Genesis Remix

The divine title “(the) living God” in Joseph and Aseneth is used in conjunction with the narrative’s other language and imagery of “life” and “living” to construct a totalizing paradigm of life-versus-death that initially excludes Aseneth but ultimately, because of her shift in cultic loyalty and subsequent transformation by God, embraces her. Chapter 2 presents manuscript evidence in order to show that each of the earliest families of witnesses to Joseph and Aseneth employs creation language and imagery from Genesis 1–2 LXX to represent Aseneth’s transformation as a re-creation by the life-giving, creator God. Aseneth’s story draws on the inaugural Genesis creation narratives as it constructs an ideology of Israel’s “living God” which allows for, and even hopes for, gentile inclusion in the people of this God.