Dinah's Daughter, Asenath, Gives Legitimacy to Joseph

 



Dinah’s Daughter: A Vital Link

By: Prof. Livia Bitton-Jackson
 

Published: December 8th, 2011
Latest update: May 3rd, 2013   

This week’s parsha, Vayislach, relates a shocking episode that causes genuine outrage in the Israelite camp -- the Canaanite Prince Shechem’s brutal assault of Yaakov’s [Jacob's]daughter Dinah. “And Yaakov’s sons came in from the field when they heard it; and the men were grieved and agonized in fury because he had committed a despicable deed against Israel by laying Yaakov’s daughter – a thing not to be done” (Bereshit 34:7).  The Torah then depicts the aggressive revenge of Yaakov’s sons against the Canaanite tribe, and the narrative flows on to additional future events, but of Dinah’s fate there is no further mention.

Two parshiyot later (Miketz) we learn of Yosef’s [Joseph's] amazing rise to power in Egypt. Paraoh, in elevating Yosef to an exalted position, makes two ceremonial gestures. One: he grants Yosef a new name: "And Pharaoh called Yosef Tzafenat Paneah” (Bereshit 41:45) -- and the second: he arranges a prestigious marriage for Yosef:  “…he gave him for a wife Asenat the daughter of Potiphera, the priest of On..."(Ibid.)

These two official gestures by Paraoh seem linked: a prominent Egyptian name and a prominent Egyptian wife were designed to launch Yosef's illustrious governmental career in Egypt. Egyptologists tell us that in the language of ancient Egypt Tzafenat translates as "supplier of food," and Paneah as "vital." From the connotation of the name given to Yosef it is apparent that it was a title denoting his job as Chief Steward, a preeminent and powerful governmental position further enhanced by his marriage to a woman hand-picked by Paraoh. By taking an Egyptian name and marrying a highborn Egyptian woman, Yosef acquired great prestige and, most importantly, an Egyptian identity.

When he married the daughter of Potiphera, the priest of On, Yosef became a member of a socially and politically prominent family. On, the equivalent of the Greek Heliopolis, neighboring the Eastern Delta or Goshen, later the site of the Hebrews’ settlement, was the center of sun worship. During the reign of Akhenaton when sun worship was the official religion in Egypt, the chief sanctuary to Ra, the Sun God, was erected in On, rendering the Priest of On the Supreme Clerical Authority.

Asenat, the daughter of the Supreme Clerical Authority, eventually became the mother of Menashe and Efraim. On his deathbed Yaakov raised Menashe and Efrayim to become Israel's tribal fathers, on par with Yaakov's own sons. Asenat, who, according to the Midrash, was the adopted daughter of Potiphera (whom Rashi identifies with Potiphar) thus became one of the eemahos of Bnei Yisrael, sharing that honor equally with Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah.

Who was Asenat if not the natural daughter of Potiphera? Where did she come from? Rabbinic literature picks up the thread that the Torah text did not continue to weave. Midrash Esther reveals that Asenath was in fact Dinah's daughter, born of Dinah's disastrous encounter with the Canaanite prince Shechem. How did the tale evolve? How did Dinah’s daughter become the adopted child of the Egyptian potentate? What miraculous coincidence helped the beautiful young girl to reach Potiphera’s home?

"And Dinah gave birth to a daughter and named her Asenat, saying, `To my woe did I bear her for Shechem the son of Chamor who had taken me by force to his house'" (Midrash Esther). The same Midrash discloses that when "Yaakov saw that his sons regard Asenat with hostility, he took a gold medal and wrote upon it the Holy Name and placed on her neck."  With that Asenat left Yaakov’s household and the Almighty guided her to the house of Seleikha, wife of Potiphar.

"And Seleikha was barren of child, and she saw the lovely girl who came to her house, and she gathered her to her house, and she became her daughter" (Ibid.)

