when you're rollin' down the street smokin indo.
With your mind on your money and your money on your mind.
So, out of JEPD, this was probably J and E combined together?
Jahwist (J), Elohist (E), Deuteronomist (D), and Priestly (P)
I heard Prof. Joel Baden use this very same example as one of the most clear evidence for the documentary hypothesis. I understand scholars disagree on the details but it seems to me more a fact than a hypothesis that the pentateuch is the result of editing of pre existing sources.
Scholars now know Joseph had a twin
Is there a paper to cite about this?
My Bible says this book is just a story about ordinary people like ourselves and one person really worshipped the story and found one follower and over the years time knew up it a life story about people just like us if this worl.owna fight between Good and evil then the devil is kicking Jesus ass
It seems as when you read the book the brothers threw him into the pit and conspired to sell him to the Ishmaelites but the Midianites arrived before the brothers got back to the pit and and they( Midianites) sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites.
There is great book that discusses this and other similar topics called "Authoring the Old Testament" by David E. Bokovoy.
You know, the thought occurs, what if the Midianite version of the story was the one ginned up by Joseph's brothers and their descendants, to deny their guilt in selling their brother into slavery
While the "Joseph's brothers did it" story came from Joseph and the tribes who identified themselves as his descendants? And post Babylonian Exile, there were enough representatives of both groups in the surviving Judeans that excluding one over the other would have helped fracture the very tender unity of the surviving post Exile community?
The biggest problem with this view is dating. In order to justify multiple sources going in a straight line throughout the pentateuch you’re basically left with ezra as a cutoff point (typically dated to 458-445 BCE, but some crafty scholars will object to this). If it can be demonstrated that what’s in Genesis 37-50 is no earlier than about 425 BCE (when egypt begins to employ a 7-year famine motif) then whatever the compositional integrity or lack thereof of Genesis 37 cannot be explained by the documentary hypothesis. Meaning: It is much more likely that the text is a complete unity than a reflection of documentary stitching and there are valid reasons for thinking the text displays an overall unity.
P.S.: Genesis 37-50 is more at home in the 3rd century BCE than the 5th/4th (alexander lll, cleomenes of naucratis, and ptolemy [edit. Oops.] l soter).
The story is also in the Quran, but they didn't name the caravan. The Quran ironically never mentions the Ishmaelites.
"Scenarios that are not in evidence" what an amazing way of saying that something is absolute BS ^^
Sold by his brothers to the Ishmaelites (who were midianite traders).
They inturn sold him to Potiphar.
Am I missing something or what is the problem ?
There is a tradition in Judaism that Keturah (Abraham’s wife and Midian’s mother) is the same as Hagar (Abraham’s wife and Ishmael’s mother).
The incident with Joseph also has several explanations. One is that there were two caravans, and that one caravan sold Joseph to the other. Another is that the Ishmaelite caravan had Midianite traders travelling with it.
Each 3 of these scenarios are as likely as what Dan is saying.
For instance, look at Judges 8:23-26 where we see the Ismealites and midianites being likened again.
Well, your first problem is that you just arbitrarily conflated Ishmaelites and Midianites even though the narrative itself explicitly distinguishes the Midianites from the Ishmaelites and describes the former finding Joseph and then selling him to the latter entirely unbeknownst to the brothers. Judges 8:24 is from an entirely different time and author, and it's using social conventions to account for the perception of some kind of relationship between the Midianites and Ishmaelites. It doesn't govern all references to either group. It's presupposing univocality to insist you can leverage that text to overrule the author of Genesis 37 and conflate the identities that they explicitly distinguish.
@maklelan
It would seem that it is only Ruben that did not know Joeseph was sold as a slave. So that is your first problem.
None of the brothers know that he has been sold again to Putiphar.
It is Juda who suggests selling him to the Ishmaelites after seeing them.
Then, when they (Ismealites / Midianites / both as per original comment) pass by, the brothers (except Ruben) pull him from the well and sell him.
Second, you don't have concrete evidence of who the midianites were, so whatever majority of scholars you have agreeing with your theorm here would need to know that before writing it off as unlikely, no ? Who are the Midianites?
