A few weeks ago, I (Kalie) made a post about how the biblical character Joseph was most likely a gender-expansive person who is portrayed to have lived in a time and culture that recognized gender-expansive people. The post went on to say that gender-expansive people were interpreted out of our readings.
In the comments, we had a few people ask for more information on the topic, so I decided to give a quick blog on the evidence that Joseph may not have cis. However, every time I began to look at the evidence, I found more. Thus, I now have a much longer blog than normal and my promise to publish the blog “next week” turned out to be incorrect. But it’s finally here!
It must be noted that there is no way to prove that Joseph was a gender-expansive person. However, we can use that narrative evidence and match it with historical evidence to see if there are elements in their story that might indicate that they were not strictly a cisgender1 person. The truth is, the setting of Joseph’s story takes place in a time and place in which gender-expansive people lived and had a place in society. This should inform the way that we look at a text that seems to transgress the gender binaries that we have come to read into the Bible.
By examining Joseph’s story, we see that Joseph’s treatment and narrative representation may parallel the way galas were treated in Sumer and kalû in Babylon. Galas/ kalû were gender-expansive priest(ess)es who took part in the worship of Inanna in Sumer or Ishtar in Babylon.2
Making the connections with the historical timeframe that Joseph’s story takes place will allow us to see that it is likely that a gender-expansive view of Joseph matches the narrative’s presumed historical context more than cisgender understanding.
Issues with dating the story of Joseph
Since this is a blog post, I do not have the time to go into the theories of the origins of Joseph’s story. There are some that believe the story originated around the first half of the second millennium BCE and was written down by Moses around the 1400s BCE.3 There are those that believe that the story came from some tradition that was not fully collected until the third century.4 And there are theories that range vastly between those two. However, one thing that most scholars agree on is the fact that the stories in Genesis probably existed as oral traditions before being recorded into text.5
This does not mean that these stories weren’t ever written down before the collection we now call Genesis was finalized. It means that we do not have access to those possible recordings due to destruction of writings over centuries and millennia.
However, when we deal with oral traditions, it is nearly impossible to identify how old they are. Even the language use to describe these stories may not be an indication of their age since oral cultures would have allowed for the updating of language in the stories to adhere to the current vernacular.6
All of this is to say that we cannot, with full certainty, say when the story of Joseph came about and in what forms it may have taken before we arrived at the final version. The only thing that we can say for certain is that it is an older story than the writing of Genesis.
With that said, I am going to take the position that this story does have ties to the timeframe in which it proposes, around the start of the second millennium (early 1000s BCE) since there are indications from the text that the story is best understood to have taken place after the end of Ur’s third dynasty, most likely in the early Old Babylonian period.7
Understanding the Ancient Setting
Working off the assumption that the story of Joseph is meant to be understood to have taken place around the start of the second millennium, it is important to note the connections that the stories make to the surrounding culture. Mainly, the idea that Abraham came from the Sumerian city of Ur.8
Ur had reached one of its heights during the Ur III (or third dynasty), which ranged from 2112 to 2004 BCE.9 This is an intriguing time since some (mostly very conservative) scholars place Abraham’s life somewhere in the twenty-second to twenty-first century BCE and would mean that Abraham lived during the height of Ur III.10 However, most would put the dating of Abraham closer to the eighteenth century when Ur was under Babylon’s first dynasty and making Abraham a possible contemporary of Hammurabi.11
All of this is to say that the setting of Abraham puts him around a major settlement in Ur during the early second millennium. This is important to the discussion of Joseph since Ur was a major city for the cult of Inanna during Ur III and the Old Babylonian period (more below).
Gender-expansive people and Inanna/Ishtar
Establishing Abraham’s line in connection to Ur during the second millennium is important to the discussion of Joseph’s (Abraham’s great-grandchild) possibility of being gender-expansive because it highlights the fact that Joseph’s family would have known about gender-expansive people and how to treat their children if they were gender-expansive.
Throughout the Old Akkadian period and into the Old Babylonian period, the goddess Inanna (also known as Ishtar), who was recognized as being able to change people’s gender,12 was worshiped by gender-expansive individuals known as Gala. Gala were gender-expansive individuals that did not adhere to a binary understanding of gender and took part in the worship of Inanna and administration duties of the temple.13 Although the worship of the goddess decreased in the Old Babylonian period, the recognition of gender-expansive people in the worship of the goddess still continued throughout that period.14
All of this means that there was not only a cultural understanding that gender-expansive people existed during the age of the patriarchs (Abraham through Joseph), but there was also a cultural recognition of gender-expansive people’s place in society and religion. In fact, gender-expansive people were seen as having a connection to the divine.
