2.2 Joseph

While trying to verify the historicity of Old Testament I was forced to consider what evidence I would expect to be able to find. Clearly the minor details of the life of a single individual are less likely to have been preserved externally to the Bible than large events that lasted for years over a large geographical area and involved a lot of people, organisation and buildings. Perhaps the best example of this latter category is that of Joseph and the famine in Egypt.

The story of Joseph includes huge geopolitical events recorded in the account of the 7-years of bumper harvests and 7-years of famine that are recorded in Genesis. If this occurred then these were momentous events that would have required huge amounts of food to have been stored up and distributed requiring significant infrastructure. I would have expected some reference to this event in the Egyptian records or some remains of the infrastructure to be evident to us today. But there is no evidence of Joseph's rule over a famine.

In terms of knowledge of this period, a traditional view of the Bible timeline would put Joseph at about 1700 BC which is during the Thirteenth Dynasty, a 150 year period that is not well documented and there is general disarray and decline in Egypt. A list of Pharaoh's is available which shows a lot of Pharaoh’s reigning for relatively short periods. Given that this dynasty was a period of disorder I think it is unlikely that it would have been able to organise itself sufficiently for a countrywide 14 year plus project. In any case we are left without any evidence of:

• 7 years bumper harvest followed by 7 years of famine.
• Joseph who becomes second in command in all Egypt
• Storehouses to hold 7 years of food for the Egyptians as well as surrounding peoples. None of these have ever been found (compared to pyramids which have stood the years of erosion). Try calculating the physical volume of food that would have been required.

A couple of people that are cited as possible candidates for Pharaoh and Joseph are Djoser and Imhotep but they don't seem to fit very well. Djoser was Pharaoh about 2650 BC (compare with the traditional Joseph date around 1700 BC, and traditional flood date around 2350 BC). The story of Imhotep and the famine is found on the famine stele and is quite different to the record in the Bible. The text of the famine stele can be found here. There is no mention of 7 years of plenty. After 7 years of famine Imhotep decides to do something about it, there is no prior planning like with Joseph. The resolution involves the god Khnum, the god of the Nile, who has held back the flood waters.

My final comment is of a more naturalistic bent but for what it's worth if I were to plan for 7 years of famine I would have taken more than 20% of a bumper year's harvest, especially if it were going to have to go round people outside Egypt like the Canaanites during the famine.

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