Front cover image for Joseph's bones : understanding the struggle between God and mankind in the Bible

Joseph's bones : understanding the struggle between God and mankind in the Bible

A bold and radical reinterpretation of the Old Testament. Imagine if someone who had never heard of Judaism or Christianity read the Old Testament. How could the relationship between God and humanity possibly be understood? In Joseph's Bones, Segal approaches the Bible from this fresh perspective—one framed by the story of the Israelites' fidelity to Joseph—and finds something an account of the human condition that tells like an existential novel about the struggle of mankind against the unpredictable and often unwarranted wrath of God. This is a rarity in Biblical interpretation—brilliant and rigorously argued, "a work of stunning originality."

Print Book, English, 2007
Riverhead Books, New York, 2007