An Atheistic Bible Study Of Genesis Chapter Forty One

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Two years have passed since Joseph interpreted the dreams of two fellow prisoner, but now he has to perform the same task for the Egyptian Pharaoh. The Pharaoh has had a few weird dreams. In one, he stood by the river Nile where he witnessed seven big fat healthy cows rise out of the waters. They were followed quickly by seven emaciated cows who caught up with and ate the first seven cows. In a second dream, Pharaoh sees even healthy ears of corn on a single stalk, but watched helplessly as seven unhealthy grains destroy the good ones. Pharaoh wastes a lot of time and money consulting his own dream interpreters and mystical advisors before the Cup-bearer remembers that Joseph has a reputation for reading dreams accurately. He recaps verbatim many of the events in Chapter Forty. Pharaoh summons Joseph who tells him the usual blather about how he doesn’t interpret dreams but lets his God channel dream interpretations through him. Pharaoh relates the dreams, word for word the same as they were written just a few lines before in this same chapter. My interpretation – cows turn into the mooing dead and eat each other. Wheat does likewise. Joseph sees the dreams as two versions of the same message. Egypt is going to have great crops and farming for even years before the whole World, including Egypt is plunged into a terrible seven year famine. The only way to ride out the famine is to store some of the food aside during the seven years of plenty, to be well stocked against the impending disaster. As Joseph has predicted this state of affairs, Pharaoh puts Joseph in direct charge of the famine relief project. Joseph is now ruling Egypt, with only the Pharaoh personally outranking him. Pharaoh even gives Joseph his cloak, and signet ring, gold chain, etc. He asolets Joseph serve as his personal charioteer. Pharaoh renames Joseph Zaphenaph-Paneah, and gives him a wife too, Asenath, daughter of the Egyptian priest, Potiphera. Joseph stores up all the food grown in the seven years of good harvest. It actually says he stores all of it which begs the question of what everyone ate and just how the corn could keep for seven years in a pre-refrigeration era. Joseph tries to keep an inventory of the food in storage but it is too much to keep up the paperwork with. Genesis describes it as literally being more gran than there is sand in the desert. Joseph and Asenath have two sons, Manesseh and Ephraim. Joseph chooses the names as the boys help take his mind off being alienated from his father (Jacob) due to still being technically a slave in Egypt, and for God giving him such privilege and comfort despite his captivity. As the global famine makes its effects known, and people cry out in Egypt for food, Pharaoh tell everyone to go to Joseph to find out what he can do to help them. Joeph ells them food from the stores he has amassed. Eventually everyone in the World is heading to Egypt to buy Joseph’s food supplies as Egypt is the only country with anything left to eat. This is stupid. No country can feed every nation on Earth even today and Egypt is largely the Sahara Desert. Keeping grain and meat edible for seven years in such conditions would be impossible and how can people from distant lands have enough energy ad nutrition for a trip to and from Egypt in famine conditions? How can they take enough food home to feed their entire populations? This story is as ludicrous as the flood, but less well known. Many countries, such as Australia were yet to be discovered. How did their populations get to and from Egypt to collect enough food for seven years? Arthur Chappell