Years later, when Asenat was presented to him by Pharaoh, Yosef instantaneously noticed the medallion with the Holy Name on Asenat's neck, and understood that it was the Divine Hand, which guided Asenat to him.

This Midrash solves several problems with one stroke. First, the brutality of Dinah's fate is mitigated by this sequel. We are updated on Dinah’s story: the child born of the unhappy Shechem episode is redeemed from the stigma of her birth by eventually serving an essential role in the Divine plan. Secondly, through Asenat, Dinah's rightful inheritance is restored, as she becomes a tribal ancestress on equal footing with her brothers. Thirdly, it allays fears about Yosef's potential assimilation, marriage to a foreign woman being its ultimate element.

Not only did Yosef not marry an Egyptian, Chazal teach, on the contrary, he married a young woman provided by the Almighty Himself, a wife from the house of Yaakov to serve as a vital link to the next generation.

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Vern Crisler's Useful Modification of Dr Donovan Courville's Archaic Egypt



Egypt: Archaic Period

1. PARALLEL DYNASTIES

W. Budge has an interesting observation in his *History of Egypt* with respect to the Egyptian Book of the Dead:

"[I]n a medical papyrus at Berlin further information is added to the effect that after Hesepti was dead the book was taken to his Majesty Sent; now Sent was the fifth king of the II Dynasty and reigned many years after Semti [i.e., Hesepti-VC], and we must therefore understand that Sent came into possession of a medical work which had once belonged to his great predecessor Semti" (Vol. 1, pp. 199-200).

This means there may be a possible temporal correlation between first dynasty Semti (aka: Den, #5 below) and Sent (aka: #6). The correlation between the first and second dynasties of Egypt would then be something like this (as a rough approximation):

1st Dyn (South)------2nd Dyn------------3rd Dyn (North)

1.Menes

2.Athothis---------2.Hotepsekhemwy

3.Djer-------------3.Nebre

4.Merneith/Djet----4.Ninetjer

5.Den (aka:Semti)--5.Weneg,Peribsen-----5.Khasekhemwy

6.-----------------6.Sent---------------6.Djoser

7.Miebis-----------7.-------------------7.Djoser-Teti

8.-----------------8.Aka----------------8.Aches

9.Semempses,Hu-----9.Nephercheres-------9.Neferkare,Hu

10.Qaa

In other words, Egyptian chronology would need to bring 2nd dyn Sent in line so that he follows 1^st dyn Den. This has the effect of causing the 2^nddyn to overlap the 1st dyn, which sends Ninetjer way up next to Queen Merneith. Also, Ninetjer was the father of Khasekhemwy, the father of Djoser, so Khasekhemwy would have to be removed from the end of the 2nd dyn (as Courville argued) and placed at the beginning of the 3rd dyn.

This both falsifies and confirms part of Courville's reconstruction. He believed that the 2nd dyn was *consecutive* after the 1st, but that the 3rd was *parallel* with the first. If we follow the Berlin papyrus, however, the 2nd dyn is not consecutive but is parallel to, or at least overlaps, the 1st dyn.

Thus Courville is falsified on that front. But at the same time, if the papyrus falsifies the notion that the 2^nd dyn is consecutive after the first, it also confirms

Courville's other belief that the 3rd dynasty was parallel to the 1st dynasty.

2. ANACHRONISMS

Having said that, one of Manetho's anachronisms is cleared up by this arrangement. He had said that it was in the reign of Ninetjer that women were

first given kingship. On the basis of the above chronology, he was entirely correct. It was indeed in the third 2nd dyn king's reign that women were first given the kingship. As Manetho says of Binothris (aka Ninetjer):

"In his reign it was decided that women might hold the kingly office."

We can now say that the woman he was talking about was none other than the woman who may have been Egypt's first queen, Queen Merneith.

Another anachronism is also cleared up concerning when worship of the Apis bull and Mendesian goat was first introduced. They were introduced under Nebre's reign, which is anachronistic in terms of traditional chronology, but is entirely correct if the above arrangement is accepted.

