Introduction
This is the fourth in the series of narratives that make up the [~toledowth] of Jacob; and the central theme in all of them is the providence of God in His protection and guidance of the Holy Nation until the Messiah should at last arrive as the redeemer of all mankind. We may entitle this chapter:
JOSEPH AND THE DREAMS OF THE BUTLER AND THE BAKER
Efforts of those preoccupied with finding evidence of divided sources in Genesis have no success with this chapter. One may find about as many illogical and unreasonable "divisions" as there are scholars advocating such things, all of them being apparently unaware that there are no prior documents! This record before us is all that has come down through the mists of centuries. And the traditional view that the great Lawgiver Moses, whatever "sources" he might have consulted or made use of, has delivered for us, through the inspiration of God, an accurate and trustworthy account of what happened is absolutely valid. The careful student should be especially wary of accepting the bizarre and outlandish "translations" of certain words, phrases, and clauses, because the fundamental purpose of most of such "emendations" and "corrections" of God's Word is that of trying to aid some critic in splitting up what he conceives to be Biblical sources. Willis cited three examples of this type of tampering with the text, as exhibited in the New English Bible, all three of them in the last two chapters. An example is: "Tamar perfumed herself and sat where the road forks in two directions!" (Genesis 28:18). "Such a translation flies in the face of the context."[1] In this, and dozens of other places, the New English Bible translators were simply substituting what they imagined happened for what the Word of God says happened. On that particular verse, one wonders how the New English Bible translators knew so much about how harlots were supposed to smell. Why did they not also give us the name of the perfume?
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