Title: Joint-Heirs and Whores’ Whelps: Genesis 21:10 as Intertext for Aseneth 24:8.

Abstract:

“Because I heard your brother Joseph saying to my father Pharaoh about you: ‘they’re not my brothers–they’re the brood of my father’s slave-women (τέκνα παιδισκῶν τοῦ πατρός μού). I’m going to wait until the old man pops off, then I’ll wipe them off the earth — them and their offspring! — because we will not be joint-heirs (συγκληρονομήσωσι) with whores’ whelps (τέκνα παιδισκῶν).”

(Aseneth 24:8, author’s translation)

With these words, the Son of Pharaoh deceives Dan, Gad, Naphtali and Asher, convincing them to betray their family and join him in his treasonous plot to seize both Egypt’s throne and Aseneth, wife of Joseph. This scene comes from Aseneth, a first century BCE Greco-Jewish novel which centres Aseneth, the Egyptian daughter of Pentephres. In addition to references to Aseneth in Genesis (Gen 41:45, 50; As. 1:3-4, 21:9), stories about Jacob’s children appear in Aseneth’s structure and thematic content (e.g., Joseph’s divination, near-assault, and rise to prominence in Egypt (Gen 39-41; As. 1:1, 4:9-10, 22:1), and the rape of Dinah (Gen 34; As. 23:2, 14)). Moreover, scholarship has demonstrated the intertextuality between Aseneth and other chapters in Genesis (e.g., the matriarchs’ beauty, Gen 29:17). Building on these studies, this paper argues that the psychological violence and imbalanced socio-economic dynamics on display in As. 24:8 alludes to Sara and Abraham’s treatment of Hagar and Ishmael in Gen 21:9-14. When read together, this intertext amplifies anxieties about household status, belonging in family and society, and safety as strangers holding complex subordinate statuses in a “host” land.

This hitherto unexplored intertext between As. 24:8 and Gen 21:10 emphasises the power dynamics within family structures and their direct connections to political structures, the continued precarity of enslaved women and their children, the complexity of ethnicity within these structures, and the exploitation that could result from these situations. At Gen 21:10, Sara demands of Abraham: “Throw-out this slave-woman and her son, for the son of a slave-woman (ὁ υἱὸς τῆς παιδίσκης) shall not inherit (κληρονομήσει) with my son Isaak.” In reusing Sara’s language, the Son of Pharaoh equates Bilah and Zilpah with Hagar, and layers new meaning over pre-existing parallels: all three are enslaved women used as unconsenting surrogates by their female enslavers (Gen 30:3-5, 9-13), but Hagar is explicitly said to be ethnically other. As an enslaved Egyptian woman, she was presumably forced to leave her homeland (16:1-3). Sara’s demand robs Hagar of her “home” again, all to ensure her and her son’s household status. Equally unsure of his socio-political status, the Egyptian prince plays on the fears of foreign Hebrew men, sons of enslaved women. The reference to Gen 21 in As. 24 highlights the precarity of home when those in power feel threatened.