Fun with Numbers
Yosef was in Mitzraim for 22 years. In this time period, Yehuda marries a girl named "bat shua." He has 3 children. The second one grows up and marries a girl named Tamar. After this a "long time" passes. Then Yehudah and Tamar have children. One of those children, Peretz, grows up and has children of his own. If we were to assume that pregnancy takes 9 months, that events happen immediately, that a "long time" is only 9 months or less, that Peretz's children were twins, and that people can have kids at the age of 10, this sequence of events would still take over 22 years. But, of course, those assumptions are ludicrous. The Talmud was sensitive to this point and suggests that indeed Yehudah's family gave birth at very young ages. Ibn Ezra suggests that the chapter 38 of genesis happened before chapter 37 [a tough sell in light of 38:1, and it doesn't necessarily solve the problem even if it's so]. But, these answers seem week. Of course, multiple authorship divides these stories in to different pieces so there's no problem. Cassuto has an interesting suggestion here: maybe Peretz'a sons were born in M'tzraim. It's a tough sell in light of all the explicit verses that say otherwise, but Cassuto has some fascinating argument to support himself, like, for example, the peculiar language of Gen 46:12 which differs from the rest of Gen 46. He argues that perhaps Peretz's sons, although born in Egypt, are included in the count to take the place of Er and Onan. An interesting theory, but contradicted by many verses.
posted by littlefoxlings at 9:07 PM
10 Comments:
I don't see why Ibn Ezra is such a tough sell - ironically you are reading 38:1 with Rashi's coloring, as Yehuda leaving his brothers in shame for the sale of Yosef. Yet the verse doesn't say anything that really requires that reading. If you accept the principle that stories can be out of order, all that stops you from Ibn Ezra's reading is discomfort with how to understand "ba'es hahi," which while problematic is hardly a death blow to Ibn Ezra's reading.
Even Rashi's reading, while implausible, is not physiologically impossible. Child weddings can't have been that rare in the Biblical period, and there are documented cases of boys reaching puberty as young as 9. Is it a likely reading? No... but I'm not sure it's ludicrous either.
10/30/2006 10:57 PM
I should also remind you that the assumption that God spoke to Moshe on Mt Sinai strains belief far more than Peretz reaching puberty unusually quickly. The difference, perhaps, is that an explicitly written supernatural event is obviously an intentional feature of the text, while a timing issue like this might be the result of an editorial error. Nevertheless, no one who believes that the Bible story documents miracles will be bothered by the physiologically implausible Talmudic reading of this passage.
What's more important, however, is the question of how obvious this discrepancy is, on the assumption that a good editor wouldn't have left in a gaping problem when it could have been solved as simply as slightly modifying 38:1 or even better placing this passage before the sale of Yosef. You are positing that the editor somehow missed this problem, which I find hard to swallow, seeing how it pops out immediately to even a slightly interested reader and seeing how it was discussed as far back as the Talmud, implying that classical (and probably ancient) readers saw the problem as immediately as we do. If we were discussing a subtle error your point would be stronger, but for something like this it seems a bit of a stretch to assume it's purely a mistake.
10/30/2006 11:09 PM
Your analogy to openly supernatural events is unfair. Those events have a purpose. In the case of Matan Torah, to give the Torah, and so that “His fear should be on your face so thou shall not sin.” But, why would God defy nature to make Peretz reach puberty at 9?
Ibn Ezrah being tough has nothing to do with an understanding of the “coloring,” but with the verse itself, “And it was at that time.”
But, the other problem with Ibn Ezrah is the same problem with your defense of the Talmud. Has there been a documented case of 9 year old puberty – certainly. Is it likely that that story took only 22 years and that everyone reached puberty at 9 etc? I don’t think so. Since the amount of time that must have elapsed is equal to the time it takes a grown man to have great grandchildren, I think 60 years is more in order. In that case, even Ibn Ezrah does not help because Yehudah was not that much older than Yosef who was 17 at the time.
