He was the favorite son, the dreamer in the coat of many colors.
Yet Josef rose to become the most powerful man in Egypt, rescuer of a starving world, and, ultimately, the one who brought his broken family back together. His is the longest continuous narrative in Genesis, and one of the most enduring stories in human history.
In Set Apart, two scholars of the Bible sit together with the ancient text of Josef and listen. Drawing on rabbinical tradition and rigorous scholarship, David Ariel-Joel and Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos offer a rich, layered reading of Genesis 37–50 that honors the full complexity of the story: the family rivalries, the silenced women, and the slow arc of character transformation. Where they disagree, they say so, presenting their differing interpretations side by side in the ancient Talmudic tradition.
At its heart, this is a story about change — how it is forced upon us, how we resist it, and how, in the end, it becomes the very thing that saves us. Set Apart is a guide for that journey.
Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos, a native of the Netherlands, was Professor of Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary from 1977 to 2017. During her teaching career, she also taught in Montpellier (France), Salvador (Brazil), and at the University of Lund (Sweden and Jerusalem). After retirement, Johanna published commentaries on the Former Prophets and, most recently, on Deuteronomy in the Wisdom Commentary series.
David Ariel-Joel is the Senior Rabbi of The Temple, Louisville, KY. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University and the Hebrew Union College. During this journey, he was one of the founding members of Kibbutz Lotan, later serving as the Rabbi of Congregation Har-El, and Director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism. He officiated the first same-sex marriage in Israel in 1996. He is married to Ya'ala and is the father of Haggai (Stephanie).
Whether you think you know the story well or have only the vaguest sense of its general outlines, the deep reading of the biblical Josef narratives Rev Johanna and Rav David offer in this marvelous guided tour will open up wisdom you hardly knew you needed. The authors slowly train us in practices of restless exploration founded on disciplined and careful listening—to text, to a rich community of commentators, to one another as contemporary readers. This receptivity of focused attention given to voices other than our own may offer our last, best hope. Would that all such training were packaged as the delightful storytelling our guides supply.
—Christopher Elwood Professor of Historical Theology Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
“Rev. Johanna” van-Wijk-Bos and “Rav. David” Ariel-Joel bring a unique and uniquely doubled perspective to this fresh examination of the enduring literary masterpiece and persistent theological challenge that is the Joseph saga. Their collaboration richly illustrates what it means, and how much is to be gained, by “reading sacred text in conversation” – especially when the conversation includes partners such as these.
—Rev. Dr. Heather Thiessen Minister of the Word and Sacrament, PCUSA
He was the favorite son, the dreamer in the coat of many colors.
Yet Josef rose to become the most powerful man in Egypt, rescuer of a starving world, and, ultimately, the one who brought his broken family back together. His is the longest continuous narrative in Genesis, and one of the most enduring stories in human history.
In Set Apart, two scholars of the Bible sit together with the ancient text of Josef and listen. Drawing on rabbinical tradition and rigorous scholarship, David Ariel-Joel and Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos offer a rich, layered reading of Genesis 37–50 that honors the full complexity of the story: the family rivalries, the silenced women, and the slow arc of character transformation. Where they disagree, they say so, presenting their differing interpretations side by side in the ancient Talmudic tradition.
At its heart, this is a story about change — how it is forced upon us, how we resist it, and how, in the end, it becomes the very thing that saves us. Set Apart is a guide for that journey.
Johanna W.H. van Wijk-Bos, a native of the Netherlands, was Professor of Old Testament at Louisville Presbyterian Seminary from 1977 to 2017. During her teaching career, she also taught in Montpellier (France), Salvador (Brazil), and at the University of Lund (Sweden and Jerusalem). After retirement, Johanna published commentaries on the Former Prophets and, most recently, on Deuteronomy in the Wisdom Commentary series.
David Ariel-Joel is the Senior Rabbi of The Temple, Louisville, KY. He is a graduate of the Hebrew University and the Hebrew Union College. During this journey, he was one of the founding members of Kibbutz Lotan, later serving as the Rabbi of Congregation Har-El, and Director of the Israel Movement for Reform and Progressive Judaism. He officiated the first same-sex marriage in Israel in 1996. He is married to Ya'ala and is the father of Haggai (Stephanie).
Whether you think you know the story well or have only the vaguest sense of its general outlines, the deep reading of the biblical Josef narratives Rev Johanna and Rav David offer in this marvelous guided tour will open up wisdom you hardly knew you needed. The authors slowly train us in practices of restless exploration founded on disciplined and careful listening—to text, to a rich community of commentators, to one another as contemporary readers. This receptivity of focused attention given to voices other than our own may offer our last, best hope. Would that all such training were packaged as the delightful storytelling our guides supply.
—Christopher Elwood Professor of Historical Theology Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary
“Rev. Johanna” van-Wijk-Bos and “Rav. David” Ariel-Joel bring a unique and uniquely doubled perspective to this fresh examination of the enduring literary masterpiece and persistent theological challenge that is the Joseph saga. Their collaboration richly illustrates what it means, and how much is to be gained, by “reading sacred text in conversation” – especially when the conversation includes partners such as these.
—Rev. Dr. Heather Thiessen Minister of the Word and Sacrament, PCUSA
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