The principal works of Jortin are: Discussions Concerning the Truth of the Christian Religion (1746); Remarks on Ecclesiastical History (3 vols. 1751-2-4); Life of Erasmus (2 vols. 1750, 1760) founded on the Life by Jean Le Clerc; and Tracts Philological Critical and Miscellaneous (1790). A collection of his Various Works appeared in 1805-1810. All his writings display wide learning and acuteness. He writes on theological subjects with the detachment of a thoughtful layman, and is witty without being flippant. See John Disney’s Life of Jortin (1792).
JOSEPH, in the Old Testament, the son of the patriarch Jacob by Rachel; the name of a tribe of Israel. Two explanations of the name are given by the Biblical narrator (Gen. xxx. 23 [E], 24 [J]); a third, “He (God) increases,” seems preferable. Unlike the other “sons” of Jacob, Joseph is usually reckoned as two tribes (viz. his “sons” Ephraim and Manasseh), and closely associated with it is the small tribe of Benjamin (q.v.), which lay immediately to the south. These three constituted the “sons” of Rachel (the ewe), and with the “sons” of Leah (the antelope?) are thus on a higher level than the “sons” of Jacob’s concubines. The “house of Joseph” and its offshoots occupied the centre of Palestine from the plain of Esdraelon to the mountain country of Benjamin, with dependencies in Bashan and northern Gilead (see [Manasseh]). Practically it comprised the northern kingdom, and the name is used in this sense in 2 Sam. xix. 20; Amos v. 6; vi. 6 (note the prominence of Joseph in the blessings of Jacob and Moses, Gen. xlix., Deut. xxxiii.). Originally, however, “Joseph” was more restricted, possibly to the immediate neighbourhood of Shechem, its later extension being parallel to the development of the name Jacob. The dramatic story of the tribal ancestor is recounted in Gen. xxxvii.-l. (see [Genesis]). Joseph, the younger and envied son, is seized by his brothers at Dothan north of Shechem, and is sold to a party of Ishmaelites or Midianites, who carry him down to Egypt. After various vicissitudes he gains the favour of the king of Egypt by the interpretation of a dream, and obtains a high place in the kingdom.[1] Forced by a famine his brothers come to buy food, and in the incidents that follow Joseph shows his preference for his young brother Benjamin (cf. the tribal data above). His father Jacob is invited to come to Goshen, where a settlement is provided for the family and their flocks. This is followed many years later by the exodus, the conquest of Palestine, and the burial of Joseph’s body in the grave at Shechem which his father had bought.
The history of Joseph in Egypt displays some familiarity with the circumstances and usages of that country; see Driver (Hastings’s D.B.) and Cheyne (Ency. Bib., col. 2589 seq.); although Abrech (xli. 43), possibly the Egyptian ib rk (Crum, in Hastings’s D.B., i. 665), has been otherwise connected with the Assyrian abarakku (a high officer). An interesting parallel to the story of Joseph in Gen. xxxix. is found in the Egyptian tale of The Two Brothers (Petrie, Eg. Tales, 2nd series, p. 36 seq., 1895), which dates from about 1500 B.C., but the differences are not inconsiderable compared with the points of resemblance, and the tale has features which are almost universal (Frazer, Golden Bough, 2nd ed., vol. iii. 351 seq.). On the theory that the historical elements of Joseph’s history refer to an official (Yanhamu) of the time of Amenophis III. and IV., see Cheyne, op. cit., and Hibbert Journal, October 1903. That the present form of the narrative has been influenced by current mythological lore is not improbable; on this question see (with caution) Winckler, Gesch. Israels, ii. 67-77 (1900); A. Jeremias, Alte Test., pp. 383 sqq. (1906). It may be added that the Egyptian names in the story of Joseph are characteristic of the XXII. and subsequent dynasties. See, also Meyer and Luther, Die Israeliten (1906), Index, s.v.
(S. A. C.)
[1] Joseph’s marriage with the daughter of the priest of On might show that the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh were believed to be half-Egyptian by descent, but it is notoriously difficult to determine how much is of ethnological value and how much belongs to romance (viz. that of the individual Joseph).
JOSEPH, in the New Testament, the husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus. He is represented as a descendant of the house of David, and his genealogy appears in two divergent forms in Matt. i. 1-17 and Luke iii. 23-38. The latter is probably much more complete and accurate in details. The former, obviously artificial in structure (notice 3 × 14 generations), traces the Davidic descent through kings, and is governed by an apologetic purpose. Of Joseph’s personal history practically nothing is recorded in the Bible. The facts concerning him common to the two birth-narratives (Matt. i.-ii.; Luke i.-ii.) are: (a) that he was a descendant of David, (b) that Mary was already betrothed to him when she was found with child of the Holy Ghost, and (c) that he lived at Nazareth after the birth of Christ; but these facts are handled differently in each case. It is noticeable that, in Matthew, Joseph is prominent (e.g. he receives an annunciation from an angel), while in Luke’s narrative he is completely subordinated. Bp Gore (The Incarnation, Bampton lecture for 1891, p. 78) points out that Matthew narrates everything from Joseph’s side, Luke from Mary’s, and infers that the narrative of the former may ultimately be based on Joseph’s account, that of the latter on Mary’s. The narratives seem to have been current (in a poetical form) among the early Jewish-Christian community of Palestine. At Nazareth Joseph followed the trade of a carpenter (Matt. xiii. 55). It is probable that he had died before the public ministry of Christ; for no mention is made of him in passages relating to this period where the mother and brethren of Jesus are introduced; and from John xix. 26 it is clear that he was not alive at the time of the Crucifixion.
Joseph was the father of several children (Matt. xiii. 55), but according to ecclesiastical tradition by a former marriage. The reading of Matt. i. 16, in the Sinaitic Palimpsest (Joseph ... begat Jesus, who is called the Christ) also makes him the natural father of Jesus, and this was the view of certain early heretical sects, but it seems never to have been held in orthodox Christian circles. According to various apocryphal gospels (conveniently collected in B. H. Cowper’s The Apocryphal Gospels, 1881), when married to Mary he was a widower already 80 years of age, and the father of four sons and two daughters; his first wife’s name was Salome and she was a connexion of the family of John the Baptist.