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In Jubilees, Joseph marries the daughter of his old master Potiphar, who is also the priest of Heliopolis. Joseph and Aseneth similarly expands on the details in Genesis, but the priest is a separate man named Pentephres, not Potiphar.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Jubilees 40:10
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
9 And the land of Egypt was at peace before Pharaoh because of Joseph, for the Lord was with him, and gave him favor and mercy for all his generations before all those who knew him and those who heard concerning him, and Pharaoh's kingdom was well ordered, and there was no Satan and no evil person (in it). 10 And the king called Joseph's name Sephantiphans, and gave Joseph as wife the daughter of Potiphar, the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, the chief cook. 11 And on the day that Joseph stood before Pharaoh he was thirty years old [when he stood before Pharaoh].
Date: 170–125 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
Joseph and Aseneth 1:4
Pseudepigrapha, Hebrew Bible Expansions
4 And there was a man in that city named Pentephres, who was a priest of Heliopolis and a satrap of Pharaoh, and chief over all Pharaoh's satraps and princes; 5 and this man was very rich and very wise and gentle, and he was also a counselor of Pharaoh, because he was more discerning than all Pharaoh's princes. 6 And he had a virgin daughter, named Asenath, eighteen years old, tall and graceful, and more beautiful to look at than any virgin on the earth.
Date: 100 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
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Notes and References
... Jubilees 40.10 explicitly equates Joseph’s master, Potiphar (Hebrew: Potiphar), with Aseneth’s father (Hebrew: Potiphera) so that Aseneth becomes Potiphar’s daughter: ‘And [Pharaoh] gave the daughter of Potiphar, the daughter of the priest of Heliopolis, the chief of the guard, to Joseph (as) a wife.’ This claim is, in fact, in direct opposition to our Aseneth stories, which assume that her father, Pentephres, and Joseph’s former master are two different people. ...
Ross Shepard Kraemer, When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 229.
* 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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