Joseph’s Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

The Book of Genesis is many, many things. It begins with a Hymn of Creation (1:1 – 2:4) and continues with a Prologue (2:5 - 11:32) reprising various Middle Eastern myths (e.g. the Flood), reinterpreted a millennia later in the light of now fully developed Jewish theology.

From there Genesis moves onto the proto history of the Hebrew nation (12:1 – 36:41). These are the stories of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Issac, and Jacob) and they represent a transition from myth to legend. (Think King Arthur.)

The final 14 chapters contain the story of Joseph, son of Jacob (aka Israel). They form a bridge connecting the legendary Patriarchs with the historical Exodus and they introduce another dimension to our narrative: the mystical.

Mysticism here refers to a fabric of super-ancient spiritual practices, woven across cultures, irrespective of boundaries, topological or political. It would appear that this wisdom precedes the development of religions per se. 

Let’s listen in: “Now Israel (Jacob) loved Joseph more than any other of his sons…and he made him a long sleeved robe (aka a ‘coat of many colors’). When his brothers saw that their father loved Joseph more than any of them, they hated him… (Then) Joseph had a dream and they hated him still more.”

Jacob’s gift of a robe is symbolic of more than just parental favoritism. It is a recognition of Joseph’s special status in the ‘ancient line of mystical succession’. 

In the 1st Book of Kings (19: 17 – 21), Elijah passes the prophetic mantle to Elisha in a very similar ceremony:

“So Elijah…found Elisha son of Shaphat. He was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen, and he himself was driving the twelfth pair. Elijah went up to him and threw his cloak around him. Elisha then left his oxen and ran after Elijah… He took his yoke of oxen and slaughtered them. He burned the plowing equipment to cook the meat and gave it to the people, and they ate. Then he set out to follow Elijah and became his servant.”

Interpretive Notes:

• The coat and cloak are the veil of maya, the woven garment (shroud) covering noumenal reality (Kant), i.e.  Aletheia (Parmenides).

• The 12 yoke of oxen are the signs of the Zodiac, signifying the cosmic dimension of mystical initiation, corresponding to Joseph’s welcoming the 12 tribes of Israel (his brothers) to Egypt.

• The Electro-Magnetic (EM) spectrum (Joseph’s colors) is an alternate way (vs. signs of the Zodiac/yoke of oxen) of representing entirety, i.e. kosmos.

• In the spirit of the New Testament Letter of James, both Joseph and Elisha give expression to their faith by ‘feeding the people’ (see below). Jesus picks up on this critical theme by feeding first 5,000 and then 4,000 hungry followers. 

• We are indebted to Kings. It’s only that light that we can confidently interpret Jacob’s ‘anointing’ of Joseph as a sacrament in the Mystical tradition.

 It is unclear (intentionally so?) whether the bestowal of the robe is an acknowledgement on Jacob’s part that Joseph has a special connection with the divine or whether the gift itself confers new powers on the son.

I am reminded of Mary Poppins: “What I want to know…is this: Are the stars gold paper, or are the gold paper stars?” (Jane Banks) In each case, of course, the answer is both! The world is maximally recursive. What goes around comes around. IRL, all verbs need to be Middle Voice (vs. Active/Passive). 

The Jacob stories are nothing if not down to earth. Neither Jacob nor Joseph model what we would call virtue. Joseph is a right Eddie Haskell (Leave it to Beaver), a goodie-two-shoes intent on currying his father’s favor by ‘tattling’ on his older brothers. 

Joseph is only too eager to lord his advantage over his senior siblings. Shamefully, he exploits his spiritual gifts to tease and demean them; his  behavior is so egregious that even the doting Jacob is offended:

“Must we come and bow low to the ground before you, I and your mother and your brothers?”

“His brothers were jealous of him, but his father did not forget.”

Like all marks of social distinction, Joseph’s coat inspires jealousy, and even hatred, in those less favored (e.g. his brothers). Any modern day parent could have written this script. Out of 13 siblings, one is ‘the favorite’… and treated as such. What could possibly go wrong? Pity Jacob that he did not have Dr. Spock to advise him!

The Hebrew phrase translated as ‘many colors’ in the Septuagint is obscure. That said, much is baked into the traditional panchromatic symbolism. First, of course, there is allusion to the rainbow, bridge to Me Pot o’ Gold, nature’s symbol of harmony and peace, token of YHWH’s covenant with creation. 

On an even deeper level, the rainbow represents the essence of all Process, i.e. Being per se, described by Alfred North Whitehead as the creative flux of one into many and many into one. The noumenal EM spectrum becomes the phenomenon of white light which in turn refracts to give us that rainbow. 