Having set the context for the story of Joseph and establishing the fact that their literary context includes an understanding of gender-expansive people, we can look closer at their story for the details that point to their gender identity.
Joseph’s “Coat of Many Colors”
For many people who have been around queer Christian commentators, Joseph’s clothing is the most obvious thing that tips us off when examining Joseph’s gender identity. The phrase “coat of many color” (this interpretation does vary depending on translation) is כְּתֹנֶת פַּסִּים (transliterated: ketonet passim) and is only used in two stories in the Bible. The first is in Genesis 37 when it is used for Joseph’s outfit and 2 Samuel 13.
Many of us who learned Hebrew in a seminary setting were told that if a word or phrase is uncertain in one passage, then look for it in another passage to find the meaning through context. We are lucky in that in 2 Samuel 13:18, the phrase is actually defined as a “garment the virgin daughters of the king wore” (NIV).15 So, if we take the logic of “look how a word is used elsewhere,” which is honestly a solid guiding rule, we would have to assume that Joseph was also wearing a garment marking them as a virgin daughter of a king.16
However, this is not the only indication that Joseph’s clothes were an indication of a feminine garment. One of the closest cognates for the hebrew word ketonet passim is the Akkadian phrase transliterated kitu (or kutinnu) pišannu, a garment or ordainments that was draped over statue of goddesses.17 When we look at the history of textiles, pišannu is mentioned as something needing wool and was associated with the statue of Anunītu, an epithet of Ishtar/Inanna.18
In reference to the usage of ketonet passim in 2 Samuel as clothing worn by a daughter of a king, it is also of note that putting on the robe of the gala was part of the marriage preparation process in at least one Sumerian love song. The robe of the gala is equated as the robe of the “queenship of heaven”19 and, considering the value placed on virginity in political marriages, could denote a garment worn by a virgin daughter of a leader.
Thus, if we use the possibility that Joseph’s garment was clothing marking them as a daughter of a ruler and the fact that the phrase used for Joseph’s clothing could possibly indicate that they were wearing a garment associated with the goddess, we could potentially see Genesis 37 as a recognition of Joseph’s gender-expansiveness within the context of the time period.20
Literary Connections to the Women in Joseph’s Family
There are few main literary connections that seem to be intentionally pointing to the similarities between Joseph and the women in Joseph’s family line.21
ְפֵה־תֹאַר וִיפֵה מַרְאֶה
The first instance is the way that Joseph’s beauty is used to make a literary tie with Joseph’s grandmother, Rebekah. The Hebrew phrase is יְפֵה־תֹאַר וִיפֵה מַרְאֶה (“beautify in appearance and form” – NASB) and is only used in these two instances in the bible, once for Rebekah and once for Joseph. The rarity of this phrase makes it unique in that it seems the author is making an intentional connection between the two’s beauty.
Born on Knees
In Genesis 50:23, when it is giving the final accomplishments of Joseph’s life, the passage says Joseph’s grandchildren were “born on Joseph’s knees” (NASB). The only other time that this phrase is used in Genesis is in 30:3 when it is used for Joseph’s mother, Rachel.
*Content Warning: Sexual Abuse* -skip this next paragraph if you need to-
In Genesis 30, Jacob and Rachel were upset that Rachel had been unable to get pregnant and devised a plan to have Jacob rape their female slave so that the child would be born on Rachel’s knees and she could claim to be the child’s mother. As terrible of a story this passage actually is, it still establishes a literary parallel between Rachel and Joseph.
It is important to note that being born on someone’s knees is not exclusive to adoptive motherhood in the ancient near east. There are documents that indicate that it was a practice representing fatherhood in cultures like the Hittites.22 However, it is not necessarily the ancient practice that we care about, but the literary parallel between Rachel’s actions to achieve motherhood and the possible indication that the original story is equating Joseph with Rachel in becoming an adoptive mother.
Like the phrase above for Joseph’s beauty, these are the only two instances when the phrase “born on [person’s] knees” is used in the Bible. Although these literary parallels cannot prove intentional signaling of Joseph’s gender-expansive identity, the rarity of the parallels do seem that they are intentional.