I don’t think the question about the editor should have caught this is very good. This argument is frequently used by those who challenge multiple authorship theories, but what evidence is there that there was an editor who cared? Perhaps the editor didn’t mind.
10/30/2006 11:32 PM
60 years is ridiculously too long. Even in the medieval period a male could have had great grandchildren at around 46.5 (not that it was common, necessarily, but not unheard of to marry at 15). Don't be anachronistic - people weren't all waiting until they were 20.
My point wasn't that God defies nature to have Peretz reach puberty fast but that it's possible - statistically unlikely, but possible - within nature. It's on the level of a huge coincidence, not a miracle.
If you assume an editor is making some attempt at unifying various texts, and yet doesn't care about contradictions, what exactly is he doing? Isn't the assumption that he was trying to create a single unified narrative preserving all of his sources to the degree possible? If he doesn't care if the texts are contradictory, why is he unifying them in the first place?
10/30/2006 11:44 PM
I assume you realize, but just to clarify, your point is stronger than you make it sound. The time needed is not for a baby to have great-grandchildren, but for a grown man to have great grandchildren. If you think you can have great-grandchildren at 46.5 and get married at 15, the time needed is 31.5 years.
The editor compiled, but I don't think he was trying to resolve contradictions due to the many of them around. But, more on that in future posts.
10/30/2006 11:48 PM
Yes, I was starting from scratch. I meant you only need that time from Yehuda's birth, which you pointed out was somewhat more than 17 years (but not much more) before the sale of Yosef.
10/30/2006 11:52 PM
I've tried to address this in the past, on this parsha.
My suggestion is actually predicated on the words Ba'et Hahi. I suggest that rather than a general "ain mukdam," this is actually a feature of the words "ba'et hahi" that you find so troublesome.
That is, the function of "Ba'et hahi" is not to introduce something that happened next, sequentially, but rather to say that the events co-occurred with the preceding events. Which is to say that these events took many years to occur, and the selling of Yosef also occurred in this timespan.
This is not a matter of apologetics but rather of seeing the function of Ba'et Hahi. I developed this first on this post on parshat VaEtchanan, where three occurrences of "ba'et hahi" work together in this way.
The issue of the genealogical list which lists them is another, more complicated story, which I don't want to touch here. (I've attempted resolutions elsewhere.) But I don't think Ba'et Hahi contradicts Ibn Ezra but rather supports him.
Kol Tuv,
Josh
12/15/2006 7:08 AM
i.e. Ba'et Hahi seems to translate as something akin to "meanwhile".
12/15/2006 7:12 AM
Josh,
You seem to really like commenting in pairs. I agree that your answer is plausible, just saying that if I didn’t have this contradiction, I would interpret Gen 37 as coming before Gen 38, and, as I’ve noted, I’m not sure it’s enough time even if we do assume Gen 38 happened first. More details in my comments on dovbear’s thread from which I assume you came from.
12/15/2006 11:38 AM
yes, I often forget some little detail and go back to add it.
I actually followed it from a subscription to a search on bloglines, which presumably was picked up again because of the link in DovBear's comment thread.
I agree that often we would not pick up important details if not for noticing some other problem that causes us to reconsider. But still, once I consider it, I would say this not (purely) as answer to the difficulty but simple application of the meaning of the term.
I've thought plenty about the other chronology issues, so I think know what you are referring to. Chronology always gives me headaches. It's a constraint satisfaction problem. I resolve many issues by taking "Shemot benei Yisrael haBaim Mitzrayma" as a census of the *generation* of Israelites who entered Egypt as opposed to the census of the generation which left Egypt. Thus I consider many listed there to have been born in Egypt (for, besides Yehuda's tribble children, we also have an apparently young Binyamin having children), and the counting to have taken place at some point such as death of Yaakov or of Yosef.
12/17/2006 12:23 AM
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