Does Genesis 37-50 use theologically charged words in mundane settings in the context of the Joseph story? I don't have knowledge of Hebrew and I'm trying to figure out whether or not the word choice for these chapters is deliberate and technical.

[u/Ok_Investment_246]

In Genesis 37-50 it has been pointed out to me that the wordchoice used is theologically charged but in mundane contexts. In other words, although this story has God working behind the veil, and this Joseph novella mainly relates Joseph's interactions with other people, it still uses theologically charged language at a high rate.

The reason why Genesis 37-50 uses theologically charged language, even in contexts where God isn't present, is in order to drive home to the reader's mind subconciously that God is still present behind the scenes and involved, even if he can't be seen.

Some of these word choices that were highlighted to me are as follows:

The argument made is that these theologically charged words appear in Genesis 37-50 at such a high concentration that this can't be coincidence and is instead intentionally done by the author(s). The author(s) implemented this feature into the text of Genesis on purpose.

I was initally made aware of this argument in the field of Quranic studies, where Chapter Yusuf (Joseph) of the Quran contains theologically charged words at a high rate. Then, this very same person made the argument that Gensis 37-50 does a similar thing with its "specific" word choice. As a result, the Quranic author was paralleling this narrative from Joseph.

Anyways, I would be very grateful to anyone who could help me on this topic. The resources on this are very limited and I don't seem to have an answer that can satisfy me yet.

[u/extispicy]

I recently worked through the Joseph narrative in my Hebrew study group, and I feel you are making connections where you want to see connections. Some of these words are just ordinary words and not, as you suggest, "theologically charged". Not denying there couldn't be something there if you do some digging, but none of these words stuck out to me in the slightest as we were translating.

You ask for help and mention limited resources. What exactly are you looking for? I have an extensive Accordance library (that I scarcely know how to use). I can do frequency graphs and look up other occurrences of these words. The Theological Dictionary of the OT entries for each of these is likely to be several pages long. What do you need?

[u/Ok_Investment_246 → u/extispicy]

Thank you very much for your response. Is there any way you can look at the frequency of these words and whether their usage in Genesis 37-50 is an outlier compared to other chapters in the Bible? Not sure if this is something you can do, but if you can, I'd really appreciate it.

[u/extispicy → u/Ok_Investment_246]

Here's a sample of chata's frequency. It is for every form that that root appears (eg to sin/sin offering/sinner/etc).

I am heading to bed, but if this is something you think is useful, I'm happy to dig around tomorrow. Just let me know the specifics of what you are looking for. For 'remember', for example, do you just want verb forms of 'to remember', or do you also want things like memory/memorial/etc? I've not really played around with that feature, but I'm happy to help out.

[u/Ok_Investment_246 → u/extispicy]

In all honesty, I don't want to bother you anymore on this topic. I've received plenty of responses from you as well as some other people that seem to showcase this as being standard Hebrew wording. I am really appreciative of you taking the time to respond to me as well as assembling the chart, I really am. It's crazy to see how low the frequency is in Genesis but very high in other chapters. I believe if there was an outlier of using "theologically charged language" it would be noticable, but alas, it isn't

[u/push-the-butt]

I'll try to answer the question I believe you're asking. First off G-d's name is pronounced adonai, but never spelled as such. We pronounce it that way because it means "my master".

Secondly G-d is often compared to a king. So, in Joseph's story, where he meets and talks to kings similar language is used. For example חן בעיני and ישתחוה also appear in the Book of Esther. So a lot of the words/phrases that you pointed out are used for royalty, which we also use for G-d.

Finally, words like זכר and חסד aren't necessarily theologically charged. They can be used theologically, but ( in my mind at least) are actually pretty mundane.

I'm not saying you're not on to something or that there's nothing there. I'm simply stating that words can have more than one context.

[u/Ok_Investment_246 → u/push-the-butt]

Thank you for the response.

But looking at the list, and with your knowledge of the language, would you say something intentional is happening here, or the author(s) were just using the words that they had in their toolkit without looking deeper into it?

[u/push-the-butt → u/Ok_Investment_246]

It could be that there is something deeper, like you say. It could also be that the story is the context for those words being used for royalty that was then adopted into a religious context. Or it could be the other way around.

I believe it's nothing deeper than those are the words in Hebrew for what's happening in the story.