1 Sapiential Anthropology in the Joseph Story The Joseph story is one of the finest pieces of literature in the Bible. It is also one of the most theologically interesting and challenging texts of Judaism and Christianity. But what is this story actually about? How are we to interpret it? Historical exegesis has at times described its meaning as the voice of the Egyptian diaspora, advocating the legitimacy of Jewish life abroad. 1 Indeed, the Joseph story seems to serve as a counterpoint to the Deuteronomistic History, which claims that a good life is only possible within Israel and Judah’s land and that losing one’s land, as reported in 2 Kgs 17 and 25, is tantamount to the catastrophe par excellence. The Joseph story instead holds that diaspora life is possible, meaningful, and theologically legitimate. The Joseph story only makes three mentions of God on the level of the narrative itself, all of them occur in Gen 39, the chapter describing the events in the house of 1 See Arndt Meinhold, “Die Gattung der Josephsgeschichte und des Estherbuches: Diasporanovelle,” ZAW 87 (1975) 306–24; ZAW 88 (1976): 72–93; Rüdiger Lux, Josef: Der Auserwählte unter seinen Brüdern, Biblische Gestalten 1 (Leipzig: EVA, 2001), 237–239; Jürgen Ebach, Genesis 37–50, HThKAT (Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 2007), 692–93; Konrad Schmid, “The Joseph Story in the Pentateuch” in this volume; trans. of “Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch,” in Abschied vom Jahwisten: Die Komposition des Hexateuch in der jüngsten Diskussion, ed. Jan C. Gertz, Konrad Schmid, and Markus Witte, BZAW 315 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2002), 83–118. See also Ludwig A. Rosenthal, “Die Josephsgeschichte mit den Büchern Ester und Daniel verglichen,” ZAW 15 (1895), 278–84; idem, “Nochmals der Vergleich Ester, Joseph, Daniel,” ZAW 17 (1897): 125–28; Franziska Ede, Die Josefsgeschichte: Literarkritische und redaktionsgeschichtliche Untersuchungen zur Entstehung von Gen 37–50, BZAW 485 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016), 514 n. 5 (bibliography). A different position is taken by Erhard Blum and Kristin Weingart, “The Joseph Story: Diaspora Novella or North Israelite Narrative?” ZAW 129 (2017): 501–21, see also Rainer Albertz, “Die Josephsgeschichte im Pentateuch,” in Diasynchron: Beiträge zur Exegese, Theologie und Rezeption der Hebräischen Bibel. Walter Dietrich zum 65. Geburtstag, e.d Thomas Naumann and Regine Hunziker-Rodewald (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 200)9, 11–36, especially 20, 25; Jakob Wöhrle, “Joseph in Egypt: Living under Foreign Rule according to the Joseph Story and its Early Intra- and Extra-Biblical Receptions,” in Between Cooperation and Hostility: Multiple Identities in Ancient Judaism and the Interaction with Foreign Powers, ed. Rainer Albertz and Jakob Wöhrle, JAJSup 11 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2013), 53–72.