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Debt-Slavery Passages in the Tanakh as a Lens for Reading Joseph's Enslavement of the Egyptians in Genesis 47:13–26: Explorations in Canonical Hermeneutics

2016; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 46; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/0146107916664052

1945-7596

David J. Fuller,

Development, Ethics, and Society

Significant dispute exists over the ethicality of Joseph's enslavement of the Egyptians in Genesis 47:13–26. Some read this action as malicious and oppressive, while others believe it shows wise administrative skills. While this question could be approached from many angles, one area of contention that has received surprisingly little attention is the various portrayals of and perspectives on the use of debt-slavery in the rest of the Old Testament. For this material to be utilized, a relevant methodological approach is the canonical approach of Brevard Childs, which views the canon as the ultimate horizon of meaning of an individual passage, and seeks to perform exegesis by using relevant canonical materials as an interpretive lens. The present study seeks to demonstrate that when Joseph's enslavement of the Egyptians is compared with other materials offering explicit evaluations of slavery, his employment of slavery proper is nonobjectionable, but his practices in the area of resource distribution are less than ideal.