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Cecilie Brons , Textiles and Cult in the Ancient Mediterranean, , [2017], ,
Antonio D'Ambrosio , Women and Beauty in Pompeii, J. Paul Getty Museum, [2002], ,
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Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, Liza Cleland , Greek and Roman Dress from A to Z, , [2012], ,
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Chiara Spinazzi-Lucchesi , The Unwound Yarn, Birth and Development of Textile Tools Between Levant and Egypt, [2018], ,
Caryn Tamber-Rosenau , Women in Drag, Gender and Performance in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature, [2018], ,
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- - , ANE: DISCUSSION LIST FOR THE STUDY OF THE ANCIENT NEAR EAST, , Coat of Many Colors: Joseph+Tamar=sacrifice
James M. Freeman , Manners and Customs of the Bible, , [1972], 42,43, 67. -- COAT OF PIECES
XXXVII, 3. Israel loved Joseph: and he mad him a coat of many colors.
Or, "a coat of pieces." The ordinary tunic was a garment worn next to the skin, reaching to the knees, and usually without sleeves. Joseph's coat is supposed to have had sleeves, and to have reached to the wrists and ankles; a luxurious robe, and a mark of distinction such as, in later times, Tamar and the other daughters of the king wore. 2 Sam. xiii,18. The "pieces" may have been different pieces of cloth variously colored, and of which the garment was made; or they may have been various colored threads, stripes, or plaids. In India coats of different colored patchwork are made for favorite children, pieces of crimson, purple, and other colors being sewed together. Jackets are sometimes embroidered with gold and silk of various colors. It is believed that a child thus clad will be saved from evil spirits, since the attention of the spirits will be diverted from the child by the beauty of the garment. There is no evidence of any such superstition in the case Jacob. It was merely an instance of parental favoritism.
Richard Heard , Higgaion, May 22, 2006, Jim misses the point
In a second post on Joseph's and Tamar's wearing of a כתנת הפסים, Jim takes a couple of potshots and misses the point. Maybe my point just got lost in my long blockquote, but I might as well continue the conversation.
First, let's quickly dispense with Jim's quibbling over my use of the word "parenthesis." Come on, Jim, you know as well as I do that a "parenthesis" is a grammatical construction, an aside, that has nothing inherently to do with what punctuation marks or grammatical structures are used to demarcate it. In this case, the כי in 2 Sam 13:18 clearly introduces an "aside" that is properly called a "parenthesis" (dictionary definition: "a word, clause, or sentence inserted as an explanation or afterthought into a passage that is grammatically complete without it"). Don't joust with straw windmills, Jim.
Now let's get to the main point. In the new post, Jim writes:
... I am simply attempting to come to terms with the fact that the author of 2 Samuel seems to take pains to clarify the kind of person who wore a כתנת הפסים; i.e., young girls. ... The issue is "who would wear such a thing as a כתנת הפסים.
The evidence from Samuel indicates that it's a garment worn by females.
Jim continues to misconstrue the function of the parenthetical comment. The author of 2 Samuel 13 does indicate that the "king's virgin daughters" wore כתנת הפסים, but it does not thereby indicate that a כתנת הפסים is a garment worn exclusively by females. Just because the king's virgin daughters typically wear כתנת הפסים does not mean that other people, including males, never wore כתנת הפסים. "Many young women these days have pierced noses" does not perforce imply that "few men these days have pierced noses." It's Jim, not the author of 2 Samuel 13, who has turned this into a gendered garment.
When "shown" (verbally) the iconographical evidence against "gendered garments," Jim responds:
Iconography notwithstanding. Indeed, the iconography which exists is all external to Israel. If Assyrians and Egyptians portray Israelites or Judeans wearing the clothing normally attributed to women, wouldn't this demonstrate their lack of respect and even disdain for such "men"?
No, Jim, it doesn't. What it demonstrates is that "gendered garments" are your issue, not the ancients' issue. You, not the Beni Hasan artist, are the one who "disdains" mean who wear what you, not the ancients, consider "women's garments."
In my earlier post, I explained the exegetical importance of the כתנת הפסים in each context (Genesis 37 and 2 Samuel 13). By "gendering" the garment, Jim is exposing his own ideology, not the biblical writers', and creating a "problem" where none exists. The evidence is that men and women dressed very much alike in ancient times, and 2 Samuel 13:18 really does not suggest otherwise.
Richard Heard , Higgaion, May 22, 2006, Jim West and Joseph's coat
Jim West posted an interesting question earlier today:
The curious phrase כתנת הפסים in Genesis 37:23 only occurs in the Hebrew Bible again at 2 Sam 13:18- כתנת הפסים which is further described as כי כן תלבשן בנות המלך הבתולת מעילים. My question- why does Joseph wear a virgin girl's robe? Why does he dress like one of the maiden girl's in the king's court? It's a strange curiosity.
Actually, I don't think it's any stranger than the constantly shifting template on Jim's blog, but that's another matter (sorry, Jim, I couldn't resist). The simple answer is that Jim is overemphasizing, or rather, "over-exclusivizing," a side comment. 2 Samuel 13:18 does not "make such a big deal about" it. Jim's the one doing that. All 2 Samuel 13:18 does is make a parenthetical comment to the effect that Tamar was wearing clothing that was typical of the "king's daughters" at that time. 2 Samuel 13:18 does not imply that such tunics were exclusively worn by the "king's daughters," nor that men could or would not dress in similar fashion. Still less does 2 Samuel 13:18 imply that the author and/or ancient readers of Genesis 37 would have considered Joseph's tunic to be "women's wear." As others pointed out on the Biblical Studies e-mail list, and as I will show below, our iconographical evidence does not suggest a great deal of difference between "women's wear" and "men's wear" in the Iron Age Levant.
