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The book of Genesis is possibly one of humanity's oldest soap operas; the most fitting adaptation I have ever seen of the story of Joseph is literally a Brazilian telenovela (which is here, if you feel like running a bunch of subtitles through Google Translate by hand, which is what I did for it: seriesbiblicas.net/genesis-hd-… ). The proportions are off a tad on Joseph's arm, but not badly enough to warrant trying to fix it at 4 AM. Part of the inspiration for this work came from this BMW commercial that told me what Ramadan is about: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rmGI… ; interesting how it coincides with Easter and Passover, which are at about the same time of year...

I have two semi-credible excuses for why I laugh so much at this story that don't have to do with my brother's accusation of being an emotional sadist. One is the fact that Joseph names his kid Manasseh, which means "to forget" because he said, "God has made me forget all my troubles and all my father's household" (Gen 41:51), which turns into the biggest contradiction of the story; the other involves Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Having listened to four of Webber's musicals in my life, I've never been able to take his work very seriously, and the Technicolor Dreamcoat was really the nail in the coffin lid for a number of reasons. For one thing, I'd never seen the thing until after I'd graduated high school; the only song I knew from it was "Close Every Door," which I'd only heard on a piano cover album my grandmother had. Thing is, that's the only song SHE knew too, and being very sentimental in nature, she got very disappointed when I told her how funny the rest of the play was. Isn't part of the point that the story has an unlooked-for happy ending??

This story may be the origin of the story of the Prodigal Son, because we definitely have one here. The setup is that Jacob (aka Israel) ended up with two wives because he fell in love with Rachel but got tricked by her dad into marrying her older sister Leah first. Since Leah was unloved, God blessed her with lots and lots of sons, while Rachel only had two and sadly died in childbirth with the second. In that culture, the oldest son would be the runner up for the position of Head of House (the Patriarch, as they called them) once their dad died; Jacob's first three sons got skipped due to some behavioral issues, so legally the Headship should have fallen to Judah, Leah's fourth son, except Jacob disregarded the whole thing once Rachel had Joseph, and made him his heir because he's the firstborn son of his favorite wife. On top of a huge slight on Judah's mother, not only does Joseph have the better business hand of the family, but he starts having prophetic dreams that sound like God sanctioned this decision, so it's only natural that he'd start hating his brother's guts. After being convinced not to kill him outright, he sells Joseph as a slave, tells Jacob Joseph is dead, then packs up everything and moves out, turning his back not just on his family, but on the God they serve. So Joseph ends up in Egypt and prospers there for the next couple of decades because God is with him; he gets knocked down a couple of times, but God helps him back up, and eventually he lands the second-highest position in the country. Meanwhile, Judah's life goes from bad to worse; he's a horrible father, two of his three sons die for being awful people, then his wife dies, then he tries to disown his daughter-in-law but God sides with her and he accidentally gets her pregnant instead, and then just goes back home to his dad. But God's sign of promise still shows up when Tamar has twin sons, the oldest of whom becomes the ancestor of King David; this is God's way of saying, "I love you, I have chosen you, and I am not leaving you." Then a 7-year famine hits and Jacob's sons have to go to Egypt for food, Joseph is there, he recognizes them but they don't recognize him, so he tests them to see if they've changed and accuses his younger brother Benjamin of theft, and Judah passes this test with flying colors by offering himself in Benjamin's place. This story takes up nearly half of Genesis, and I laugh at it every single time with no explanation other than emotional sadism and Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I hope you enjoy; thanks!

Description
The book of Genesis is possibly one of humanity's oldest soap operas; the most fitting adaptation I have ever seen of the story of Joseph is literally a Brazilian telenovela (which is here, if you feel like running a bunch of subtitles through Google Translate by hand, which is what I did for it: seriesbiblicas.net/genesis-hd-… ). The proportions are off a tad on Joseph's arm, but not badly enough to warrant trying to fix it at 4 AM. Part of the inspiration for this work came from this BMW commercial that told me what Ramadan is about: www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9rmGI… ; interesting how it coincides with Easter and Passover, which are at about the same time of year...

I have two semi-credible excuses for why I laugh so much at this story that don't have to do with my brother's accusation of being an emotional sadist. One is the fact that Joseph names his kid Manasseh, which means "to forget" because he said, "God has made me forget all my troubles and all my father's household" (Gen 41:51), which turns into the biggest contradiction of the story; the other involves Andrew Lloyd Webber, composer of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Having listened to four of Webber's musicals in my life, I've never been able to take his work very seriously, and the Technicolor Dreamcoat was really the nail in the coffin lid for a number of reasons. For one thing, I'd never seen the thing until after I'd graduated high school; the only song I knew from it was "Close Every Door," which I'd only heard on a piano cover album my grandmother had. Thing is, that's the only song SHE knew too, and being very sentimental in nature, she got very disappointed when I told her how funny the rest of the play was. Isn't part of the point that the story has an unlooked-for happy ending??

This story may be the origin of the story of the Prodigal Son, because we definitely have one here. The setup is that Jacob (aka Israel) ended up with two wives because he fell in love with Rachel but got tricked by her dad into marrying her older sister Leah first. Since Leah was unloved, God blessed her with lots and lots of sons, while Rachel only had two and sadly died in childbirth with the second. In that culture, the oldest son would be the runner up for the position of Head of House (the Patriarch, as they called them) once their dad died; Jacob's first three sons got skipped due to some behavioral issues, so legally the Headship should have fallen to Judah, Leah's fourth son, except Jacob disregarded the whole thing once Rachel had Joseph, and made him his heir because he's the firstborn son of his favorite wife. On top of a huge slight on Judah's mother, not only does Joseph have the better business hand of the family, but he starts having prophetic dreams that sound like God sanctioned this decision, so it's only natural that he'd start hating his brother's guts. After being convinced not to kill him outright, he sells Joseph as a slave, tells Jacob Joseph is dead, then packs up everything and moves out, turning his back not just on his family, but on the God they serve. So Joseph ends up in Egypt and prospers there for the next couple of decades because God is with him; he gets knocked down a couple of times, but God helps him back up, and eventually he lands the second-highest position in the country. Meanwhile, Judah's life goes from bad to worse; he's a horrible father, two of his three sons die for being awful people, then his wife dies, then he tries to disown his daughter-in-law but God sides with her and he accidentally gets her pregnant instead, and then just goes back home to his dad. But God's sign of promise still shows up when Tamar has twin sons, the oldest of whom becomes the ancestor of King David; this is God's way of saying, "I love you, I have chosen you, and I am not leaving you." Then a 7-year famine hits and Jacob's sons have to go to Egypt for food, Joseph is there, he recognizes them but they don't recognize him, so he tests them to see if they've changed and accuses his younger brother Benjamin of theft, and Judah passes this test with flying colors by offering himself in Benjamin's place. This story takes up nearly half of Genesis, and I laugh at it every single time with no explanation other than emotional sadism and Andrew Lloyd Webber, so I hope you enjoy; thanks!