"From Death to Life: Conversion in Joseph and Aseneth" by Dr. Randall D. Chesnutt
This book was published long before I began blogging, but I wanted to make sure and highlight it.
From Death to Life: Conversion in Joseph and Aseneth was published by Sheffield Academic Press in 1995 by my Pepperdine University advisor, colleague, and friend, Dr. Randall Chesnutt. It is volume 16 of the Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha Supplement Series, edited by James Charlesworth. The monograph was the first analysis written in English on any aspect of the ~1st C. BCE/CE story of Joseph and Aseneth, and focuses upon Aseneth’s conversion to Judaism, which resolves questions about the Jewish patriarch marrying a foreign wife.
I am interested in all things related to Joseph and Aseneth, so I heartily recommend this work.
Filed under: books Tagged: | Aseneth, Death to Life, james charlesworth, joseph, pseudepigrapha, Randall D. Chesnutt, Supplement
Shalom & Boker tov…Randall Chesnutt’s monograph holds up extremely well, and not inundated with the usual crucifictionist revisionism. It should be noted it is a revised expansion of:
Randall D. Chesnutt, 1986. Conversion in Joseph and Aseneth: its nature, function, and relation to contemporaneous paradigms of conversion and initiation. Ph.D. dissertation, Duke University, 1-412
However, there is no evidence of precise dating — no texts exist prior to ca. 6th century CE…and dating is, hence, wishful thinking. What is needed: a team of Jewish scholars to re-translate and rigorously re-contextualize the ‘old testament pseudepigrapha’ based on all known mss., freeing the texts from the bizarre world of ‘bible scholarship’ with its christianist agenda.
STEPHAN PICKERING / Chofetz Chayim benAvraham