3. MERNEITH & PERIBSEN

I've argued that Courville might have been right to place the 3rd dynasty of Egypt as at least partially parallel with the 1st. I am modifying Courville's claim by arguing that the 2nd dynasty *also* partially overlaps these two dynasties.

On my little chart of dynastic overlap above, I have Queen Merneith as number 4, followed by Peribsen at number 5.

T.A.H. Wilkinson in his book *Early Dynastic Egypt* [1999] says, "Curiously, the name of Peribsen also occurs on a stone vessel fragment found by Petrie

in the First Dynasty tomb of Merneith....The only possible [sic] explanation is that it represents later contamination of the tomb contents, perhaps from Amelineau's excavations" (p. 90).

Certainly, it's *an* explanation, but what evidence does Wilkinson present to prove this? None. What seems more plausible is that Peribsen may have been

related to Merneith (a son?), or may have succeeded her as a king of Egypt.

If the contamination theory doesn't hold any water, and no evidence was presented that it does, then the above Merneith-Peribsen connection appears to be a major support for the above arrangement, but also a 0major anachronism for traditional chronology if a consecutive view of the earliest dynasties is assumed.

4. QA'A-HEDGET

Qa'a-hedget is one of the last kings of the first dynasty, (cf. Peter Clayton, *Chronicle of the Pharaohs*, p. 25.) Kings by the names of Sneferka and Ba are thought to have followed Qa'a-hedget (cf. Francesco Raffaele's essay on the Second Dynasty), illustrated as follows:

First Dynasty...last three kings:

a. Qa'a-hedget

b. Sneferka

c. Ba

Now it turns out that some believe a Qa'a-hedget is a king of the *third* dynasty. Raffaele says, "A stela of unknown provenance bought by the Louvre

Museum at the end of the '60s, bears the Horus name of this King; it is the only attestation of Qa Hedget ....The style of the relief and the skillness of its lines are the reasons for the widespread conviction that we have to do with a IIIrd dyn. datable piece, not with one of Qa'a (Ist dyn. ending) as was formerly advanced" (cf. his essay on Qa-hedget).

I have Nephercheres of the 2nd dynasty as identical to Neferkare of the 3rd dynasty. Both were numbered as 9 on my reconstruction, and Qa'a was numbered as 10. Raffaele points out:

"Lacking the evidences for a Horus name of the predecessor of Qa Hedget, Neferkara, it could be hypothezed these these names belonged to the same sovereign; the few traces they left make it possible that both these kings could have been immediate predecessors of Huni" (Essay on Qa-Hedget).

So Neferkara is considered the predecessor of Qa Hedget, just as my reconstruction had it.

The fourth dynasty starts (in my view) right after the end of the 1st and 3rd dynasties, and Snofru is the first king of the 4th dynasty. Now that name Snofru (who follows close behind Raffaele's Qa Hedget) bears a remarkable resemblance to the Sneferka who followed Qa'a, both sharing four consonants (S,n,f,r), both sharing a predecessor with the same name.

The only thing that I can see as being a possible counter-instance to dynastic overlap in the Archaic Period of Egypt is that German excavators found a seal-impression on the entrance of Qa'a's tomb, and "this has been taken as a proof of the presence of Hotepsekhemwy at the funerary ceremony of the Horus Qa'a...." (Raffaele, Essay on Hotepsekhemwy).

The possibility remains however, that Qa'a may have been the one who put the impression on his tomb entrance, thus identifying himself with a famous predecessor (for sacral or political prestige). For instance, a seal impression of Ninetjer was found in a tomb of Khasekhemwy, but this is not taken to mean that Khasekhemwy preceeded his father Ninetjer.

A lot more research and digging needs to be done to test whether more kings of the third dynasty share the names of the kings of the first or second dynasty. I think it would be a good investment of time to test out the theory of dynastic overlap for the Archaic Period.

Vern

Taken from: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/ancient_chronology/message/60