Biblijna wzmianka o sprzedaży Józefa do Egiptu (Rdz 37,27-28.36) i jej możliwy kontekst historyczny w świetle dokumentów z Ugarit

Abstract

The aim of the paper is to present the documentary evidence from Ugarit, which can be interpreted as a possible echo of a distant past for the episode of Joseph’s sale to Egypt (Gen 36:26). According to Ugaritic sources, the stipulation to sell the guarantors to Egypt if they failed to pay their debt constitutes the additional penalty clause of the legal transaction. The rhetorical question which occurs in the one of documents, “How can a man sell his own fellow to the Egyptians?”, shows that the ultimate ethical evaluation of these practices was explicitly negative. To have been sentenced to slavery in Egypt stood for one of the most severe punishment. This conclusion can be compared with the biblical designation of Egypt as the “house of slavery” and the hard service and oppression that Hebrews had to suffer in the building projects in the time of Ramesses II, contemporary to the Ugaritic sources.