That's why what I have noted is just as likely as what you have said, as you don't know who they were & thus cannot rule out that they are the same or lived with each other.
Also, it doesn't matter that Judges and Genesis have different authors whenever you are trying to distinguish who a group of people are / were & they are mentioned in two different accounts with a likeness.
@@Thelad-sx6kw No, the antecedent of וימשכו ויעלו את יוסף is the Midianites. You don't even realize you're making a bunch of implausible interpretive decisions that are founded entirely on the presupposition of univocality. As I explained in the video, apologists have to gin up a bunch of scenarios that aren't in evidence to convince themselves their reading is possible, but if that's not your priority, the most likely interpretation is that they are two different stories that were woven together. I understand that you can convince yourself your univocal reading makes sense to you. That was never in question. What you can't do is show that it's plausible to someone who's not already committed to the presupposition of univocality.
@maklelan
So, you know who the Midianites are ?
You can say, under no doubt whatsoever, that these Ismealites where not from midian then ?
I would say it is your preposition that does not allow you to alter your view.
If you gave me a solid argument, I would consider it.
But you can't as, again, you don't know who the Midianites were.
@@Thelad-sx6kw You're assuming ignorance he can't possibly possess, since the origins of the Midianites within the Biblical text is very clearly drawn. Abraham married Keturah before he married Sarai. Midian was one of their sons. Ergo, the Midianites were not the Ishmaelites. For heck's sake, this is Genesis 25. Read your Bible again.
What had happened was . . .
🎶🎶🎶
Next day, far from home,
The brothers planned the repulsive crime
Let us grab him now,
Do him in, while weave got the time
This they did and made the most of it
Tore his coat and flung him in pit
Let us leave him here,
All alone, and he's bound to die
When some Ishmaelites,
A hairy crew, came riding by
In a flash the brothers changed their plan
We need cash. Let's sell him if we can
Poor, poor Joseph, what'cha gonna do?
Is this the magic jacket Joseph, the married to "virgin" Mary Joseph, or is there another one?
Magic jacket Joseph.
@@jeffmacdonald9863 I thought so, but figured I'd ask. Thanks.
Now in technicolor.
@@PinkDevilFish Amazing
The Bible's multiple story lines strikes me as a director's handbook for dramaturgical performances. Tonight we will be performing under the stars before the tents of the Medianite King. Better amend the script to satisfy our benefactor and audience.
Did the editor know how confusing his work was but didn’t care because he wanted to preserve elements from both stories or did the final story seem fine ?
That's what I'm curious about. What were they thinking? Why write the stories this way? I get that they're blending two traditions, but it seems very obviously clunky.
They didn't share our preoccupation with literal-factual materialist descriptions. They were more interested in preserving the different accounts and expected the hearer to be smart enough to get the real message instead of focusing on irrelevant details.
Obsessing over the question of exactly who it was who sold Joseph is silly and completely misses the point. Its irrelevant. What matters is that Joseph rose from being a slave to being one of Pharaoh's chief advisors and saved people from famine.
@byrondickens
It takes the story out of the realm of inerrant Living Word of God, and puts it into the realm of tribal legends.
@@roytee3127 But is that something the original editor would have cared about? Or even considered? Did he think his work would be treated as the "inerrant Living Word of God"?
This man is just an atheist who is trying to make other people atheist
He simply ignores all the commentaries, explained this in a perfectly logical way
Sensible version, or apologetic version, divine inspiration seems to be rather wonky and not all that reliable.
You should do a video on how the Joseph narrative mimics the Jesus narrative., like both are saviors. . 12 brothers/12 disciples. Or Joseph was a shepherd and Jesus is the good Shepherd or my favorite Jesus is sold out for 30 pieces of silver by Judas and Joseph was sold or pieces of silver by judah.. there's no way they could be allegories for the same thing? No couldn't be
12 points for being able to recognize the symbolic pattern and think critically!
@@byrondickens lol are points only given in 7 and 12 increments?
@@byrondickens lol are points only given in 7 and 12 increments?
