190 BARTON— THE HISTORICAL VALUE [April 17, 



gator is forced to this conclusion, how are the vivid narratives of 

 the personal fortunes of Joseph to be accounted for ? 



The archaeological discoveries of recent years have made it prob- 

 able that the Joseph tribes aloiie were concerned in the Egyptian 

 residence and bondage/ The stele of Merneptah,^ to whom all Bib- 

 lical indications point as the Pharaoh of the Exodus, clearly shows 

 that Israel, or the Leah tribes, were already in Palestine. The fact 

 that the Ephraimite document, E, recalls as the Judsean document J 

 does not, the revelation of the name Yahweh,** and that the ark of 

 the covenant was afterward preserved in an Ephraimite shrine,^** 

 point in the same direction. If these tribes alone had the Egyptian 

 experience and were at first the sole guardians of the Egyptian tra- 

 dition, when once they had come to regard Joseph as their ancestor 

 it would be natural for many stories to cluster about his name. In 

 this connection it is an interesting fact that several of the stories 

 told of Joseph are almost identical with other stories and facts 

 which archaeological research have brought to light, but which in 

 their original setting are connected with other names. The chief 

 of these are the following : 



1. The story of Joseph's temptation by Potiphar's wife is strik- 

 ingly parallel to the tale of two brothers — a tale in which the younger 

 brother is subjected by his sister-in-law to the same temptation as 

 Joseph, and, when, like Joseph, he repulses her, she professes to 

 have been outraged by him, and plunges him into mis fortune. ^^ 

 This story comes to us in a papyrus dated in the reign of Seti II., 

 1209-1205 B.C., and is accordingly very old. 



2. The career of Joseph as ruler of Egypt is paralleled by the 

 career of Dudu or David, an official 'bearing a Semitic name, who 

 seems to have held a high position under Amenophis IV. of the 

 eighteenth Egyptian dynasty, before 1350 B.C. In the El-Amarna 

 correspondence two letters addressed to this Diidu by Aziru, king 

 of the Amorites, occur. They tell their own tale, and are as follows : 



' See Paton's article, " Israel's Conquest of Canaan," Journal of Biblical 

 Literature, XXXII, 1-54. 



' See Breasted's " Ancient Records, Egypt," III., § 617. 



'Ex. 3: 13, 14. 



"I Sam. 3 and 4. 



" See Petrie's " Egyptian Tales," second series, London, 1895, 2t^ ff. 



