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The Tribe of Joseph was one of the Tribes of Israel. Since Ephraim and Manasseh (often called the "two half-tribes of Joseph") together traditionally constituted the tribe of Joseph, it was often not listed as one of the tribes, in favour of Ephraim and Manasseh being listed in its place; consequently it was often termed the House of Joseph (Beit Yosef, בית יוסף), to avoid the use of the term ''tribe''. According to the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the ensign of both the House of Joseph and the Tribe of Benjamin was the figure of a boy, with the inscription: ''the cloud of the Lord rested on them until they went forth out of the camp'' (a reference to events in the Exodus). There were obvious linguistic differences between at least one portion of Joseph and the other Israelite tribes. At the time when Ephraim were at war with the Israelites of Gilead, under the leadership of Jephthah, the pronunciation of ''shibboleth'' as ''sibboleth'' was considered sufficient evidence to single out individuals from Ephraim, so that they could be subjected to immediate death by the Israelites of Gilead. At its height, the territory of Joseph spanned the Jordan River, the eastern portion being almost entirely discontiguous from the western portion, only slightly touching at one corner—northeast of the western portion and southwest of the eastern portion. The western portion was at the centre of Canaan, west of the Jordan, between the Tribe of Issachar on the north, and the Tribe of Benjamin on the south; the region which was later named Samaria (as distinguished from Judea or Galilee) mostly consisted of the western portion of Joseph. The eastern portion of Joseph was the northernmost Israelite group on the east of the Jordan, occupying the land north of the tribe of Gad, extending from the Mahanaim in the south to Mount Hermon in the north, and including within it the whole of Bashan. These territories abounded in water, a precious commodity in Canaan, and the mountainous portions not only afforded protection, but happened to be highly fertile;〔Hosea 9:13〕〔Genesis 49:22〕〔Deuteronomy 33:13-16〕〔Isaiah 28:1〕 early centres of Israelite religion—Shechem and Shiloh—were additionally situated in the region. The territory of Joseph was thus one of the most valuable parts of the country, and the House of Joseph became the most dominant group in the Kingdom of Israel.〔 ==Origin== According to the Torah, the tribe consisted of descendants of Joseph, a son of Jacob and Rachel, from whom it took its name;〔Genesis 30〕 however, some Biblical scholars view this also as postdiction, an eponymous metaphor providing an aetiology of the connectedness of the tribe to others in the Israelite confederation.〔''Peake's Commentary on the Bible''〕 In the Biblical account, Joseph was the brother to Benjamin, the other son of Rachel and Jacob, and the eponym of the Tribe of Benjamin, which was located to the immediate south of the tribe of Joseph. The birth of Benjamin does not appear in the passage〔 in which the births of the other sons of Jacob occur, but instead appears elsewhere, with Benjamin being born only once Jacob had returned to Canaan. According to several biblical scholars, Benjamin was originally part of the ''house of Joseph'', but the biblical account of this became lost;〔〔''Jewish Encyclopedia''〕 the account of the birth of the other sons of Jacob is regarded by textual scholars as a complex mixture of Elohist and Yahwist texts, and very corrupt. They have concluded that parts of the corresponding Elohist text, and parts of the corresponding Yahwist text, are missing.〔〔 The aetiological explanation of Benjamin being born in Canaan is that the tribe of Benjamin broke off from the Joseph group once it had settled in Canaan,〔 by joining the Kingdom of Judah rather than that of Israel.〔 Though the biblical descriptions of the geographic boundary of the House of Joseph are fairly consistent, the descriptions of the boundaries between Manasseh and Ephraim are not, and each is portrayed as having exclaves within the territory of the other.〔 In the Blessing of Jacob, and elsewhere ascribed by textual scholars to a similar or earlier time period,〔e.g. Joshua 17:14-18〕 a single ''tribe of Joseph'' appears where passages written later place separate tribes of ''Ephraim'' and of ''Manasseh''. From this scholars believe that ''Joseph'' was originally considered a single tribe, and only split into Ephraim and Manasseh later.〔 A number of biblical scholars suspect that the ''Joseph tribes'' (including Benjamin) represent a second migration of Israelites to Israel, later than the main tribes;〔 specifically, that it was only the ''Joseph tribes'' who went to Egypt and returned, while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout.〔 In the narrative in the Book of Joshua, which concerns the arrival in (and conquest of) Canaan by the Israelites from Egypt, the leader is Joshua, who was a member of the Ephraim tribe. According to this view, the story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife began as a metaphor for the second migration, with Jacob's new family, possessions, and livestock, obtained from Laban, being representations of the new wave of migrants.〔 According to textual scholars, the Jahwist version of the story is notable as having only the Joseph tribes among these migrants, since it recounts only Jacob as having met Rachel, and the matriarchs of the other Israelite tribes - Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah - do not appear.〔〔Richard Elliott Friedman, ''Who Wrote the Bible?'' (Harper San Francisco) (1987) ISBN 0-06-063035-3〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Tribe of Joseph」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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