When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered.

• Author: STANDHARTINGER, ANGELA
• Position: Review

When Aseneth Met Joseph: A Late Antique Tale of the Biblical Patriarch and His Egyptian Wife, Reconsidered. By ROSS SHEPARD KRAEMER. New York: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1998. Pp. xviii + 365. $60.

Aseneth research is enjoying a renaissance. This is the fourth monograph on the subject in the last three years. Ross Shepard Kraemer's intention is to take a new look at previous research and to revise it, at least in part. She tells us that Aseneth (formerly called Joseph and Aseneth) is not a piece of Jewish pseudepigraphy, but a late-antique writing from the third or fourth century C.E. whose Jewish origins are questionable.

In the first part of her book Kraemer presents a new interpretation of the document, starting from Marc Philonenoko's reconstructed shorter text, which she and I both regard as the older. The biblical themes and motifs adapted in individual passages in the text are examined in the second chapter. Here Kraemer moves beyond the previous state of research, finding a juxtaposition of Foolishness and Wisdom and allusions to the Song of Songs. In the third chapter Kraemer gives reasons for her thesis that Christoph Burchard's longer reconstruction of the text is a revision of the shorter text that resolves ambiguities, clarifies difficulties in interpretation and unusual features, and brings the text more into harmony with biblical motifs and themes. The longer version of the text is the product of a deliberate redaction.

Chapters four through six are the religious-historical heart of the book. First Kraemer compares Aseneth 9-17 with incantatory rituals conjuring divine beings, especially the sun or the god Helios (in Sefer ha-Razim, for example). Aseneth's transformation in JosAs 14-20 is said to be comparable with Hekhalot traditions in 2 Enoch 22 and 3 Enoch 12. The rooms of the seven virgins represent the seven heavens and Aseneth's three chambers of the heavenly temple (Aseneth 2, 2-6[B]/2, 3-11[Ph]). The depiction of Joseph, as well as the mystery of the bees in Aseneth 16, can best be understood on analogy with Neoplatonism. The description of Joseph in Aseneth 4, 5-7(B)/5, 4-11(Ph) recalls the depiction of the god Helios on the mosaic pavement of the synagogues in Beth Alpha and Hammath Tiberias (third-fourth c. C.E.). The bees symbolize reborn souls entering Paradise. Finally, chapter seven asks about the significance of the sex of the female principal figure. Kraemer distances herself from her previously expressed...