Oops.

I know I haven't posted in a long time.  I have a lot to do, and it's really hard to keep up with this, my schoolwork, and my own personal expectations of myself (20 pgs of for-fun book per day, two Logos readings to catch up, and this blog if it's even possible).  So yeah.  It's pretty freaking crazy.  But I'm really gonna try to keep up with this blog.  It's just really hard for me to stay motivated, for one because I don't think much of anyone reads it, and for two because whenever I post on it I lose so much sleep it's unreal!  And I never had that much sleep to begin with, being a college student!! xD

Anyways.  So, y'know that Logos thing I mentioned earlier?  I realize you probably need a definition on that.  Logos is the Greek word for exactly that, word.  It's the title that's been given to our Church-wide reading of the Bible.  There are daily readings, and since I'm behind (I started late) I've been trying (key word being trying) to read two per day to catch up.  This doesn't always work out. xD  But I have been trying!!

So my readings today include part of the story of Joseph, as did yesterday's.  The result is a new theory, which I actually think is really likely to be true.  I encourage everyone reading this to read Genesis 37-42, purely 'cause that's how far I've gotten into Joseph's story so far.  At the very least I would like you to read Genesis 37:12-36 and Genesis 42:21-25.

Now, Reuben has pretty much always been my favorite of Jacob's sons.  I mean, Joseph's pretty awesome and all, but Reuben's the one that tries to save him despite all his other brothers.  Reading this for Logos has really convinced me that Reuben and Joseph had a special relationship.  I mean, Reuben really tricked his brothers in a way.  Convincing them not to kill Joseph but to leave him for dead, Reuben planned to go back to the pit and rescue Joseph, bringing him back to his father Jacob safe and sound.  I can imagine his stomach tightening as his brothers threw Joseph down the pit, knowing that Joseph had no way of knowing the plan Reuben had to rescue him, and knowing how betrayed Joseph must feel.  He must have been anxious to return after his brothers left, so he could make amends with Joseph and his beloved younger brother could know that he never really meant to do him harm, and the devastation he must have felt (and indeed, that the Bible describes him as feeling in Genesis 37:29-30) when he discovered Joseph was gone, and would never know of his good intentions.

Then, you must think also of the consequences Reuben would have faced if he succeeded in his plan.  Can you imagine how much his brothers would have hated him for saving Joseph underhandedly and saying to Jacob, "Here, here's Joseph back, no thanks to those creeps, they tried to kill him."  For one, I don't really know what the legal system was like then, but some of his brothers might have been put to death for that bit.  If not, they would hate him for all eternity.  And we've just seen what they prefer to do to people they hate.  He must have really loved Joseph to undergo that sort of thing for him.  He must have been full of resolve, since he not only considered doing this, but actually went back to the pit and would have pulled his brother out had he not been long gone.

Then, of course, there's the second bit I recommended to you.  During the famine, when Joseph has risen to power and is selling Egypt's grain to those that need it, who shows up but his brothers?  Not surprisingly, they don't recognize him.  He's probably all done up in Egyptian make-up, and he's at least thirty-seven by now, anyway.  So he pretends not to recognize them either, and does what any bitter man who'd been sold by his brothers into slavery would do, and accuses them of being spies.  So his brothers, having no reason to believe he was anything more than a normal Egyptian (which isn't really an accurate descriptor, since he's in control of the world's supply of grain and the Pharaoh's probably just in de Nile - haha I'm so funny - that Joseph was more powerful than him anyway) and not realizing he could speak Hebrew, thought they were safe talking amongst themselves in their native language.  Now you may turn to Genesis 42:21-25.  They sort of not-so-internally panic.  They figure this is their recompense for selling their brother as a slave.  Despite the fact that Joseph heard this, he didn't respond at all until Reuben says his bit.  When Reuben rebukes them, giving them a basic "I told you so," and telling them they should have listened to him when he said to do nothing in ill blood towards Joseph, that's when Joseph reacts.  After having his cry (which sounds more pathetic than it actually is), he gives them a freaking ton of grain, and you've got to remember, grain is gold at this point.

Really, I think that Joseph reacted in this way, and at the moment he did, because he had thought for all that time that Reuben had had a part in the betrayal.  For him to cry like that, his years in Egypt, although successful, must have been full of the underlying torture that the brother he loved so much could have betrayed him like that.  I can really see the sunset conversations the two might have had in the desert.  Reuben was so much older than Joseph, probably twelve years at least, he probably admired him.  I think it's difficult for us sometimes to view the people in the Bible as just that, people.  People not unlike those today.  The Bible has a habit, particularly in the Old Testament, of giving people's actions and rarely their reasons.  I think it's easy for us to assume that they were just perpetually divinely influenced.  But that's clearly not the case.  David made his mistakes, Saul made his bigger ones, and Sarah is absolutely a horrifically accurate illustration of the stereotypical old, bitter, shrew wife (or spinster) of today.

I guess the moral of this blog is, ancient people are people too! xD  And hopefully that use of the present tense is accurate for all of them!