As Genesis comes to a close, the Hebrews (descendants of Jacob), the Edomites (descendants of Esau), and the Ishmaelites (descendants of Ishmail) have all carved our successful niches in the Middle East. Our origin story is poised for a happy ending…but of course, human frailty (aka sin) soon intervenes. 

Following his angry confrontation with Joseph, Jacob sends his chosen one to accompany his brothers ‘in the field’. Was this intended as punishment? Or was it Jacob’s attempt to toughen up his pampered offspring? Or was it done in the vain hope that sibling rivalry might be resolved? In any event, it was yet another miscalculation by the hapless Jacob; he certainly did not anticipate, much less intend, what happened next:

“Seeing him approach from a distance, the brothers immediately conspire to do away with this Lord of Dreams.” Fortunately, Reuben commutes Joseph’s death sentence and instead they arrange for him to be sold into slavery.

Soon Joseph is in Egypt where holds a series of administrative posts and earns his Pharoah’s respect and trust: “…The Lord is with Joseph and gives him success in all things.”

While managing various offices of state, Joseph continues to interpret dreams. Pharoah dreams of seven fat cows followed by seven lean cows who proceed to devour their more corpulent predecessors. 

Based on that narrative, Joseph predicts seven years of ‘feast’ followed by seven years of ‘famine’ in Egypt. Pharoah acts on Joseph’s intelligence: he stores surplus during the fat years to cover the needs of the realm during the lean years to follow.

As a result of God’s favor and Pharoah’s wisdom, Egypt alone prospers during an historic, region-wide famine, recorded simultaneously throughout the Middle East.

The Book of Genesis is many things. It is history, legend, mythology, anthropology and ethics. But going back to the Hymn of Creation, Genesis also has a cosmological dimension. Pharoah’s dream allows the narrator to introduce a theory of time crucial to the later development of Judeo-Christian cosmology.

Ask most people how they would describe time and you’re likely to hear a lot about beads on a string, buds on a branch, birds on a wire, Xmas lights on a strand. Why not? It’s a natural way to think of the succession of events that constitute our lives. 

But it is not the Judeo-Christian way. Genesis uses the story of Jacob’s sojourn into Egypt to propose a radically different way to imagine ‘sequence’. The Future does not follow the Past, it consumes it! 

A perpetual Present projects what has been into what is coming to be. It’s the Blob of cinematic fame (1958), consuming everything it touches. It confers eternal life, or at least potential immortality, on what is no more substantial than a “mist” (James 4:14), i.e. our mortal lives.

We see this model displayed again and again throughout Judeo-Christian scripture and practice: 

• YHWH is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob; he is the God of the living, not to the dead.

• The Patriarchs (above) are consoled knowing that their descendants will be numerous as grains of sand on a beach or as stars in the sky. 

• King David is promised that the Messiah will be from his house.

• At the Transfiguration, Jesus reveals Moses and Elijah, ‘alive’ in him.

• Roman Catholics, et al., consume Jesus in Eucharist and are simultaneously ‘uploaded’ into his Mystical Body. 

The fat cows don’t become lean, nor do the lean cows simply succeed their plumper forebears. Nope! In a stroke that would have made another Josef (i.e. Stalin) blush, the lean cows devour the fatties. Pity the bourgeoisie!

Incredibly, you have just entered the Twilight Zone, i.e. the bizzarro world of 20^th century mathematics.

Welcome to the non-Archimedean (non-A) universe. Here, all events are either embedded in one another or disjoint. Events B and C are inert quanta until they are uploaded (embedded) into Event A. In A, B and C ‘interfere’ and that interference, X, in turn interacts with and modifies both B and C.

Reality is on a perpetual, non-linear loop. B and C do not interact, but they do interfere…in A. Each contributes to A (in the form of X, their interference pattern) and through the intermediation of X, A modifies B and C.

In this model, A corresponds to the future, B and C to the past, and X to the present. X is what we call History (or Process). So no, Dorothy, we’re definitely not in Kansas anymore! To find out more about this world where we actually live, check out:

• What’s the Matter with Archimedes?

• Archimedes and Christianity

But in the meantime, bear one thing in mind: This is the real world. This is how things actually work. Deal with it!

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Diego Velázquez — Joseph’s Tunic (1630) depicts the dramatic moment when Joseph’s brothers present his blood-stained coat to their father, Jacob, leading him to believe Joseph has been killed. Velázquez uses strong chiaroscuro lighting to heighten the emotional intensity, illuminating Jacob’s grief and the brothers’ tense deception. The painting exemplifies Velázquez’s early mastery of psychological realism, conveying profound human emotion through gesture, light, and shadow.