You seem to be shooting with full ammo from the beginning.

As to your question. I suppose one could extend the idea of progressive revelation to Genesis one account and the question of homosexuality. There is one problem with the idea though.

Most of the Christian theology is based the on the Gen 1 account. The very basis of Christianity is that there was darkness until God spoke. Only then there was light and everything was good and perfect unjtil man came and messed it up. We need salvation, atonement, sanctification, the second coming and all the other big theological words (half of which I have already forgotten) to get us out of the man made mess and restore us to the original perfection.

The theory of evolution works the opposite. In the beginning there was chaos. But through natural selection and the survival of the fittest the nature evolves all the time to a greater perfection.

It is hard to see how these two ideas can coexist. With evolution there could not have been any original perfection. If there was no original perfection, there was no fall either. If there was no fall, what do we need salvation for. And if there was no original beautiful garden in the beginning, why do we wait for the second coming to bring the garden back? One could also talk about the power of God to restore the hearts of men against the idea of billions of years of evolution, but I am going to leave it at that.

So if one is to change the understanding of the Gen 1 account, it would require, in the least, a total rethinking of the Christian theology. Personally I doubt there would be much meaningful Christianity left.

As to the question homosexuality. If we are to believe in the theory of evolution, isn´t homosexuality a higher form (evolution) of love where a humand kind has learned to express affection totally separated from the primitive purpose of sexual expression, that is procreation.

Genesis 47:25 makes it clear that the Egyptians seemed relieved to enter this “servitude” (”You have saved our lives!”).

Anyway, here’s a comment on Ancient Egyptian land ownership: bascially, the land ultimately belongs to the gods.

http://www.reshafim.org.il/ad/egypt/economy/land.htm

In theory all the land seems to have belonged to the gods, and to the pharaoh as representative of Horus. It was regarded as communal property administered by the king, and was given to his subjects for usufruction, but as early as the middle of the third millennium BCE the sense of ownership and pride in one’s own achievements was well developed among some at least:
I was a commoner of repute, who lived on his own property, plowed with his own span of oxen, and sailed in his own ship, and not through that which I had found in the possession of my father, honored Uha.
The Offering of Uha, c. 2400 BCE
According to Herodotus Sesostris (whoever he was) divided the land equally among all his subjects, an acount we should not rely too much upon, but which reflects the idea of the land belonging to the pharaoh and its usufruct being given to the people who had to pay rent:
Sesostris also, they declared, made a division of the soil of Egypt among the inhabitants, assigning square plots of ground of equal size to all, and obtaining his chief revenue from the rent which the holders were required to pay him year by year. If the river carried away any portion of a man’s lot, he appeared before the king, and related what had happened; upon which the king sent persons to examine, and determine by measurement the exact extent of the loss; and thenceforth only such a rent was demanded of him as was proportionate to the reduced size of his land. From this practice, I think, geometry first came to be known in Egypt, whence it passed into Greece.
Herodotus, Euterpe, 109.1
The traditional approach to ownership appears to have changed by the Late Period, and land had become more like any other possession, but the state never relinquished all its rights over it.

JIMMY: Thanks for your positively critical mind as always. You wrote: “3. Oppression: you’re making the assumption that these Egyptians weren’t already in servitude to some degree to the king. And who’s to say for how long?” Gen 47:20-25 makes it pretty clear for me that servitude and 20% taxation began with Joseph. As to how long…that’s a good question.

Anyhow, the lesson that I continue to get out of Joseph et al. is that if God can work with such “primitive” and imperfect individuals, God can surely use us—and we should be able to work with one another even if we have such “severe” differences in theology or values.

We forget that he lived a few thousand years ago.

My first theology professor taught me something that I would call the progression of the knowledge of truth. For example the people in the Old Testament could not be expected to be monogamous, because the truth about God wanting men to live with only one wife was only revealed later. Even a better example is the understanding of the resurrection. If you look at the older books of the Old Testament, you see that there is no mention of the resurrection. In the Psalms the writers did not expect to go to heaven for their righteous reward. All the rewards they expected to get were in this life. For them heaven was a foreign concept. Even Jobs mention of seeing God after he is dead can hardly qualify as a reference to a general resurrection. Any real reference to resurrection did not come until Ezekiel started talking about the dead bones coming to life. And why is this? God did not reveal all the truth at one time, but the truth became known to the people of God bit by bit. The early people of the Bible could not be expected to understand even half the truth that for example the writers of the New Testament understood.

So what could we realisticly expect a gyu like Joseph to know about God. He certainly did not know bout the personal evil, for him divination from the cup could just be anothter form of God talking to him. He would not understand democracy or would not have thought that every man is equal before God. Therefore bringing the Egyptians in to servitude would just mean that he served his master, Pharaoh, well as God would expect him to do. Or that he was shrewd: God blessed him with wisdom. Who says that shrewdnes was not a positive guality for a man of God in such a primitive culture that he lived in. The thing about the foreign wife was a bit more fishy of course..

1. Jewelry - signet ring, et al.: all part of the uniform. Would the people respect him and the office without all that? I don’t think so.

2. Intercultural marriage? Besides the whole “arranged” marriage aspect, I’m sure that after years in prison, any woman might start to look like a blessing?

3. Oppression: you’re making the assumption that these Egyptians weren’t already in servitude to some degree to the king. And who’s to say for how long?

Also, think of what sort of “servitude” Joseph served. He was in charge of Potiphar’s household. Too bad about being framed for rape, though.

4. Not reaching out to his family? Uh, what’s the forwarding address for a tribe of nomads? And then there was the whole “I’m busy saving the entire nation of Egypt” thing he had on his plate.

5. Joseph being clever makes me admire him all the more. [Of course, some missionaries have had the disappointment when they realized their headhunter audiences were admiring Judas in the Passion story . . .]

6. The divination cup - could have been rhetorical. But then again Joseph did have those dreams.

7. What then is forgiveness? To forget and never feel bad ever again? Friend, if you punched me in the face, and then asked for forgiveness - I might possibly forgive you, but then only communicate through e-mail thereafter.

Finally: typology - Joseph and Jesus both having to be “perfect.” Not even Jesus is “perfect” in that sense. Jesus doesn’t get along with his own family; Jesus changes his mind about going to Jerusalem (but shows up anyway); Jesus has harsh words for the religous set (”you snakes!”); Jesus sighs at his disciple’s lack of understanding; Jesus doesn’t always heal; Jesus refers to the Syro-Phoenician’s children as “dogs”; Jesus curses a fig tree, etc.

I’m always grateful, as you seem to be, that biblical figures are presented as real - warts, slaves and all.