"Wait a minute here... God isn't testing him? his brothers want to kill him but settle on selling him into slavery? then he gets thrown into jail? you're right, piece of cake :) But Abraham never got thrown into jail..."Okay, I'll admit. A couple of years in the slammer is no easy ordeal. I'll give Joseph that.
Maybe my problem with the Joseph story has more to do with how passive he is. I feel the other heroes in Genesis made more choices, and then either suffered the consequences or reaped the benefits of those choices. Adam chose to bite into the fruit of knowledge. Abraham chose to sacrifice his son. Ol' Joe on the other hand seems to be lead around more by circumstance than choice.
I've heard it said before that one of the keys to writing a good story is to make sure that your characters are actively choosing to do things. So maybe this is why the Joseph story is falling flat for me.
That, and I still think he's kind of a spoiled blabber mouth.
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1 comment:
Spoiled blabber mouth, yes. There's no denying it. And, you're right about the choice thing, and it's kind of weird that these dramatic and life altering events keep happening to him in an almost blasse kind of way. Is that the choice he's making? To not freak out and shake his fist at God? The Sunday School teacher in my brain keeps saying that that's the point... I don't want to give away the ending, but the Lord does bless him and use him to save his people...
- Courtney (again)
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