GENESIS 40, or, "Do not interpretations belong to God?"

Wherein Joseph takes up dream interpretation

Joseph is still stuck in jail when Pharoah's chief cupbearer and chief baker are thrown in with him. One night, the two new prisoners each have strange dreams. When they awake, they lament to ol' Joe that there is no one around to tell them what the dreams mean. Joe chides them, saying "Do not interpretations belong to God?" and then he proceeds to make interpretations.

I won't bore you with the details, but essentially, Joe tells the cupbearer that his dream was a good sign: in three days he will be freed and restored to his old job. The news isn't so good for the poor baker. In three days, he will be executed.

In three days, Joe's interpretations prove to be true.

---

As I noticed in the previous post, Joseph's story is shaping up as a more lyrical, well-told part of Genesis than the stories previous. Evidently, I'm not the first person to notice this. Quoteth Wikipedia:

"Structurally, Genesis consists of the "primeval history" (chapters 1-11) and cycles of Patriarchal stories - Abraham, Isaac and Jacob/Israel.[2] The narrative of Joseph stands apart from these. Scholars believe that it reached its final form in the 5th century BC, with a previous history of composition reaching back possibly to the 10th century."

Aha! The story of Joseph may come across as more polished because it was written later and evolved more. Truth be told, I diligently tried to find a secondary source to backup Wikipedia's claim, and failed, so take it as you will. But it does make sense.

This brings up an important question: If historians can empirically prove that the Bible has been changed since it was first written, how must that alter our reading and interpretation of it? Most people would like to believe that POOF the Old Testament appeared and then a couple of thousand years later POOF the New Testament appeared. But, according to a many historians, that just doesn't seem to be the case.

This will be a topic of great discussion on the virtual pages of this blog, and I'm only going to devote a short amount of time to it right now, but this is as good a time as any to get this subject rolling.

I dug up two competing quotes on this topic for sake of comparison:

"How does it help us to say that the Bible is the inerrant word of God if in fact we don't have the words that God inerrantly inspired, but only the words copied by the scribes-sometimes correctly but sometimes (many times!) incorrectly? What good is it to say that autographs (i.e., the originals) were inspired? We don't have the originals! We have only error-ridden copies, and the vast majority of these are centuries removed from the originals and different from them, evidently, in thousands of ways" -- Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus

In his book, Fabricating Jesus, author Craig A. Evans takes direct aim at Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus, hoping to debunk it:

"The truth of the Christian message hinges not on the inerrancy of Scripture or on our ability to harmonize the four Gospels but on the resurrection of Jesus. And the historical reliability of the Gospels does not hinge on the inerrancy of Scripture or on the proof that no mistake of any kind can be detected in them."

Personally, I take issue with the logic of Evan's claim. He says that the important thing isn't to believe that the Bible lacks errors, but to believe in the resurrection of Jesus. But, if he accepts that the Bible does have errors, then how can he be sure that Jesus was indeed resurrected? I'm not saying that Jesus wasn't resurrected, only that Evan's argument won't be convincing anyone who doesn't already believe in the resurrection.

More to come on the Biblical inerrancy debate in future posts.


FYI: Since Genesis 40 is about dream interpretation, I thought it would be fun to look up the dream meanings of various things from the Bible. All these come from dreammoods.com

GOD - To see God in your dream, signifies your spirituality and expression of your feelings about divinity. God also symbolizes an untouchable, unreachable, and unattainable notion of perfection. Thus such a dream may highlight your struggles and attempts with trying to be perfect.

To dream that you are worshipping God, signifies repentance of your actions and errors.

To dream that God speaks to you, signifies feelings of guilt, eternal punishment, and damnation.

To dream that you are a god, implies your own special talents which you have not yet recognized or have not fully developed. Alternatively, it suggests your feelings of superiority over others. You think you are above others and have a tendency to look down on people.


JESUS - To see Jesus in your dream, foretells that your greatest desires and goals will be realized. This dream serves to console and strengthen you in your times of adversity, hardship and struggle. You will rise above any situation and circumstance and become victorious.

To dream that Jesus speaks to you or that you are praying with Him, signifies that you will be blessed with true peace of mind, joy and contentment.


CROSS - To see a cross in your dream, signifies suffering, martyrdom, death, and/or sacrifice. Perhaps your dream is telling you that you have a cross to bear. Ask yourself what is causing you to suffer or what is causing you great difficulties.