Joseph, son of Jacob & Rachel & Vizier of Egypt, was Ankhtifi the Ninth Dynasty nomarch of Nekhen

The following is the transcript to my Youtube video with the same title:

Prior to the Exodus, Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel, became Vizier (the highest official in ancient Egypt to serve the Pharaoh,) under the name of Zaphnath-Paaneah and was given Asenath, the daughter of Potipherah, priest of On, to be his wife. In his famous interpretation of the Pharaoh’s dream, Joseph predicted seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine happening in Egypt during his time. 

In the course of the seven years of abundance, Joseph ensured that the storehouses were full and that all produce was weighed. In the sixth year, Asenath bore two children to Joseph: Manasseh and Ephraim. When the famine came, it was so severe that people from surrounding nations came to Egypt to buy bread. As a last resort, all of the inhabitants of Egypt, less the Egyptian priestly class, sold their properties and themselves (as slaves) to Joseph for seed. I identify Ankhtifi, a nomarch or provincial governor of Nekhen as the historical Joseph during the Ninth Dynasty of Egypt. Let me show you why.

In my previous video titled “Amenemhat IV & Sobekneferu of 12th Dynasty Egypt were the Pharaoh & Queen who saw the 10 Plagues & Exodus” I identified the Twelfth Dynasty as the period in Egypt's history when the Exodus occurred. This is consistent with the dating of the Ipuwer Papyrus (which is considered by Bible scholars as confirmation of the Exodus) sometime between the late period of the Twelfth Dynasty and its end. 

The number of years between the start of the Ninth Dynasty and the end of the Twelfth Dynasty is 358 years while the number of years between the end of the Ninth Dynasty and the start of the Twelfth Dynasty is 139 years. Thus the number of years between the Ninth Dynasty and the Twelfth Dynasty ranges from a minimum of 139 years to a maximum of 358 years. 

Now according to Exodus 12: 40, “the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years.” However, there has been a division among scholars as to whether the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt was 215 (or 210) years long, or 430 years long instead. From possibly as early as the Septuagint, there has been a tradition that the 430 years in Exodus 12:40 represent only 215 actual years of Israelite sojourn in Egypt, with the other 215 years representing the sojourn in Canaan. 

Remember that there were several years separating the generation of Joseph from the generation of Moses, during which time the Egyptian empire must have expanded its territory and included parts of Canaan closest to Egypt. And it is likely that at the time of Moses, the Greater Egypt occupied that part of the land of Canaan where Jacob and his family stayed prior to entering the Lesser Egypt of Joseph’s time. If we now consider only 215 (or 210) years long sojourn of Israel’s children in Egypt, then Ankhtifi’s Ninth Dynasty qualifies as the dynasty when Joseph became vizier of Pharaoh. 

Ankhtifi built and extensively decorated his tomb at Hefat, and inscribed the tomb’s walls with his autobiography which details his initiatives in re-establishing order in the land, his resistance against Thebes, and the appalling suffering of the people of Egypt during his lifetime. The events described in the tomb would date from the Ninth Dynasty and probably of its third King, Neferkare VII. 

In inscription no.1 of his tomb, we see his titles:

 “The hereditary prince, the count, the chancellor of the king of Lower Egypt, the sole companion, the lector-priest, the leader of the army, the chief of the interpreters, the leader of the mountainous regions, the great chief of the nomes of the Throne of Horus and the rural area”. 

The title “chief of the interpreters” is very intriguing to me because Joseph is known to have successfully interpreted his Pharaoh’s dream while others have failed. His title as “hereditary prince” may refer to the fact that among Jacob’s sons, Joseph, aka Ankhtifi, was the one who received the birthright - see 1 Chronicles 5: 1-2. His title as “the lector-priest” I believe, refers to his being the son-in-law of Potipherah, priest of On. In inscription no. 10 of his tomb we see the following description of a severe famine happening during Ankhtifi’s  time:

I gave bread to the hungry and clothing to the naked; I anointed those who had no cosmetic oil; I gave sandals to the barefooted; I gave a wife to him who had no wife. I took care of the towns of Hefat and Hor-mer in every [situation of crisis, when] the sky was clouded and the earth [was parched  and when everybody died] of hunger on the sandbank of Apophis. The south came with its people and the north with its children; they brought finest oil in exchange for the barley which was given to them. 

The whole of Upper Egypt died of hunger and each individual had reached such a state of hunger that he ate his own children. But I refused to see anyone die of hunger and gave to the north grain of Upper Egypt.

There are two hypotheses made by scholars examining Ankhtifi’s tomb that might suggest Ankhtifi couldn’t have been Joseph, son of Jacob and Rachel. According to what was written in inscription no. 14, they say that, and I quote “It is from this text, in which has been issued the hypothesis, according to which the mother of Ankhtifi would have died whilst giving birth to him in the darkness of the night. We can suppose that the nomarch, in the evening of his birthday, had to purify himself with natron”.  The following is the actual text of inscription no. 14:

"[Purification?] of the chief of the prophets, Ankhtifi, in the evening of his birth. There is no longer an evening when he has purified himself, because his love is [in] the heart of the men with [which] I lived ...”

The phrase “when he has purified himself” should not be interpreted to mean that his mother, who by tradition was expected to perform the purification ritual together with her new born, was unable to do so because she presumably died during childbirth. Note that some Second Temple Jewish writers, such as the authors of Jubilees and 4Q265, believed that the newborn child suffered the same manner of impurity as the new mother. In my opinion, failing to mention that Ankhtifi’s mother also purified herself together with Ankhtifi on the night of his birth was merely because she was not the subject of the inscription. 

The following is my interpretation of inscription no. 14 instead, I believe Ankhtifi was only saying: 

- That the only time he needed the ritual of purification performed on him or by him was during his birth when he was considered ritually impure according to their tradition. - That during his lifetime he never committed any action which would require him to purify himself (a second time) of any wrongdoing. 

- And that he devoted his entire life in the service of humanity because according to him “his love is in the heart of the men”.

Another hypothesis made by scholars examining Ankhtifi’s tomb is that Ankhtifi had four sons and two daughters, and they made this conclusion based on their interpretation of some wall paintings in Ankhtifi’s tomb. On the other hand, Joseph is known to have only two sons, Manasseh and  Ephraim. Now keep in mind that Israel uses matrilineality (or the tracing of kinship through the female line) in determining if a person is Israeli or not. Since Joseph’s wife Asenath, the daughter of the Egyptian priest Potipherah, was herself an Egyptian, it meant all her children with Joseph were considered Egyptian. 

The only reason why Manasseh and Ephraim were considered Israelis and heirs of Jacob, was because they were adopted by Jacob as his own sons. If Joseph had two more sons and two daughters other than Manasseh and Ephraim, they must have been born after Jacob already died. And these other children of Joseph, or presumably Ankhtifi, would not have mattered to the history of Israel since they were not considered Israelis.

Jacob however made provisions to the other children of Joseph born after Manasseh and Ephraim, that is, if they choose to live in the Promised Land and get their inheritance from Jacob, they will have to join either the tribe of Manasseh or the tribe of Ephraim and become members of their tribes:

Genesis 48: 5-6 Now then, your two sons born to you in Egypt before I came to you here will be reckoned as mine; Ephraim and Manasseh will be mine, just as Reuben and Simeon are mine. Any children born to you after them will be yours; in the territory they inherit they will be reckoned under the names of their brothers.