A Soap in 12 episodes

based on Genesis 37-50

Introduction

This is a sequel to “The Saga of Jake”, last week’s blog.  If you have not read it and do so now, it will bring you up to speed.  Both of these sagas could be the basis of a regular TV ‘soap’.  In the Bible, Jake is Jacob, Joe is Jospeh.  Indeed the story of Joe/Joseph is set out in a great half hour animated video on bibleinbrief.org/videos.

Episode 1 An awkward teen  (Genesis 37) 

If there’s one thing Jake should have learnt from growing up, it’s that it ’s a bad idea for parents to have favourites among their children.  But that’s just what he does to Joe.  (Jake is also a bit weak.  His eldest son goes to bed with his dad’s secondary wife Billie, and Jake does nothing about it).  Joe (or Joseph) is now a teenager, seventeen years old, and he tells tales on his step-brothers to Dad.  Jake then gives him a special coat to make him look top dog.   Joe makes things worse by telling everyone two dreams he has had in which he and his brothers are twelve bundles of wheat, and all eleven of theirs bow down in homage to his bundle.  He has the same dream about twelve stars, and again all eleven pay homage to his star.  No wonder Joe’s brothers hate him.

Episode 2 Human trafficking (Genesis 37)

One day Jake asks young Joe to go and check up on his brothers who had taken the flocks north to pasture.  He walked for two days and sees them, but they see him first. They plot to murder him and say a wild beast had eaten him. (There were lions in the jungle of the Jordan valley at this time).  Reuben, the eldest says “Don’t stain your hands with his blood.  Just throw him into one of these pits and leave him to die of thirst.”   Actually he hopes to rescue him.  So they do just that.  They overpower him, take off his special coat and throw him into a deep pit.  Then they sit down to have lunch.  While eating they notice a merchants’ caravan, and decide, why not make a profit?  So they sell young Joe as a slave and pocket the money.  They take  the coat, smear it with goat’s blood and take it back to old Jake saying “We found this.  A wild beast must have eaten him.”  Jake is heartbroken.  

Episode 3 A small case of incest (Genesis 38)

One of the brothers, Jude, decides to settle in one of the foreign towns and marries there.  Three boys are the result.  A dozen years later he finds a young bride called Tammy for his eldest.  Unfortunately, the marriage does not last long.  The young man  dies.  So Judah marries Tammy to his next son who refuses to consummate the marriage – he does not want to be a surrogate father for his brother.  And he dies too.  Tammy expects Jude to marry her to the third brother so she can have children, but Judah puts it off from day to day, from month to month, from year to year.  Meanwhile, Jude’s own wife dies.  In the end Tammy, a handsome middle-aged woman by then, dresses up as an escort and seduces Judah, her father-in-law.  She insists that he gives her his signet ring as payment.  Six months later it is clear that Tammy is in the family way, and Jude is furious, ready to kill her to wipe out the disgrace.  Tammy then produces the ring and says  “Well, it was you.”  Jude admits, “She is right, I was wrong.”  And Tammy gives birth to twins.  

Episode 4 Life as a slave (Genesis 39)

Joe is sold as a slave to Potiphar, the emperor’s head of security.  He quickly becomes a trusted servant and is put in charge of all the household’s affairs.  But then the man’s wife tries to seduce. him.  When he refuses, she accuses him of attempted rape.  Potiphar is incandescent and throws him into prison.

Episode 5   Two dreams (Genesis 40)   

In prison Joe makes such a good impression that the prison governor makes him a ‘trusty’.  He gets to know two high-ranking officials whom the emperor has jailed.  One night each has a dream.  In one, the official gives the emperor a glass of the best wine.  Joe says, that shows you’re going to be pardoned.  The other tells his, which ended with birds pecking at the top of his head.  Joe says, you’re going to be executed.  And that is just how it turned out.  Joe asked the lucky one not to forget him, but that’s just what he did, leaving Joe in prison for two more years.

Episode 6 The Emperor’s dreams  (Genesis 41)

Two years later, the emperor has some disturbing dreams, which no one can interpret.  Then the official remembers Joe, and he is brought from prison straight in front of the emperor.  The dream is of seven fat cows and  seven skinny cows; the skinny cows eat the fat cows, and stay as skinny as before.  Joe says this is a longrange forecast.  There’s going to be seven years of good harvests, followed by  seven years of terrible harvests.  Joe recommends the appointment of a new official who will create big stores of grain in the good years so they can survive the years of bad harvests. “Well,” says the emperor, “You’ve just talked yourself into a job.”

Episode 7.    Prime Minister!       (Genesis 41) 

Joe was thirty years old when he became the governor of the whole country.  He had storehouses built in every town.  He married a daughter of an Egyptian priest and had two sons by her.  When the seven years of famine started, he doled out the stored grain to the people – and to foreigners as well, because the drought and famine affected the whole of the Middle East.  

