The Bible in a Year

Old Testament

Genesis 31 to 44
Read this coming week:
Jan 17 Gen 31, Ps 17, Matt 20 Jan 18 Gen 32‐33, Ps 18:1‐24, Matt 21 Jan
19 Gen 34‐35, Ps 18:25‐50, Matt 22 Jan 20 Gen 36, Ps 19:1‐6, Matt 23 Jan
21 Gen 37‐38, Ps 19:7‐14, Matt 24 Jan 22 Gen 39‐40, Ps 20, Matt 25 Jan
23 Gen 41‐42, Ps 21, Matt 26 Jan 24 Gen 43‐44, Ps 22:1‐18, Matt 27‐28

Reading Questions
For next week you’re reading Genesis 31 to 44. Answer
the following:
• Why does Jacob want to leave Laban?
• What is Jacob’s relationship with Esau like before
and after the wrestling incident at the Jabbok
river?
• How many times is Jacob renamed “Israel”?
• Esau’s descendants became which country?
• How many dreams did Joseph have that told him
that his family would bow down to him?
• What is Joseph’s role in Potiphar’s house?
• What the ways that Joseph tests his brothers?
Joseph’s Historicity
One of the benefits of Joseph’s story of being in Egypt is
that it provides extra-Biblical (outside of the Bible)
evidence for the validity of the story of Joseph, and
therefore, to the whole book itself – or at least the
Torah. Archeologists have confirmed the following
which mirror Joseph’s story:

• Attempted seduction of a young man by a high

official's wife, his rejection of her, her false
charges and his subsequent imprisonment, then
release - told in an Egyptian papyrus, dated 1225
BC.
• Archaeological digs along the Nile, provide an
obvious and remarkable corroboration of the
biblical story of Joseph. An unusual life-sized
statue was found at Avaris, honoring the famed
Vizier who - by Egyptian records - saved the
Egyptian people from a terrible famine.
• Described in Papyrus #1116A in the Leningrad
Museum is a mural of starving desert tribesmen
seeking food from Egypt during a period of
drought, "Pharaoh giving wheat to a tribe from
Ashkelon, Hazor and Megiddo" (undoubtedly
Hebrews from well-known cities in Israel);
• Roman historian, Josephus, in his book, "Josephus
Against Apion", quotes two Egyptian priest-
scholars, Manetho and Cheremon, who, in their
own histories of Egypt, specifically name Joseph
and Moses as leaders of the Hebrews, that they
"rejected Egypt's customs and gods .. practiced
animal sacrifices”.
Please don’t throw this away. If you’re not going to use it, leave it for
someone else to use.