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Jubilees and the Testament of Joseph add a detail not found in Genesis, that Joseph resisted his master’s wife by remembering his father Jacob’s teaching. Jubilees also describes this originally as Abraham’s teaching on adultery.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 39:6
Pseudepigrapha
5 Now Joseph was well-formed and very handsome. The wife of his master looked up, saw Joseph, loved him, and pleaded with him to lie with her. 6 But he did not surrender himself. He remembered the Lord and what his father Jacob would read to him from the words of Abraham — that no one is to commit adultery with a woman who has a husband; that there is a death penalty which has been ordained for him in heaven before the Most High Lord. The sin will be entered regarding him in the eternal books forever before the Lord. 7 Joseph remembered what he had said and refused to lie with her.
Testament of Joseph 3:2
Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs
Pseudepigrapha
1 How often did the Egyptian woman threaten me with death! How often did she give me over to punishment, then call me back and threaten me, and when I was unwilling to be with her, she said to me: ‘You will be lord over me, and all that is in my house, if you will give yourself to me, and you will be like our master.’ 2 But I remembered the words of my father, and going into my room, I wept and prayed to the Lord. 3 And I fasted in those seven years, and I seemed to the Egyptians like someone living in luxury, for those who fast for God’s sake gain a beautiful appearance.
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Notes and References
... The book of Jubilees is not the only work that claims Joseph remembered his father in the time of temptation. Joseph tells his children in Testament of Joseph 3:3: “I, then, remembered the words of my father Jacob, / and going into my chamber I prayed to the Lord.” The writer of Joseph and Aseneth describes Joseph’s reaction to all the Egyptian women who propositioned him: Joseph said, “I will not sin before (the) Lord God of my father Israel nor in the face of my father Jacob.” And the face of his father Jacob, Joseph always had before his eyes, and he remembered his father’s commandments ...
VanderKam, James C.
Jubilees 2: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees Chapters 22-50
(p. 1010) Fortress Press, 2018
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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