Potiphar’s Wife

“Now Joseph was well-built and handsome”—Genesis 39:7

The history and geography of the Judahite clan of Shelah as portrayed in the Bible and in the extra-biblical Sources.

Potiphar’s wife sets up her friends to learn about Joseph’s beauty for themselves, the hard way, in a story that appears in both rabbinic midrash and the Quran. Sefer HaYashar, a 16^th century midrashic work, dramatizes this story in a way sympathetic to her character, even giving her the name Zuleikha, borrowed from Islamic sources.