Joseph and His Brothers: Deconstructing Mythology
In previous posts, we have seen how “the scapegoat mechanism,” the spontaneous violence of a group directed against one of its own, could account for a group achieving internal cohesion, and how there are traces of this in the Hebrew Scriptures (Gen 4, Lev 24, Joshua 7). We also saw how these episodes of spontaneous violence evolved into ritual sacrifice—and how Abraham’s non-sacrifice of Isaac brought into question the logic of human sacrifice, and how the later prophets questioned the whole sacrificial enterprise.
One of Rene Girard’s most important insights is to see how the Bible, in addition to reflecting these archaic mechanisms of scapegoating and sacrifice, also works to actively undermine them, a kind of “subversion from within.” A clear example of this is the story of Joseph and his brothers, which is told in Genesis, chapters 37–50. It is a very human story; other than vague assertions like “the Lord was with Joseph” (39:3), no action is attributed to the intervention of God or the gods, which makes it virtually unique in the canon of ancient literature.
The story is well-known, and it is impossible for me to summarize the entire chapter. But let me highlight three aspects.
Joseph as Scapegoat
At the beginning of the story, the sons of Jacob are immersed in a full-fledged mimetic crisis, consumed with envy and rivalry. They have already been implicated in a horrifically violent act of revenge against Shechem (34:25-31), and Judah has had a sordid encounter with Tamar, his own daughter-in-law (chapter 38). Joseph has made the mimetic rivalry worse by relating a dream that implied that he, the second youngest, would come to rule over his brothers. The brothers plot to kill Joseph, (Gen 37:17-20). In the end, Reuben pleaded with his brothers not to harm Joseph, if only because their father would not be able to bear it. Instead, Judah persuaded them to sell him to a passing caravan of Ishmaelites, and from there into slavery in Egypt. To make the “scapegoat” connection explicit, they then slaughtered a goat, dipped Joseph’s “coat of many colors” with the goat’s blood, and presented it to their father Jacob, who mistakenly concluded that his favorite son had been devoured by a wild animal.
Joseph, on the one hand, is a “typical” scapegoat: identified by his brothers’ as the cause of their crisis of mimetic rivalry. But on the other hand, Joseph does not suffer the usual fate of scapagoats; he is not killed. And, in a recurrent theme throughout the Bible, the God who has nothing to do with violence is revealed through the scapegoated victim.
Deconstructing Mythology
[The Bible] is a text in which occurs the change from mythology to the biblical view, which is really the change from the guilt of the victim to the innocence of the victim. . . .The Bible deconstructs mythology.
–Rene Girard [1]
Girard helpfully compares of the story of Joseph with the Greek myth of Oedipus. At first reading, the two stories seem to have little in common, but Girard points out some striking structural similarities. Both start with a crisis of family rivalry that is “solved” by an expulsion: Oedipus by his parents as an infant, Joseph by his brothers as a boy. Both then rise to prominence, Oedipus as son to the King and Queen of Corinth, Joseph as the overseer of Potiphar’s household. Both then suffer a second expulsion: Oedipus to self-exile from Corinth, and Joseph to prison. Both are then redeemed by demonstrating extraordinary abilities: Oedipus by solving the Sphinx’s riddle, Joseph by interpreting dreams. Both rise again to positions of great authority, Oedipus as King of Thebes, and Joseph under Pharaoh. Both subsequently confront a crisis, a plague in Thebes and a famine in Egypt. Finally, both are accused of horrific crimes, Oedipus of parricide and incest, Joseph of the equivalent of incest (Potiphar being “like a father” to him, an attempted rape of his wife would be comparable to actual incest).
Despite these structural similarities, Girard points to “an irreducible difference, an impassable gulf between the biblical story and the myth.” In the myth, told from the perspective of the crowd, Oedipus is guilty of terrible crimes and is therefore the cause of the plague; no one, not even Oedipus, questions his guilt. In the biblical story, told from a perspective sympathetic to the victim, Joseph is unquestionably innocent.
