DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Joseph in Egypt (Vol. 2)" by Thomas Mann. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

DigiCat Publishing presents to you this special edition of "Joseph in Egypt (Vol. 1)" by Thomas Mann. DigiCat Publishing considers every written word to be a legacy of humankind. Every DigiCat book has been carefully reproduced for republishing in a new modern format. The books are available in print, as well as ebooks. DigiCat hopes you will treat this work with the acknowledgment and passion it deserves as a classic of world literature.

Joseph is brought into Egypt by the traders, and he is sold to Potiphar, and in this new environment, he establishes himself as a trusted, and, later, a high-ranking member of Potiphar's extensive household. The story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife is too well-known to be retold here, but Mann fills his account with the most precise and intricate psychological details: the tension comes not from "what happens next?"--Since we all know what happens next -- but in the painstaking depiction of the development of various characters' psychologies. Rarely, if ever, has sexual desire been presented in more convincing detail than in the depiction of the wife of Potiphar, proud and aloof, lusting after the mere slave Joseph. And in this volume, another theme begins, I think, to develop: it is that word that Potiphar's wife could barely bring herself to say, even after hundreds of pages of agonising over it -- "love". Not necessarily love in a sexual sense, of course -- although that's part of it -- but the love that humanity, despite everything, persists in feeling for one another. The chapter depicting the death of the overseer, Mont-kaw, who had become as another father to Joseph, is among the most moving things I have read in any novel. For all the various complexities and layers of irony, Mann could at times be almost disconcertingly direct. - Himadri Chatterjee.

Within the context of the Torah, the Joseph story can be read as a transition that explains why Jacob and his family came to Egypt. However, if one looks at other texts of the Hebrew Bible, there is no mention of the Joseph story; instead, the arrival of the Israelites is said to be the result of the decision of a "father" or of "fathers" to go down do Egypt. Indeed, there are very few references to Joseph at all in the whole Hebrew Bible. Apparently, the Joseph story is not necessary for explaining why the Israelites found themselves in Egypt. The question therefore arises: Why was this story written, when, and for what audience? This volume offers an overview of the current discussion on the origins, composition, and historical contexts behind the Joseph narrative. There is a tendency to date the story (or its original version) to the Persian period, but this volume includes divergent voices about this issue. The volume also shows that scholarly discussion about the historical location of the Joseph story requires to bring together Egyptologists and biblical scholars.

THE BOOK: As Germany dissolved into the nightmare of Nazism, Thomas Mann was at work on this epic recasting of the the great Bible story. Joseph, his brothers and his father Jacob, are at the prototypes of all humanity and their story is the story of life itself. Mann has taken one of the great simple chronicles of literature and filled it with psychological scope and range: its men and women are not remote figures in the Book of Genesis, but founders of states in a fresh, realisic world akin to our own .

This book marks the publication of the first, full translation of the so-called Joseph Smith Egyptian papyri translated into English. These papyri comprise “The Breathing Permit of Hor,” “The Book of the Dead of Ta-Sherit-Min,” “The Book of the Dead Chapter 125 of Nefer-ir-nebu,” “The Book of the Dead of Amenhotep,” and “The Hypocephalus of Sheshonq,” as well as some loose fragments and patches. The papyri were acquired by members of the LDS Church in the 1830s in Kirtland, Ohio, and rediscovered in the mid-1960s in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They served as the basis for Joseph Smith’s “Book of Abraham,” published in Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1842 and later canonized. As Robert K. Ritner, Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute, University of Chicago, explains: “The translation and publication of the Smith papyri must be accessible not merely to Egyptologists but to non-specialists within and outside of the LDS religious community for whom the Book of Abraham was produced.” Dr. Ritner provides not only his own original translations but gives variant translations by other researchers to demonstrate better the “evolving process” of decipherment. He also includes specialized transliterations and his own informed commentary on the accuracy of past readings. “These assessments,” he notes, “are neither equivocal nor muted.” At the same time, they do not have a “partisan basis originating in any religious camp.” The present volume includes insightful introductory essays by noted scholars Christopher Woods, Associate Professor of Sumerology, University of Chicago (“The Practice of Egyptian Religion at ‘Ur of the Chaldees’”), Marc Coenen, Egyptian Studies Ph. D., University of Leuven, Belgium (“The Ownership and Dating of Certain Joseph Smith Papyri”), and H. Michael Marquardt, author of The Revelations of Joseph Smith: Text and Commentary (“Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Papers: A History”). It contains twenty-eight photographic plates, including color images of the primary papyri (with corrected alignment for Papyrus Joseph Smith 2) and other relevant items.

Like the Great Pyramid, mysteries surround the other pyramids as well as other features found at the Giza plateau in Egypt. For example: Why does the second pyramid have two entrances, both off center, while the single entrance to the third pyramid is centered? What was the purpose of the two lower chambers in the second pyramid? Moreover, why was the sarcophagus in this pyramid made to be wider than the passages that lead to the upper chamber? In a related matter, why were the bones of a bull placed in the sarcophagus? And why was the sarcophagus sunk into the floor up to its lid? At the third pyramid, why were parts of a body dating to the Christian period wrapped in a coarse yellow woolen cloth and buried beneath three feet of rubbish in the upper chamber? Why in the third pyramid was the lower vaulted chamber designed so that it would absorb both sound and light? Out on the plateau, what was the purpose of the so-called trial passages? On the south side of the Great Pyramid, why was an ancient boat dismantled and buried in a pit east of that pyramids north-south axis? And what was stored in the other pit west of the axis? Do the four so-called air shafts in the Great Pyramid link the three major pyramids together? And how are the compartments above the Kings Chamber related to the end time? David Furlong, author of The Keys to the Temple, says the whole of the Giza complex was based on a coherent design intended to portray a spiritual theme (page 89). Volume 2 of Books Written in Stone: Enoch the Seer, the Pyramids of Giza, and the Last Days provides the evidence to support this thesis.