ויצלהו מידם: Proleptic Summaries, Conative Imperfects, and Harmonization in the Joseph Story and Other Biblical Narratives

Abstract

Despite Rashbam’s solution, a good number of prominent source critics, from the eighteenth century to the present day, have followed Jerome in using the philologically flimsy conative interpretation of ו יַּ צַּלִהֵ וּ to harmonize Gen 37:21a with 37:28b onward. Their treatment of this contradiction, in the chapter that has long served as the poster child for source division, is a tacit but powerful admission that harmonization is a legitimate—and even indispensable—tool of critical scholarship.