ASENETH (Hebrew 'Asenath'; Septuagint 'Aszévé' [in manuscripts of Egyptian origin often 'Aszévé']); Egyptian name: 'ius-n-nt' «she belongs to Neith» [goddess of Sais]). — Wife of the patriarch Joseph, daughter of the Egyptian priest Potiphera (Potifera) of On (Heliopolis), mother of Manasseh and Ephraim (Gen. 41:45–51; 46:20).
In seeking to explain why the Hebrew Joseph, in contrast to later Mosaic Law, had contracted marriage with a foreign woman of another religion, the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan (not earlier than the 7th century) circulated (on Gen. 41:45; cf. Biblia polyglotta of Walton, IV) the legend that A. was the daughter of Dinah, born as a result of the sin of Shechem. The Pirqé Rabbi Eliezer, ch. 38, recounts the legend in developed form (cf. Midrash Yalqut, § 134). With this explanation, A. had become a Jewess, and the scandal of the mixed marriage was removed.
This haggadah was known to Christian Syrians (cf. Sachau, Kurzes Verzeichnis der Sachau'schen Sammlung, p. 7; G. Oppenheim, Fabula Ioseph et Asenethae e libro syriaco latine versa, Berlin 1886, p. 6 ff.).
BOOK OR PRAYER OF A. — Apocryphal work in Greek, variously titled, concerning Joseph and A. (Gen. 41:45). Translations exist in Syriac (6th century), Armenian (before the 11th century), Ethiopic, Slavonic, and Latin (13th century).
Battifol (p. 36 ff.) formulates the common opinion of scholars (E. Schürer, W. Bousset): «Une légende agadique, fixée vraisemblablement au IVe siècle et que l'on retrouve dans le Targum du Ps. Ionathan, dans le Mil-drash de R. Eliezer, dans d'autres compilations rabbiniques — cette légende devenant le thème d'un développement chrétien, dans le goût des légendes hagiographiques post-constantiniennes, vraisemblablement au Ve siècle — telle est la Prière d'A.». It would thus be a Jewish apocryphon later Christianized. According to P. Riesler, the little work was composed in Essene circles. Neither opinion seems well founded. There is no connection with Jewish haggadah, since in our text Joseph marries the Egyptian A. only after she abandons the religion of her country through a true conversion, whereas in the haggadah the mixed marriage becomes possible because A. is not a foreigner but of Hebrew origin (daughter of Dinah). There is thus nothing in common between the two attempts to explain Joseph’s marriage to the Egyptian woman.
The work is of Christian origin, probably of the Byzantine period; it presupposes knowledge of the Septuagint, of liturgical usages of the Church (one prays toward the East, not, as the Jews do, toward Jerusalem), and even employs liturgical language. It is an allegory, probably developed in a monastic milieu. Joseph is a type of Christ, appearing under the form of the archangel Michael. There are evident allusions to the Eucharist, as well as reminiscences of the ascetic and virginal life in the Church.