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Asenath


Asenath, Asenith and Osnat (/ˈæsnæθ/, Hebrew: אָסְנַת, Modern Osnát, Tiberian ʾåsənaṯ) is a figure in the Book of Genesis (41:45, 41:50-52), an Egyptian woman who Pharaoh gave to Joseph, son of Jacob, to be his wife. The daughter of Potipherah, a priest of Heliopolis, she bore Joseph two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who became the patriarchs of the Israelite tribes of Manasseh and Ephraim.

Modern scholarship says her name derives from the Egyptian language name "she who belongs to (the goddess) Neith" and that her name may be phonetically transliterated from the New Kingdom-era Egyptian hieroglyphs Ns-Nt.

Genesis records nothing more about Asenath, but her story is elaborated in the apocryphal narrative Joseph and Aseneth. There, she is a virgin who rejects several worthy suitors in favor of Joseph, but Joseph will not have a pagan for a wife. She locks herself in a tower and rejects her idolatry in favor of Joseph's god, Yahweh, and receives a visit from an angel who accepts her conversion. A ritual involving a honeycomb follows. Bees cover her and sting her lips to remove the false prayers to the pagan gods of her past. Joseph now consents to marry her. She bears him their sons Mannaseh and Ephraim.


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