This page was originally written 17 July 2017. To navigate up to the Genesis index, see index-genesis.
I was looking up biblical references including the word passim, most famously known in the case of Joseph’s ketonet passim, traditionally known as a “coat of many colors”, although I don’t think there’s a solid case for translating passim as meaning of many colors. The relevant passages are Genesis 37 and 2 Samuel 13.
There is one biblical character other than Joseph who wears a ketonet passim, and it is Tamar, the daughter of David. In both cases a reason is given for the wearing of the ketonet passim. Joseph has his because he is the favorite son of Jacob, while Tamar has hers because of her status as a virgin daughter of the king.
The text hints that both characters have not been married yet: Tamar is a virgin, while Joseph is seventeen and no wife is mentioned in the narrative involving his sale to the Ishmaelites, although a wife surely would have appeared in a story of that nature if he had one. He marries a daughter of Potipher a bit later in Egypt, and when he is reunited with his brothers there is no corresponding scene where he is reunited with his wife.
So we have two young unmarried people entering marriageable age, wearing a ketonet passim, to mark their special status as the son of their father. We might also pause here to note the similarities between their fathers. David is the king of Israel, and therefore has authority over its twelve tribes. Jacob has authority over the twelve tribes of Israel by proxy, through his position as the father of the twelve eponymous brothers who found the tribes. Both of their fathers are polygamous leaders of Israel, and both stories reflect the tensions between step-brothers raised in such a polygamous household.
In both stories the issue of murder between step-brothers is raised. In the case of Joseph, they talk about killing him. In the case of Tamar, Absalom kills Amnon in retaliation for Tamar’s rape. In both stories the possibility of one child killing all his brothers is raised. When Joseph’s brothers become dependent on him in Egypt later, they fear that he will kill them all. After Absalom kills Amnon, a rumor goes around that he has killed not just Amnon but all his brothers. The topic of revenge-killing is thus raised in both stories as well.
In both stories, the wearer of the ketonet passim is victimized in a manner which has to do with rape. In the case of Tamar, she is raped by Amnon and tossed out of the room. In the case of Joseph, he is falsely accused of rape by Potipher’s wife and tossed into prison.
As the biblical regulations for a women who is not a virgin on her wedding night indicate, the biblical authors (and not just them, of course) associate sex with a virgin with blood, and use it as legal evidence in cases of dispute. Immediately upon being deflowered, Tamar tears her ketonet passim in mourning, and places ashes on her head. When he is sold into slavery, Joseph’s brothers take away his ketonet passim, tear it, and dip it in animal blood, which they then use deceptively as evidence of his death.
Both stories feature a brother being sent into exile — Joseph is sold to Egypt, while Absalom is exiled after killing Amnon. In both cases, the exiled brother comes into partial control of a kingdom: Joseph ends up ruling Egypt as prime minister, while Absalom launches a rebellion and controls part of Israel until he is defeated.
To what extent might some of these parallels reflect deliberate similarities or dependence on similar narrative traditions? I don’t know. And I don’t know to what extent they might just be coincidental. If you want to do further reading on what can and can’t be legitimately inferred from biblical parallels, I’d recommend seeing Paul R. Noble, “Esau, Tamar, and Joseph: Criteria for Identifying Inner-Biblical Allusions,” in Vetus Testamentum.
Noble, whose article I found following the writing of most of this post, gives a list of eight story-elements in common between the Joseph-story and the other Tamar-story (Tamar and Judah, a different Tamar, found in Genesis).
He also has a long and helpful discussion of when seeming parallels may arise that are coincidental, even if at first glance they don’t seem to be, which might be the case between Joseph and David’s Tamar. His brief reference to a parallel involving Amnon (see p. 224), at least suggests that he might not be receptive to the idea that the parallels in this post are geniune. I can’t read his mind, though, of course.