Joseph—the Brilliant Failure

Published 30 years ago, the following analysis of Joseph’s character has become a classic among a small group of cognoscenti. The author, Maurice Samuel, was a Jewish literary critic and novelist whose work appeared in Saturday Review of Literature and other journals. He died in 1972.

According to Samuel, Joseph was a failure—the Messiah would come not from Joseph’s loins but from his brother Judah’s, according to Jacob’s blessing. Joseph was a failure, despite his brilliance, because of his insensitivities (especially in his dealings with his brothers) and his impurities (especially in his relation with Potiphar’s wife). The excerpts printed here are limited to flaws in Joseph’s character.

Whether or not one agrees with Samuel’s analysis, it is unquestionably a powerful one. It differs—and this is Samuel’s point of departure—from another extraordinarily powerful interpretation of Joseph, Thomas Mann’s epic Joseph and His Brothers.