Joseph and His Brothers

Themes

Mann's presentation of the ancient Orient and the origins of Judaism is influenced by Alfred Jeremias' 1904 Das Alte Testament im Lichte des Alten Orients, which emphasized Babylonian influence in the development of Genesis, and by the work of Dmitry Merezhkovsky.

Mann sets the story in the 14th century BC and makes Akhenaten the pharaoh who appoints Joseph his vice-regent. Joseph is aged 28 at the ascension of Akhenaten, which would mean he was born about 1380 BC in standard Egyptian chronology, and Jacob in the mid-1420s BC. Other contemporary rulers mentioned include Tushratta and Suppiluliuma.

A dominant topic of the novel is Mann's exploration of the status of mythology and his presentation of the Late Bronze Age mindset with regard to mythical truths and the emergence of monotheism. Events of the story of Genesis are frequently associated and identified with other mythic topics.

Central is the notion of underworld and the mythical descent to the underworld. Jacob's sojourn in Mesopotamia (hiding from the wrath of Esau) is paralleled with Joseph's life in Egypt (exiled by the jealousy of his brothers), and on a smaller scale his captivity in the well; they are further identified with the "hellraid" of Inanna-Ishtar-Demeter, the Mesopotamian Tammuz myth, the Jewish Babylonian captivity as well as the Harrowing of Hell of Jesus Christ.

Abraham is repeatedly presented as the man who "discovered God" (a Hanif, or discoverer of monotheism). Jacob as Abraham's heir is charged with further elaborating this discovery. Joseph is surprised to find Akhenaten on the same path (although Akhenaten is not the "right person" for the path), and Joseph's success with the pharaoh is largely due to the latter's sympathy for "Abrahamic" theology. Such a connection of (proto-)Judaism and Atenism had been suggested before Mann, most notably by Sigmund Freud in his Moses and Monotheism, which had appeared in 1939, just before Mann began work on the tetralogy's fourth part—although in the last installment of Mann's work, Akhenaten is postulated as the Pharaoh of the Exodus contemporary of Moses, while Mann in his novella "Das Gesetz" (1944) casts Ramesses II in that role.

As Joseph is saved from the well and sold to Egypt, he adopts a new name, Osarseph, replacing the Yo- element with a reference to Osiris to indicate that he is now in the underworld. This change of name to account for changing circumstances encourages Amenhotep to change his own name to Akhenaten.

Chapter structure

Each one of the four books is divided into seven chapters, each of which is divided into further subdivisions. The first and last book also comprise a “Prelude” each.

The Tales of Jacob

Prelude. Descent into Hell

I. By the Well

II. Jacob and Esau

III. The story of Dinah

IV. The flight

V. Serving Laban

VI. The Sisters

VII. Rachel

Young Joseph

I. Thoth

II. Abraham

III. Joseph and Benjamin

IV. The Dreamer

V. The Journey to the Brothers

VI. The Stone Before the Grave

VII. He Who Was Mangled

Joseph in Egypt

I. The Journey Downwards

II. The Entrance into Sheol

III. The Arrival

IV. The Highest

V. The Man of the Blessing

VI. The Smitten One

VII. The Pit

Joseph the Provider

Prelude in the Upper Circles

I. The Second Pit

II. The Summons

III. The Cretan Loggia

IV. The Time of Enfranchisement

V. Tamar

VI. The God-Story

VII. The Lost Is Found

Editions and translations

Die Geschichten Jaakobs. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 3-596-29435-5

Der junge Joseph. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 3-10-048230-1

Joseph in Ägypten. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 3-10-048232-8

Joseph der Ernährer. S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. ISBN 3-10-048233-6

Hungarian translation by György Sárközy. Budapest: Athenaeum, 1946. ISBN 978-963-689984-4

Finnish translation by Lauri Hirvensalo. Helsinki/Porvoo: WSOY, 1947.

English translation by H. T. Lowe-Porter. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1948. ISBN 0-394-43132-4.

Hebrew translation by Mordechai Avi Shaul. Merhavia, Israel: Hakibbutz Haartzi Hashomer Hatzair. 4 Vol, 1957-1959.

Spanish translation by Jose Maria Souviron and Hernán del Solar. Santiago de Chile: Editorial Ercilla. 2 Vol, 1962.

Russian translation by Solomon Apt. Leningrad: Khudozhestvennaya Literatura. 2 Vol, 1968.

English translation by John E. Woods. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005. ISBN 1-4000-4001-9.

Dutch translation by Thijs Pollmann. Uitgeverij Wereldbibliotheek, Amsterdam, 2014. ISBN 9789028424005.