Joseph had 11 brothers not 12 brothers
Also the bible says Joseph was sold for 20 shekels of silver not 30
I did, actually.
JPED
What is this jumbled up story trying to tell us?. Why is the story being told?
I think they killed Josef as planned. Scripture is not written as play by play documentary ever. It's an afterthought with the points being written from the end result (and personal unaccountability interests). Josef's coat, or covering was torn to pieces.....so I would surmise some manner of Josef's identity was sold. Always seeking to be blameless, when; not only are they in the think of it, but the instigators as well. The procurement and recovery of the body of Yeshu goes very much the same. Dead as a doornail... the Lords way is very curious in this manner where bodies are repeatedly torn or broken to pieces. To begin the cycle of creating people from DIRT. That's one hell of a way to view a presumably innocent human being, or even another "righteous" Jew if you will.
It so ingrained in their culture" seemingly. "There but for the grace of God go I"..... instead what we have is Jews placing that which is before them.....under them. Under their feets and below the line.
Not plausible & Not possible? Changing the story dsnt prove ur right. Yes there might have been 2 different stories or the same story was told differently by different groups. So it’s impossible to know which is correct so both are included. Orr the story is correct as it is.Ur version isn’t truth at all.
It seems we don't [or perhaps I don't] understand what a contradiction is.
How is this a contradiction???
I need to be engaged!
Was Jacob sold into slavery by his brothers or by the medianites? The bible claims both, but both can't be true at the same time. Hence it's a contradiction
Just based on what Dan said, there are two different groups, Ishmaelites and Midianites, "credited" with selling Joseph into slavery in Egypt. The contradiction is that two different groups couldn't have made the sale. (Sorry for mansplaining, I'm trying to keep it straight in my own head.) Either the brothers pulled him out of the pit and sold him to Ishmaelites, who sold him to Potiphar, or the Midianites pulled him out of the pit and sold him to Potiphar, leaving the brothers high and dry. Both couldn't have happened unless, after selling him, the Midianites brought him back and put him back in the pit for the brothers to retrieve and sell to the Ishmaelites. It's like an Old Testament episode of "As the World Turns."
@@donaldwert7137
Oh okay. I have gotten you well now.
You said, "The contradiction is that two different groups couldn't have made the sale"
Why do you think "two different groups" couldn't have made the sale?
U didn't answer my question in the first message. I asked, what is a contradiction?
@@originalkwao3365 Ah, I misunderstood you. A contradiction is two things that can't be true at the same time. The reason I say there is a contradiction is the way the two "arcs" of the story lay out the sequence of events.
The brothers put Joseph in the pit. In one arc of the story, the brothers then remove him from the pit and sell him to the Ishmaelites, who sell him to Potiphar. In the other arc, the Midianites remove him from the pit and sell him to Potiphar, the brothers aren't involved at all. The two arc contradict one another as they both can't be true without some extra narrative. Either the brothers removed him from the pit or the Midianites did. Either the Ishmaelites sold him to Potiphar or the Midianites did.
The only way for both story arc to be true would be for Joseph to have been returned to the pit after being sold to Potiphar, then pulled from the pit and sold to Potiphar a second time. There are missing pieces. Once he was sold to Potiphar, how and why would he have been returned to the pit? If returned to the pit after the first sale, why would Potiphar buy him a second time? At the very least, the story is missing a middle pieces that makes the two sales to Potiphar hang together.
The story also clearly shows the Ishmaelites and Midianites to be two different groups. The Ishmaelites bought Joseph from the brothers after the brothers pulled him from the pit, where the Midianites pulled him from the pit without the knowledge or consent of the brothers, who returned for him only to find him gone.
What a LAZY take. The Midianites and Ishmaelites were used interchangeably in the bible yes although not all Midianites were Ishmaelites they were really closely related so it's almost like North Koreans and South Koreans. So there's no contradicting there lil bro. Reuben is part of the brothers
Genesis 25 makes the difference clear. Midian was the son of Abraham and Keturah. In Genesis 16, Ishmael was the son of Abraham and Hagar, the slave he owned when married to Sarai. How is this so difficult?
