101 Myths of the Bible: how ancient scribes - Conscious Evolution TV

Myths of the Founders 111
Joseph had the gift of prophecy and told of dreams that indicated he would
become the head of the family. His brothers hated him and they secretly sold him into
slavery, telling their father that a wild animal had devoured him. Through God’s intervention,
however, Joseph rose from servitude to become Prime Minister of Egypt.
In the course of a famine in Canaan, Jacob sent his children to Egypt to buy grain.
When they appeared before the royal court, Joseph recognized his brothers, but they
didn’t recognize him. This gave Joseph an opportunity to put them through a number
of tests to determine their nature and character. After he was satisfied that they had
redeemed themselves, he revealed his identity and forgave them. Jacob, joyous at
learning that Joseph lived, moved the family to Egypt where the pharaoh gave them
a land allotment.
Joseph had married the daughter of the chief priest of Heliopolis, one of the chief
cult centers in Egypt, and he had two children by her, Manasseh and Ephraim. Joseph
expected that Manasseh, the older of the two, would become heir to the covenant, but
Jacob passed it on to Ephraim.
Jacob adopted both children as if they were his own sons, and during the Canaanite
conquest each received territorial allotments, giving the tribe of Joseph a double
portion. At the same time that Joseph received two portions, Levi, the priestly tribe,
received no territory of its own. Instead, it had enclaves within the other tribal allotments.
This meant that there were thirteen tribes with twelve land allotments, causing
some confusion over which tribes constituted the Twelve Tribes. Traditionally, when
referring to the House of Israel as a unified entity, the Twelve Tribes include Levi and
count Joseph as one tribe, but when describing Israel on the basis of territorial distribution,
Levi is omitted and Joseph counts as two tribes.
Archaeologically, we have no evidence for the existence of either Jacob or his sons
or the tribes associated with his sons. Nor do we have any extra-biblical evidence for
the existence of the tribes at any later date. At best, we have occasional place names,
but place names provide no reliable proof for the existence of eponymous ancestors.
In the time of Solomon, according to the Bible, tribal boundaries were eliminated
and replaced by twelve new administrative districts, probably to reduce the influence
of the Ephramite opposition to Solomon’s rule. When Solomon died, Israel split into