1. Joseph ends up in possession of virtually all of the land of Egypt. (Gen 47:13-47:22)
1. Akhenaten claimed that he was "causing the Earth to belong to its Maker":
1. Aldred quotes the boundary stela as saying that he was "causing the Earth to belong to its Maker". (48)
2. Around the end of his reign, Akhenaten had the name of Amun chiseled out just about wherever it could be found. This destruction was very widespread and thorough:
1. Aldred refers to the "thoroughness", "the exceptional completeness", and the "wide extent" of Akhenaten’s removal of Amun’s name. Aldred says, "In the writer’s view this destruction belongs to the last years of the reign when crises were mounting." (289)
2. Redford says, "So widespread and thorough was this program of erasure, in fact, that today investigators can often date a piece as pre- or post-Amarna by examining the hieroglyphs for ‘Amun.’" (141-142)
3. If Akhenaten had indeed come into possession of the whole land, then this could explain why he was able to remove the name of Amun as he wished.
3. In Akhenaten’s later years, the Egyptian priesthood and bureaucracy seem to have lost control of the land:
1. Aldred says of Haremhab’s inaugural decree, "It seems clear from this Edict that the authority of the pharaoh during the Amarna period had grown considerably, presumably at the expense of the religious foundations. Much of the administration had consequently fallen into the hands of court officials, notably in the army." (301)
2. Redford says that after Akhetaten’s founding, "The once thriving administrative centers of Thebes and Memphis stood idle. Temples and government offices had been virtually shut down, and the sons of illustrious houses that had served pharaoh well suddenly found themselves bereft of function and court connection." (153)
4. If Akhenaten had indeed come into ownership of the whole land of Egypt, then this could explain why he removed Amen’s name, and why he put the name of the Aten in its place.
2. Joseph instituted a tax on the Egyptians. (Gen 47:23-26)
1. Akhenaten also seems to have instituted a tax on the Egyptians:
1. Aldred says that Haremhab’s Edict quotes examples of abuses by "fraudulent tax-collectors" and "arbitrary exactions and requisitions by an undisciplined soldiery in the name of the king." (301) Aldred also refers to "the use of a rapacious soldiery to gather what dues they could exact" (283), and "exactions by a new rapacious breed of tax-collectors in place of the old tithe-gatherers". (248)
3. Jacob dies after seventeen years in Egypt at the age of one hundred and forty-seven. (Gen 47:27-50:21)
1. I cannot explain this entirely. If Jacob had died after seventeen years, then Akhenaten would have presumably been dead for about thirteen years. But, like the "30 years" versus "Year 30" above, it is tempting to read this as Year 17 instead. Indeed, as this would correspond to the end of the seven years of famine, it could have provided a way for Akhenaten to ease out of his public role.
2. Jacob’s age does not seem to support its being read as a date, unless both the original author and a subsequent translator made mistakes.
4. Joseph asks Pharaoh’s court for permission to bury Jacob in Canaan. (Gen 50:4-6)
1. Until this point in the story, Joseph had always spoken directly to Pharaoh. Here though, he goes through members of Pharaoh’s court to ask for Pharaoh’s permission. Could this indicate that Pharaoh was no longer functioning independently, or not even alive? I’m reminded of the later Aswan diptych where Amenhotep III is shown as a statue (Aldred, 93). Like Princess Meketaten in Chamber G of the Royal Tomb (Aldred, 32), showing someone as a statue could have indicated that the person was deceased, given the Atenist aversion for using the epithet "justified" (Aldred, 246). Couple that with the increased presence of Tiye, without her husband, in the later tomb reliefs at Amarna; Tiye’s equality in size in the pictures of her with her husband when he was alive (Aldred, 152); her correspondence with foreign leaders (Aldred, 152 and Redford, 166); and, the fact that Hapshetsut had ruled earlier in this dynasty, and it seems reasonable to consider that Tiye kept the House of Amenhotep III running for some time after his death. If so, it would seem likely that she continued until her death, which happens to correspond with the time that Smenkhkare is thought to have begun his co-regency with Akhenaten. Could it be that Akhenaten was continuously engaged in co-regencies with someone in the House of Amoses through his entire reign? [Could Akhenaten’s relationship with Tiye be reflected in the story of Joseph’s master’s wife? (Gen 39)]