@@lysanamcmillan7972 Ishmaelites lived with Midianites and inter mingled with them, they shared culture and probably language however not all Ishmaelites were Midianites that's why the bible talks about them interchangeably
It's like kushites and Ethiopians
I think there are contradictions in the Bible. But if you admit that it's not impossible, then why push this so hard? Unlikely things happen all the time. You say you like to combat misinformation, but 99% of your content is only trying to discredit the reliability of the Bible. I will admit: the Bible has some mistakes, contradictions, etc. But why do you rarely respond to people who push anti-biblical things that are also often misinformation? It's just that you seem one sided. I'm not even against critical biblical scholarship. But I'm questioning your branding.
I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. Dan's (podcast) mission is "increasing public access to the academic study of the bible and religion, and combat misinformation about the same". What anti-biblical topic are you thinking of that are both misinformation and the subject of academic study that Dan doesn't cover? His pushing on the "not impossible" crowd is, in my view, largely due to the literalist disregard for academic consensus - the effort to maintain dogma in the face of far more plausible interpretation.
He's a woke apologist-that's his brand-to be fair though, he attacks anti-christian misinformation often enough too (maybe you don't watch every single one of his videos)
@@tsemayekekema2918 Hmm... I'm trying to think of any definitions of "woke" and "apologist" that could be combined and apply to Dan. Not coming up with anything...
Most of the misinformation comes from the people with a vested agenda in the argument that the Bible is univocal and infallible. For the people critical of that stance, they rarely need to rely on Biblical misinformation, because the Bible itself already proves their point by being multivocal and full of contradiction and errors and immoral clauses. When Dan responds to misinformation from the anti-Christian side, it's usually extra-Biblical, like what happened at the Council of Nicea, or the origins of Christmas and Easter.
Is Dan gay? That would explain alot
I know your videos are short but maybe you should consider at least to present some of the counter arguments and then we decide if those are not sound. Also, you are biased, too.
Joseph brothers sold Joseph. Nothing so confusing about that.
Sorry, but your preacher was telling you only one version, the one we all hear. Read verse 28.
To be fair, the first version makes a better, more compelling story.
@@roytee3127 they are both in the same chapter. The Ishmaelites, midianites merchants - but it was his brother's - according to the verses, the Ishmaelites were merchants as seen in their merchandise. Also, consider they are from the same father, it's of no surprise if they called them midianites in verse.
No no no. Please please think for yourself. Forget what losers say and just use your brain. You really think in v28 the author wouldn't have just removed the word midianites but instead preserves two contradictory readings? Two contradictory readings *that can't be found in any Hebrew text?*
Ishmael was the son of Abraham by Hagar and Midian the son of Abraham by keturah (see judges 8:22-27).
Have you read Biblical Narrative by Robert Alter
Likely? Isn't this data over dogma? Data doesn't use words like "probably" and "likely" Data is a collection of facts and statistics. But here you are claiming data over dogma and doing the exact opposite.
Statistics are literally about what's likely
@@Nickesponja you forgot "facts" in your attempt to keep your idol correct. It's facts AND statistics. Not one or the other. I understand fanboys trying to defend their idol but at least make an attempt
Statistics and historical evidence is all about what is most likely and probable given the evidence.
Dogma is taking things that are likely (or unlikely) and probably (or improbable) and declaring them as things that MUST BE.
@redwebmonk Data = facts and statistics collected together for reference or analysis. Sorry, the actual definition of data doesn't align with yours. Please try again when your definition and the actual definition meet. Otherwise, your attempts are moot.
@@sbaker8971 Statistics are based on facts
uhh there are TONS of contradictions in the "bible" because parts of it are a stumbling block, if you do not read it a ton and study it youll never see it, but there ar e two different groups of thought, one represented by Paul and one by Jesus. Most follow Paul but you are talking Old Testament and just saying "Bible" which isnt very untrollish of you as usual. On this particular story it doesnt really matter.
"God put mistakes in there to test you, but _I_ know the right way to read the fallible infallible text!" 🤪 Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities indeed.
@@digitaljanus Yes see the parable of the sower
Do you think God put those fossils in the ground to test us, too?