Both stories begin with rivalry and a mimetic crisis, resulting in collective violence and expulsion of a victim. The myth sides with the crowd against Oedipus; the Bible sides with Joseph as the innocent victim. Girard’s insight is that the myth functions to cover up the truth: that Oedipus was in fact “scapegoated” by the mob, in a misguided effort to rid the city of the plague. This is a powerful example of Girard’s main point: humans deal with their own internal rivalries and violence by projecting them on to a single victim, and expelling or killing the scapegoat—and then concealing the evidence through a myth. It is worth emphasizing this by quoting James Warren at length:
What is significant is that we allow the structural equivalence of the two stories to highlight the crucial difference between them, which is that the two stories are told from completely different perspectives. Oedipus is told from the perspective of the persecutors. It blames Oedipus for horrendous crimes. It even has Oedipus admitting to them himself, gouging out his eyes and accepting expulsion. Oedipus is therefore a quintessentially “mythical” story, for this is precisely what myth does, according to Girard: justify (albeit unconsciously) the scapegoating murders and expulsions that form the basis of community solidarity. The Bible, on the other hand, portrays Joseph as innocent. Joseph is decidedly not guilty of the crimes of which he is accused by Potiphar’s wife. . . . With the story of Joseph, Genesis brings to a grand climax the rehabilitation of the victim. . . . Not only is the victim given voice and shown innocent, but Joseph forgives his persecutors. . . . It is precisely Joseph’s refusal to avenge himself that allows the scapegoat mechanism to be exposed. . . . This story is therefore one of the Hebrew Scriptures greatest triumphs over mythology and its power of illusion over all ancient peoples.[2]
Role Reversal and “Perfect Repentance”
The climax of the story of Joseph and his brothers comes when the brothers return to Egypt a second time, again in search of food, and this time with their youngest brother, Benjamin. Joseph, still unrecognized, treats them with lavish hospitality (in contrast to their first visit), astonishing the brothers by providing them with a banquet, and then the requested grain. But Joseph inexplicably hides a precious silver cup in Benjamin’s grain bag. After their departure, Joseph’s men pursue and overtake the brothers, demanding to search their bags, where they find the “stolen” silver cup. The brothers are ignominiously brought back to Joseph, expecting to all be thrown into prison. With feigned indignation, Joseph accuses Benjamin of stealing, but announces that “only the one in whose possession the cup was found shall be my slave; but as for [the rest], go up in peace to your father” (44:17).
What is going on with all these twists and turns of the plot, and with Joseph’s seeming cruelty, toying with his brothers and keeping them ignorant of his identity? On closer reading, we see that Joseph has engineered a moral test for his brothers. Benjamin has been unfairly accused; will the brothers abandon him to save themselves, just as they had abandoned Joseph those many years ago? Judah passes the test: in an eloquent speech, he offers himself as a slave in place of the innocent Benjamin (44:33). Only now can Joseph reveal his true identity to his incredulous brothers: “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. . . God sent me before you to preserve life” (45:4-5).
We have in the story of Joseph and his brothers a narrative long recognized for its immense moral significance regarding scapegoats, innocent victims, forgiveness, and repentance. Perhaps no one has articulated this significance better than Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, whose reading is influenced by Girard but also by the deep well of Jewish wisdom:
The source of violence lies in our need to exist in groups, which leads to in-group altruism and out-group hostility. The pathological form of this . . . is the dualism that divides humanity into children of light and children of darkness, the one all-good, the other all-evil. It follows that the most profound moralizing experience, the only one capable of defeating dualism, is to undergo role reversal. There can be no more life-changing trial than finding yourself on the other side. . . . That, in essence, is what Joseph is forcing his brothers to do. He is putting them through the intensely painful yet morally transformative ordeal of role reversal. They suspected him of ambition. Now they learn what it is to be under suspicion. They planned to sell him as a slave. Now they know what it feels like to face enslavement. They made Jacob go through the grief of losing a son. Now they must witness that grief again, this time through no fault of their own. Above all, they treated their brother as a stranger. Now they must learn that the stranger, Zaphenath-Paneah, ruler of Egypt, is actually their brother.[3]
Sacks continues by reflecting on Judah’s action in the context of the Jewish concept of “perfect repentance,” the idea that true repentance can only be demonstrated when one has an opportunity to repeat the original offense but chooses not to. “Judah has exactly fulfilled the requirements of perfect repentance. . . . The way we learn not to commit evil is to experience an event from the perspective of the victim. Judah’s repentance—showing that he is his brother Benjamin’s keeper—redeems not only his own earlier sin, but also Cain’s.[4]
[1] Girard, Reading the Bible with Rene Girard, 64. Fundamental to understanding Girard is to realize that he uses the term myth in a way that is contrary to much of modern thought. Influenced by Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, we think of myth positively, as something not literally but symbolically true, a reflection of timeless wisdom or universal archetypes. In stark contrast, Girard sees myth as a culture’s attempt to hide the scapegoating violence against innocent victims. Girard says: “Not long ago in our society the word ‘myth’ was a synonym of ‘lie.’ Our intelligentsia has done everything it could since then to rehabilitate the myths at the expense of the Bible, but in ordinary speech ‘myth’ continues to mean lie. Ordinary speech is right.” Girard, I See Satan Falling, 115.
[2] James Warren, Compassion or Apocalypse: A Comprehensible Guide to the Thought of Rene Girard, 207.
[3] Rabbi Jonathon Sacks, Not in God’s Name: Confronting Religious Violence, 152.
[4] Sacks, Not in God’s Name, 155, 158. Italics in the original.
Excellent!