Joseph’s relationship with the god Shaddai
The name Shaddai (normally showing up as El Shaddai) is used six times in the book of Genesis and, of those, three are in connection to Joseph. Interestingly, five out of the six times that the name Shaddai is used, it is in reference to fertility (the odd one out is still connected to fertility in a way and will be discussed below). It is Shaddai that makes the promise to Abraham that he would be fruitful and become the father of “a multitude of nations” (NASB) in Genesis 17. Thus, it should be understood that Shaddai, from the perspective of the characters in the narrative, is a divinity of fertility.
The one instance that Shaddai is mentioned in which the name is not directly about fertility comes in Genesis 43:14 when Israel asks Shaddai to give his sons “compassion.” The Hebrew word for compassion in this passage is רַחֲמִים (rakhemim), which literally means “wombs.”
The only other time that רַחֲמִים is used in Genesis is in verse 43:30 when Joseph was “deeply stirred” when they saw their little brother Benjamin. Literally, Joseph had a “stirring in his [sic] wombs” as a metaphor for compassion that illustrates an emotional reaction associated with motherhood, which illustrates the compassion of Shaddai is being carried out by Joseph.23
The connection between Shaddai, Joseph, and wombs does not end there. In Genesis 49:25, Joseph is given a bless from Israel from “the god of your father who supports you and Shaddai who blesses you.”24 In the text, Joseph is given a blessing of “the breasts and the womb” (the same word used for “compassion” above), which appears to be a blessing of fertility.25 There is no indication in the text that the blessing is meant for a blessing of Joseph’s own (although metaphorical since they are clearly assigned male at birth) breasts and womb, or a general blessing of fertility for whomever they procreate with. However, it is important to note that Joseph had already been described as having a stirring in the wombs previously. Thus, associating Joseph with having a womb has already been established in the text. This blessing is presumably lived out in Genesis 50 when Joseph has their grandkids born on their knees (see above).
It is also interesting that a blessing of the breasts and the womb is associated with Shaddai, who has presumably feminine traits like motherly compassion since those are attributes of Inanna, the goddess of fertility.26 So not only does Joseph receive a feminine-sounding blessing, it appears to be in the form of the goddess who had gender-expansive worshipers.
The Issue of Pronouns
One last note should be made about the pronouns used for Joseph in the text.
Throughout the narrative of Joseph, the Hebrew consistently uses male pronouns for Joseph, which has made some claim that their pronouns are proof that we should not see Joseph as gender-expansive. However, there is historical recognition that gender-expansive people retained the pronouns of their assigned gender even though they are not recognized as that gender by society.
In a Middle Babylonian period (1595-1155 BCE) letter, the writer describes a person as “He is kulu’u, not a male,” which highlights the possible disconnect between pronouns and gender expression.27
However, Joseph’s pronouns in the text can also be explained through grammar. The fact is, the proper noun “Joseph” is a masculine word in Hebrew and thus would grammatically take masculine pronouns and verbs.28 The masculine pronouns may not be a reflection of Joseph’s gender expression, but simply grammatical consistency.
Conclusion
Ultimately, there is no way to prove with certainty that Joseph was gender-expansive. However, what we can say is that cultures did have an understanding of gender-expansive people around the time that Joseph’s story is supposed to have taken place and there are many parallels between Joseph’s story and what we know about gender-expansive expressions during that time.
Because of this, we need to recognize that cis-heteronormativity being read into a story like Joseph is possibly anachronistic at best and revisionist at worst. Joseph seems to have more in line with gender-expansive people of their time than they do with cisgender, heterosexual people of ours. So, although we cannot say that Joseph was “trans,” it is equally as wrong, if not worse, to assume they were cisgender.
Even using the term “cisgender” is anachronistic since the distinction between trans and cis represents modern language’s attempt to represent a phenomenon in humans.
For brevity, I will primarily use “gala” throughout even though gala and kalû are the same thing but in different languages (at least until the later second millennium BCE, but that is outside the context that we are looking at).
https://www.blueletterbible.org/faq/don_stewart/don_stewart_678.cfm
This is the proposition given in the book Berossus and Genesis, Manetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch by Russell E. Gmirkin.
I have found that many conservative (people who believe the Pentateuch was penned by Moses and/or a scribe of Moses) do not often talk about the oral tradition behind its writing. In fact, I was led to believe that God dictated the stories in Genesis to Moses in my conservative Bible college and the idea of oral tradition was never discussed.
