Scriptural Savant

Joseph and Asenath 5

Related ancient text — scholarly reference

Extra-canonical text — not LDS scripture and not in the KJV Apocrypha. Provided as scholarly reference for parallel literature of the Second Temple period and the early Christian era. Read with discernment; the Apostle Jude quotes 1 Enoch and Paul knew this material, but inclusion here is for study, not doctrine.

1And lo! a young man of Pentephres' servants sprang in, and he saith to him: "Lo! Joseph standeth before the doors of our court." And when Asenath heard these words, she fled from the face of her father and mother and went up into the loft, and she came into her chamber and stood at the great window looking east to see Joseph coming into her father's house. And Pentephres came out and his wife and all their kindred and their servants to meet Joseph; and, when the gates of the court that looked east were opened, Joseph came in seated in the second chariot of Pharaoh; and there were yoked four horses white like snow with golden bits, and the chariot was fashioned all of pure gold. And Joseph was clad in a tunic white and rare, and the robe that was thrown round him was purple, made of fine linen interwoven with gold, and a golden wreath was upon his head, and round his wreath were twelve choice stones, and above the stones twelve golden rays, and in his right hand a royal staff, which had an olive branch outstretched, and there was abundance of fruit thereon. When, then, Joseph had come into the court and the doors thereof had been shut, and every strange man and woman remained outside the court, for that the guards of the gates drew to and closed the doors, Pentephres came and his wife and all their kindred except their daughter Asenath, and they made obeisance to Joseph upon their faces upon the earth; and Joseph descended from his chariot and greeted them with his hand.

Public-domain text (R.H. Charles 1913 and equivalents). These works are not canonical, but several were widely read in antiquity and one (1 Enoch) is quoted by name in Jude 1:14–15. Useful for understanding the doctrinal landscape from which the apostles and earliest saints taught.