God was with Joseph in that endeavor, so claiming he created the first communist state is both a lie and blasphemy. It is absurd to infer that Joseph created a state of affairs where the family, private property and religion were all abolished.
BTW, Joseph was not a Jew and could never be; Judah, the father of the Jews, was his elder half-brother.
God was with Joseph, but Joseph was only dispensing the will of the Pharoah. He wasn’t gathering assets for himself when he was trading grain that sustained people for their lands and cattle.
God was with Joseph in that endeavor, so claiming he created the first communist state is both a lie and blasphemy. It is absurd to infer that Joseph created a state of affairs where the family, private property and religion were all abolished.
Yeah, I’ve even heard christian pastors say that Joseph was the first iteration of Jesus.
So I’m just making my own personal observation —based on scripture.
God favored the Hebrews. He did not favor the Egyptians. What happened to the Egyptians was their tough luck/fate/bad judgment/God’s judgment—precisely because of God’s covenant with Jewish people. God favors who he favors. Think of the inverse of this. Is it blasphemy to say that
1000 years later God favored the Assyrians and Babylonians over the Hebrews—for a time—because of the idol worship of the Hebrews. And that’s why Judah and Israel were taken into captivity. This is the sort of thing that the prophets of Israel prophesied even before it happened.
The only source of food during a crippling seven-year famine was the storage bins created buy Joseph, second-in-command to Pharaoh over all the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:44). The people spent all their cash, traded all their livestock, and now have sold their land and their freedom to Pharaoh. He owned everything (Genesis 47:13–21).
That’s the definition of a communist state.
In modern parlance, we fear the people who say “You will own nothing and be happy”
The founders of this country understood something about the importance of private property. The original Declaration of Independence read people have the right to life, liberty, and property. It was later amended to read that “people have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
BTW, Joseph was not a Jew and could never be; Judah, the father of the Jews, was his elder half-brother.
//////
well, ok.
but it looks like you’re playing with definitions.
Joseph was the brother of Benjamin. They were sons of Jacob by his favorite wife Rachel. Was Jacob not in the line of promise?
Joseph’s two sons were Ephraim and Manasseh. They inherited portions of land in the land of Canaan, which was promised to the Israelites by God.
Were they not partakers of God’s blessing? Were they not inheritors of God’s promise to Moses?
And then God’s blessing passed from them. But only in later generations.
A thousand years later the 10 northern tribes were carried off. (but before that were they not Jews)Their remains are today’s samaritans. Their numbers are few. Even in Jesus day they were despised by Jews for being of mixed blood. So you can say — because Ephraim and Manasseh were part of those 10 northern tribes — they are not considered to be jews in today’s understanding of who is a jew.
But it appears that Israel is less discriminating about who is —strictly speaking—a Jew. For example, they’re happy to take in Ethiopian Jews —because they are by the definition of the state of Israel ...Jews.
Now I’m sure there are plenty of Jews in Israel belonging to many sects and plus plenty of secular Jews who do not think of the Ethiopian Jews as Jews.
So I don’t really care about this point. Have it any way you want.