Episode 8 The brothers turn up  (Genesis 40)

Jake’s family suffers from the famine like everyone else, so he sends his sons down to Egypt to buy grain, but he keeps his dearest son, Ben, with him. Joe interviews the group but pretends not to know them.  “You are spies!”  “No, my  lord, we are honest men.  We are twelve brothers…”. “So where is the twelfth?  If you are telling the truth, you’ll go back and collect him.  Meanwhile you can have the grain, but one of you will stay here as my prisoner.”    Then Joe arranges for each man’s money to be put into their sack of grain.  When they discover this back in Canaan, ‘they lose heart, and turn trembling to one another, saying “What is this that God has done to us?”’

Episode 9 The brothers’ return visit. (Genesis 43 – 45)

Jake at first refuses to let Ben travel back with them to Egypt, but the the famine continues so he has no choice.  This time Joe welcomes them and gives them a  feast.  Joe is so moved he has to leave the room to weep.  But, when they leave Joe arranges for his special silver goblet to be hidden in Ben’s sack.  On the way back, Joe sends his guards to arrest the brothers for stealing his goblet, telling them that just the thief alone would die.  When it is found in Ben’s sack, all the brothers return to plead with Joe.  Jude recounts the whole sad story of their betrayal of Joe, and asks for himself to be taken as a slave instead of Ben, “for when our father sees the lad is not with us, he will die.”  Joe can’t keep up the pretence any longer and reveals himself to his astonished brothers.  Then he tells them to go back and collect Jake, and for all of them to settle in a fertile part of Egypt he will give them. The emperor even sends wagons with them to help with their moving home.

Episode 10 Jake’s final journey (Genesis 46 – 47)

When Jake hears the story and sees the wagons sent to transport him and his possessions, he says “Enough.  My son Joe is still alive.  I must go and see him before I die.”  So  they saddle up and move south.  The wagon train now has over 70 members of Jake’s family. After a week they reach Beer-sheba, his father’s and grandfather’s home, Jake worships at the altar there and hears God say, “I am the God of your ancestors.  I will make you a great nation.  And you will see Joe again.”   After another week they reach the Egyptian frontier.  Joseph drives out in his official chariot to meet him and  both he and Jake weep with the emotion of their reunion.  Joe introduces his family to the emperor, and suggests they settle in the eastern border region, because all Egyptians hate herdsmen.  The emperor agrees and asks how old Jake is.  “I am over a hundred years old; few and hard have been the years of my life.”  Then Jake gives the emperor a blessing.

Joe makes sure that his family has all they want during the remaining years of the famine.  Ordinary Egyptians are not so lucky.  They use all their money to buy grain one year, and then sell their cattle and their land over the next two years, and become state slaves.  A tax of 20% of all they produce is handed over to the emperor from then on.

Episode 11 Jake’s family blessing and death (Genesis 48 – 49) 

Jake now suffers his final illness.  Joe brings his two sons to him, Jake said he will adopt them as his own and blesses them, putting the younger one first:  “May the God who has been my shepherd all my life bless these boys.”  He then blesses all his twelve sons and asks to be buried in the cave in Hebron which his grandfather Abraham had bought as the family tomb.  Jake then lies down on the bed and breathes his last.

Episode 12 A united family (Genesis 50)

Jake’s funeral is a big affair.  First his body is embalmed in the Egyptian way – that takes forty days – and there is an official mourning period throughout the country of seventy days.  Then a great procession of Joe and his brothers, the emperor’s officials and chief men of Egypt travel north with chariots and charioteers – a very great company.  Only the wives and children, sheep and cattle, are left behind.  They travel for over 500 miles  journeying along the east side of the Dead Sea.  After a month of walking, they make  ‘a very great and sorrowful lamentation” for a week by the Jordan.  They cross the river and bury Jake in the family grave.  

Joe’s brothers are now afraid that with Jake now dead, Joe will take revenge on them for selling him as a slave.  But Joe says,  “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.  So have no fear; I myself will provide for you and your little ones.”

Joe lives to a great age.  When about to die, he makes his brothers promise to take his body with them when eventually they return to take possession of the land of Canaan.  His body is embalmed and put in a coffin in Egypt.

Notes on Illustrations

• Episode 2. Nubian slaves at an Egyptian slave market
• Episode 5 Small Egyptian glass vase, V & A.\
• Episode 9 3,000 year old silver goblet form north-east Iran
• Episode 10 Egyptian painting of desert nomads
• Episode 12 Mountains in Jordan

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JOIN THE DISCUSSION

on Zoom
7.00pm WEDNESDAY 7th OCTOBER

The last half of the book of Genesis is basically a soap opera of a highly dysfunctional family, always trying to cheat each other – just like Eastenders. And it all starts with lentil stew! 

We will discuss what it can teach us. + What do we think of God’s role in it all?

Join the discussion on Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84822627159?pwd=VzZKZ1E4Wm5BaGU0YysycnZEUWJ5UT09

Meeting ID: 848 2262 7159

Passcode: 9103087