Walton, John H. 2013. The Lost World of Scripture : Ancient Literary Culture and Biblical Authority. Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic. Kindle Edition
Obviously, the dating for the oral tradition of Joseph’s story would require far more than a few paragraphs. However, this is not meant to be an academic publication or master’s thesis and I need to work within the limits of a blog post.
It is also important to note that I am not saying this story literally happened. That type of claim would been nearly (if not fully) impossible to achieve. What I am claiming is that we are supposed to assumed the literary setting, which the story claims to have ties to.
The exact location of Ur of Kasdim (often translated Ur of Chaldees or Chaldea) is unknown. Many equate it with the location of the major Sumerian city of Ur, but it cannot be proven with 100% confidence.
FRAYNE, DOUGLAS. “Introduction.” In Ur III Period (2112-2004 BC), 3–4. University of Toronto Press, 1997. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3138/j.ctt13x1qkz.12. Page 3.
https://www.britannica.com/place/Ur
Roscoe, Will. “Priests of the Goddess: Gender Transgression in Ancient Religion.” History of Religions 35, no. 3 (1996): 195–230. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1062813.
The Revised Standard Version has “kings of old” and I cannot find the reasoning behind that. I like the idea that the text says “of old” because it would indicate that it is an ancient term. But until I find a justification for that translation, I can’t extrapolate on its importance.
the word מֶלֶךְ is often translated as “king” but can mean “local ruler” or “city-state ruler,” which Israel would have been.
Speiser, E. A. “Joseph and His Brothers.” Genesis: Introduction, Translation, and Notes. New Haven & London: The Anchor Yale Bible, 1974. 285–378. Theology and Religion Online. Web. 30 Dec. 2024. <http://dx.doi.org/10.5040/9780300261851.0008.CH003>. Page 290
Gaspa, Salvatore. “5. Garments for kings, queens, soldiers and gods” In Textiles in the Neo-Assyrian Empire: A Study on Textile Terminology in Assyrian Texts, 145-235. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter, 2018. https://doi-org.theoref.idm.oclc.org/10.1515/9781501503054-007. Page 231.
Leick, Gwendolyn. Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature. Oxford: Taylor & Francis Group, 1994. Accessed December 30, 2024. ProQuest Ebook Central. Page 83
It is important to note that this does not indicate whether or not Joseph’s garment signified worship of the goddess, but the cultural understanding that gender-expansive people dressed in a certain style.
I am leaving out the connection of Joseph possibly having a womb. Not because it isn’t interesting or relevant, but because I need more time to look into that thread. If you would like an amazing article on the idea of Joseph’s womb, I recommend reading this https://static1.squarespace.com/static/55b7fe53e4b05ac40f011280/t/62f6a9cce2246e686ec248ab/1660332522230/Keller-Josephs-Womb-2021.pdf
Güterbock, Hans Gustav. “The Song of Ullikummi Revised Text of the Hittite Version of a Hurrian Myth.” Journal of Cuneiform Studies 5, no. 4 (1951): 135–61. https://doi.org/10.2307/1359008. Page 139
I find it significant that this blessing has constant contrasting nouns, which could indicate a blessing of two different gods. There is the contrast of the heavens and the primordial deep and the breasts and the womb, so, in turn, it would make sense that the two names of gods be understood as separate entities.
This concept might be difficult for some people to accept as monotheism is often read into the text, but narratively speaking, monotheism is never established in the Hebrew portions of the Bible and henotheism is not established until halfway through Exodus when they are told to “have no other gods before me.”
There is a significant amount of research that still needs to go into this topic that I hope to spend time on later.
She is the goddess of love, war, and fertility.
https://isac.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/uploads/shared/docs/saoc62.pdf. Page 52.
It should be noted that this reference is understood to be a mocking of another person and, thus, limited in its application to the topic. However, there just aren’t that many 3,000+ year old documents that illustrate the difference between pronouns and gender expression.
A word’s gender in grammar does not always align with reality. For instance, the word “city” is a feminine noun in many languages even though cities do not have an actual gender.
You can find out more about Kalie May here.
- Was Joseph Transgender? Historical and Literary Evidence for Understanding Joseph as a Gender-Expansive Person. - January 14, 2025
- Deconstructing and Leaving? Or Leading? - October 29, 2024
- The Myth of Moral Decline: Why we believe we are getting worse and how that can used to make us worse.The Myth of Moral Decline: - June 5, 2024