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Joseph's sheaves — Philo and Josephus

Connection type: parallel tradition · 2 passages

Both retell Joseph's first dream: in Philo he relates it to his brothers as if they were well affected to him, thinking they had gone to the plain to gather crops; in Josephus his sheaf stands still while his brothers' sheaves bow down to it.

Passages side by side

“This man, therefore, indulging a disposition free from all guile and malice, and having no suspicion of the ill will which was secretly cherished against him by his brethren, having seen a dream of favourable import, related it to them, as if they were well affected towards him. "For," said he, "I thought that the time of harvest was arrived, and that we had all gone down to the plain to gather the crops, and had taken sickles in our hands to reap the harvest, and on a sudden my sheaf appeared to stand up, right, and to be raised up, and to erect itself; and I thought that your sheaves, as if at an appointed signal, ran up and fell down before it, and worshipped it with great earnestness."”

Philo of Alexandria — On the Life of a Man occupied with Affairs of State; or, on Joseph · Sections 1–25

“When they were in the middle of harvest, and Joseph was sent by his father, with his brethren, to gather the fruits of the earth, he saw a vision in a dream, but greatly exceeding the customary appearances that come when we are asleep; which, when he was got up, he told his brethren, that they might judge what it portended. He said, he saw the last night, that his wheat-sheaf stood still in the place where he set it, but that their sheaves ran to bow down to it, as servants bow down to their masters. But as soon as they perceived the vision foretold that he should obtain power and great wealth, and that his power should be in opposition to them, they gave no interpretation of it to Joseph, as if the dream were not by them undestood: but they prayed that no part of what they suspected to be its meaning might come to pass; and they bare a still greater hatred to him on that account.”

Josephus — Antiquities of the Jews, Book 2 · Chapter 2

Every passage above is quoted verbatim from the library’s own corpus file for that work (Septuagint passages from the Swete text); long passages are shown as sentences or marked excerpts, never paraphrased. The connection type is descriptive: “direct quotation” means the later text names or quotes its source; “allusion” means it names the figure or scene; “parallel tradition” means the texts retell the same episode or wording, with no dependence claimed.

Subjects

History & historiography, Myth & legend

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