The phrase in question, כתנת הפסים, is a curious one. As I described in a another post published some time ago,
The Hebrew text describes Joseph's special garment as a כתנת פסים, which the Septuagint translator(s) rendered as a χιτῶνα ποικίλον (which was then taken over in the Vulgate as tunicam polymitam and thence into other European languages as the famous "technicolor dreamcoat"). The Greek text unambiguously means "multi-colored tunic" or "variegated tunic," but not so the Hebrew. In order for the Hebrew description to be rendered as "multi-colored tunic" it would need to literally be "tunic of colors," and we would need to show that there was such a word in biblical Hebrew as פס meaning "color." The only ?? attested (elsewhere than Gen 37:3 and 2 Sam 13:18) in the Tanakh, however, is an Aramaic word in Daniel 5:5, 24 apparently meaning "the palm of the hand" (it doesn't just mean "hand," it seems, because it stands in the phrase פס ידה). The question is whether to take our translational cue from the Septuagint or from the Aramaic portion of Daniel. Very few modern translations render פסים as "multi-colored":
JPS: "an ornamented tunic"
NET: "a special tunic"
NIV: "a richly ornamented robe"
NRSV: "a long robe with sleeves"
NCV: "a special robe with long sleeves"
GW: "a special robe with long sleeves"
BBE: "a long coat"
Only the WEB and the HCSB still retain "coat of many colors." It seems me that the JPS, NET, and NIV translators are persuaded that there is little philological support for the "multi-colored" translation, but they don't want to get too far from the idea of "ornamentation." NRSV, NCV, GW, and BBE are following the philological evidence internal to the Bible just where it goes, by understanding פס as an Aramaism (or, as Gary Rendsburg might have it, a feature of nortern Israelian Hebrew), understanding כתנת פסים as "tunic of palms/soles," and then trying to render that in smooth English as something like "long robe with sleeves."
The "long-sleeved" nature of the coat itself is exegetically significant in both cases, but not because of intertextual resonance between the two passages.
In Joseph's case, a "long robe with sleeves" would be quite distinct from typical Bronze-to-Iron Age Canaanite garb as seen, for example, in the Beni Hasan paintings (as shown here). Our iconographical evidence suggests that we should be thinking of Jacob and his sons as typically wearing "kilts" and going bare-chested (men only), or wearing tunics that fasten over one shoulder and have skirts that drape to the knee (men and women). A long-sleeved, long-skirted tunic would be quite atypical in this context, and would be unsuited to typical agricultural or pastoral work. Joseph's כתנת הפסים, then, marks--in its context in Genesis 37--a kind of exemption from the labor to which his brothers were otherwise subject (as also shown, contextually, by the fact that he does not go with them to Dothan to shepherd the flock, but stays home with his father).
In Tamar's case, the narrator of 2 Samuel 13 indicates that a "long robe with sleeves" is typical of the "king's daughters." Unlike Joseph, Tamar is not dressed in an unusual fashion that would draw attention to her. Nor, being covered from neck to wrist and to toe, is she dressed immodestly by any stretch of the imagination. Tamar--or at least Tamar's dress--is thus excluded from consideration as a factor inciting Amnon's lust. Certainly she does not come to his "sick bed" dressed seductively. This is quite a contrast to 2 Samuel 11, where David espies the naked Bathsheba and then puts into motion his designs up on her.
Thus the detail of Joseph and Tamar each wearing a כתנת הפסים does in fact matter in each story--but independently, and in quite different ways.
Iman Saca , Embroidering Identities: A Century of Palestinian Clothing, [2006],
Caryn Tamber-Rosenau , Striking Women: Performance and Gender in the Hebrew Bible and Early Jewish Literature, Dissertatie, [2015], ,
Dr. Jim West , Blog, 22 May 2006, A Strange Curiosity
The curious phrase כתנת הפסים in Genesis 37:23 only occurs in the Hebrew Bible again at 2 Sam 13:18- כתנת פסים which is further described as כי כן תלבשן בנות המלך הבתולת מעילים . My question- why does Joseph wear a virgin girl's robe? Why does he dress like one of the maiden girl's in the king's court? It's a strange curiosity.
Dr. Jim West , Blog, 22 May 2006, Chris Heard and the Coat of the Virgins
On Higgaion Chris suggests, a la my earlier posting and our ongoing discussion on the Biblical Studies List that I am overemphasizing, or rather, "over-exclusivizing," a side comment [in] 2 Samuel 13:18. I really don't believe that to be the case at all. In fact, I am simply attempting to come to terms with the fact that the author of 2 Samuel seems to take pains to clarify the kind of person who wore a כתנת הפסים; i.e., young girls. And though Chris calls the comment in Samuel a "parenthesis" he knows as well as we all do that no such punctuation exists in Biblical Hebrew. We may call something a parenthetical but of course that is our label- not theirs.
Chris gives, then, nice detail about the meaning of the phrase. I think it fair to say that there's no one these days who would argue that the traditional "coat of many colors" is correct. That is not the issue. The issue is "who would wear such a thing as a כתנת הפסים.
The evidence from Samuel indicates that it's a garment worn by females. Iconography notwithstanding. Indeed, the iconography which exists is all external to Israel. If Assyrians and Egyptians portray Israelites or Judeans wearing the clothing normally attributed to women, wouldn't this demonstrate their lack of respect and even disdain for such "men"?
In short, though Chris makes some excellent points, none of them really have to do with what seems to me the central issue. Now, if you don't mind, I have to go change my template again....