reynolds-the-quran-in-its-historical-context-2

440 Joseph WitztumAnd again they said to him: "What shall happen to you if you do notfind [it]?" I[He replied:]" ... and as for me stone me and I shall die here. Come let youand I observe and see the truth." 69Not only do PsN and the Qur'an add more stages to the dialogue/ 0 they alsoinclude a question to the brothers regarding the suitable punishment for the thief.Interestingly, the brothers' reply in both texts contradicts the Bible; whereas inGenesis the brothers suggest death for the thief and slavery for the rest, in PsN andthe Qur'an it is slavery (for all, or only for the thief, respectively). 71What follows is an example of a dialogue not found in the Bible. In Genesis,after Jacob is convinced that Joseph is alive he sets out to Egypt. The brothers donot confess their evil deeds, nor do they beg his forgiveness. In Q 12, on the otherhand, one reads:(97) They said: "Our father, ask forgiveness of our crimes for us; for certainlywe have been sinful." (98) He said: "Assuredly I will ask my Lord to forgiveyou; He is the All-forgiving, the All-compassionate."A similar scene is found in Ephrem's commentary on Genesis, 72 but an even closerexchange is reported by Balai. The brothers report that Joseph has forgiven themand ask that his father follow his example. Jacob agrees and adds:69 PsN, 589-90. l have translated only enough of each response to demonstrate that the simpleBiblical dialogue has been elaborated into a multi-stage one.70 The same is true to a lesser degree ofBalai, 216-!9, where the steward and Judah (representing thebrothers) both speak twice.71 See also B~lai, 219 ("We shall place the loads before you I and you will examine them equally. Ifyour cup is with us I we shall be slaves on its account"). The omission of the death penalty from thebrothers' response is perhaps an attempt to alleviate the tension between the brothers' statement inv. 9 and the steward's reaction in v. 10 of the Biblical account. The steward begins by seeminglyaccepting the brothers' judgment, only then to contradict himself by stating that the guilty party willbe made a slave and the rest will be set free. Ancient and modem readers alike have been troubledby this; one approach is to understand the verse as follows: "He replied: 'Even though what youpropose is just, only he who is found to have it shall become my slave, and the rest of you will beexonerated;'" E.A. Speiser, Genesis, Garden City, NJ: Doubleday, 1964,331. For a collection ofJewish responses to this problem, see Kasher, Torah Shelema, 6:7, 1621-22. Whereas Balai andPsN omit mention of death but preserve the idea that all the brothers be slaves, the Qur' an brings thebrothers' suggestion even closer to the steward's conclusion. Thus the Qur'an offers a more extremeversion of the solution found in the Syriac sources. A partial parallel is found in J. Yahalom, LiturgicalPoems ofSim 'on Bar Megas: Critical Edition with Commentary and Introduction, Jerusalem:The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1984, 142 (text) and 42 (discussion) (Hebrew). Inthis sixth/seventh-century poem from Byzantine Palestine Joseph accuses the brothers of stealingthe silver cup and they respond by saying that whoever stole it will become a slave.72 Tonneau, Ephraem, 108-09. Here Jacob asks the brothers how Joseph'ended up in Egypt. Judahresponds by admitting their sin while adding mitigating explanations and begging forgivenesswhich Jacob then grants.Joseph among the Ishmaelites 441But I also call my God I not to judge you according to what you did. Let himnot avenge through you I the afflictions that my old age endured. 73The motivation for this scene might be Genesis 50:15-17, where after Jacob'sdeath the brothers beg Joseph's forgiveness, saying: "Your father gave thisinstruction before he died: 'Say to Joseph: I beg you, forgive the crime of yourbrothers and the wrong they did in harming you.' "Jacob's instruction was not recorded previously in the Biblical text. As a matterof fact, the Bible never tells us that Jacob ever learned the true circumstances ofJoseph's descent to Egypt. It is possible that the brothers are envisaged as havinginvented this instruction in order to save themselves. 74 Alternatively, if they are tobe believed, one needs to assume that Jacob and his children had such a discussionwithout it being mentibned in Genesis. The exchange found in Balai and theQur'an might be an attempt to supply the background for such a scene. 75 Be thatas it may, a Qur'anjc departure from the Biblical text in the form of dialogue yetagain has a precedent in the Syriac tradition.Lexical linksI proceed now to the thorny issue of vocabulary. Q 12 displays linguistic similaritiesto the Syriac sources on several levels; it includes cognates of words found in theSyriac texts, Syriac loanwords, and expressions that seem to have a Syriac substratum.It should be stressed, however, that these correspondences are often the natural resultof conveying the same story in two closely related Semitic languages. Therefore theycannot serve as the sole basis for an argument ofliterary dependence.Cognates shared with Syriac are found throughout Q 12, but since many ofthem exist in other forms of Aramaic (and at times in Hebrew) as well, and sincemost of them are quite common in Arabic, they are not particularly significant formy argument.7 6 At most they might suggest an AramaiciSyriac background ratherthan a Hebrew one. The following are some of the more interesting examples:73 Balai, 295-96.74 This is the approach of several rabbinic sources as well as medieval Jewish exegetes; see N.Leibowitz, Studies in Bereshit (Genesis), Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization, Department forT~rah Education and Culture, 1976, 563-66.75 Cf. Speyer, Die biblisch~n Erziihlungen, 220; H. Busse, Islam, Judaism, and Christianity: Theologicaland Historical Affiliations, Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1998, 90. Note that in the Bible thebrothers refer to the instruction taking place before Jacob's death, whereas the scenes in Balai and theQur'an take place inunediately after Jacob receives the news that Joseph is alive. See also Balai,325-26 and 333-34.76 Compare, for example, Joseph's account of his dream in the Qur'an and PsN. In Q 12:4 Josephreports that he saw "abada 'ashara kawkaban wa-1-shamsa wa-1-qamara ra 'aytuhum If siijidina." InPsN, 522 (which is no more than a paraphrase of the Peshitta to Genesis 37:9) he sees "d-semsaw-sahrii w-kawkbe bda 'sar sagdin qfidmay" (qtldmay replaces the li of the Peshitta for the sake ofmeter). The Qur'an and PsN present virtually two versions of the same sentence. But the same is trueof the Hebrew of Genesis 37:9. The only word which might suggest a specifically Syriac or Aramaic