Thread by @mika_edmondson

Joseph was a poor exploited ethnic minority, without freedom or rights in a land and culture not his own.

Potiphar was wealthy, politically well-connected, influential, socially elite, and powerful.

*BUT*

I’d rather be The Lord’s Joseph, than the world’s Potiphar.

Joseph was sold into slavery, i.e. poor & had no rights. At the height of his success in Potiphar’s house he was still a slave unable to go home.

Potipher’s wife leverages Joseph’s ethnicity against him to get rid of him (this “Hebrew” slave you bought to mock “us” [Egyptians])

Joseph’s ethnic marginalization cont: Text says Potiphar concerned himself “only with the food he ate.” Egyptians considered Hebrew shepherds inferior & would not receive food from their hand or eat with them at table. (see Gen 43)

Even more on Joseph’s ethnic marginalization: Pharaoh receives Joseph’s family but gives them the land of Goshen, some distance away from the Egyptian capital cities because their culture & practices were abhorrent to Egyptian sensibilities. (see Gen 46)This factors in the exodus

Final note on Joseph’s ethnic marginalization: This ethnic segregation factors prominently in the seating arrangements when Joseph’s brothers arrive in Egypt. He has them eat alone because dining with would have immediately revealed his identity as a Hebrew.

The responses to this thread are a textbook case in how socio-political biases can cause you to miss (and even resist) what’s actually in a biblical text.