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The Genesis story of Joseph and his brothers and its direct mythological antecedents are at least five thousand years old. In this saga of intrigue and moral triumph is one of the most universally appealing stories, which to this day has been a favorite of all ages. Here is a recounting which is both naively simple and unfathomably complex, with its wide gamut of action and feeling, encompassing powerful life motifs interwoven with ambition, hatred, jealousy, lust and fear. The resolution evolved however, consists of Joseph's decision to do what is best for his people, while simultaneously satisfying his own omnipotent strivings. Dinsmore3 points out that the traditions concerned with Joseph are the ones most elaborately and artistically treated of any in the whole old Testament. “The different incidents are not strung together as are the legends of Abraham, but are so arranged as to fit into one another, making a developed plot. The growth of character is traced, motives are expressed, expectation is held in suspense until the climax, conversation is prolonged and delicately handled, more characters are introduced and are on the stage at one time.”
The Genesis stories were probably not fixed in permanent form until about the ninth century B.C.; but the tales of genesis were current among the people for at least a thousand years before they assumed their final shape. The anonymous writers of Genesis no