The Type-Scene Connection between Genesis 38 and the Joseph Story

Abstract

To many readers Genesis 38 seems incongruous with the Joseph story that envelops it. Yet structural and thematic elements shared between both stories reveal a type-scene connection that renders the stories' adjacent placement meaningful. In its concentrated plot replete with irony, Genesis 38 operates as a lens through which its audience might better understand the longer—but similarly shaped and irony-filled—plot of the Joseph story. In this study a preparatory review of relevant methodological concerns—including the narrative phenomena of irony, peripeteia (reversal), and anagnorisis (recognition)—facilitates in providing a basic illustration of the type-scene to which both stories adhere. This ‘counter-deceiver’ type-scene consists primarily of the following chain of events: an act of deception, an act of counter-deception, a confession or acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and a final anagnorisis. Because irony represents an ingredient integral to these events, tracing its presence in the two stories confirms as well as clarifies the contours of the type-scene.