ASENETH (Hebr. ʾĀsēnath; Septuagint ʾAσενέθ [in manuscripts of Egyptian origin often ʾAσεννέθ]; Egyptian name: ʾivs-n-nt “she belongs to Neith” [goddess of Sais]). — Wife of the patriarch Joseph, daughter of the Egyptian priest Putifar (Potiphera) of On (Heliopolis), mother of Manasseh and Ephraim (Gen. 41:45, 51 f.; 46:20).
In an attempt to explain why the Hebrew Joseph, in contrast to the (later!) Law, had married a foreign woman of another religion, the Targum of Ps. Jonathan (not earlier than the seventh century) disseminated (in Gen. 41:45; cf. Biblia polyglotta of Walton, IV) the legend that A. was the daughter of Dinah, born as a result of Shechem’s sin. The Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer, chap. 38, recount the legend in an expanded form (cf. Midhrāf Jalqūṭ, § 134). By this explanation A. had become Jewish, and the scandal of the mixed marriage was removed.
This haggādāh was known to the 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 f.).
BOOK OR PRAYER OF A. — An apocryphon in the Greek language, bearing various titles, concerning Joseph and A. (Gen. 41:45). Translations exist in Syriac (sixth century), Armenian (before the eleventh century), Ethiopic, Slavonic, and Latin (thirteenth century).
Batiffol (p. 36 ff.) formulates the opinion most commonly held by scholars (E. Schürer, W. Bousset): “An agadic legend, probably fixed in the fifth century and found in the Targum of Pseudo-Jonathan, in the Midrash of R. Eliezer, and in other rabbinic compilations—this legend becoming the theme of a Christian development, in the manner of post-Constantinian hagiographic legends, probably in the fifth century—such is the Prayer of A.” It would therefore be a Jewish apocryphon subsequently Christianized. According to P. Riessler, the little work was written in Essene circles. Neither opinion seems well founded. There is no connection with the Jewish haggādāh, because in our text Joseph marries the Egyptian A. when she abandons the religion of her country through a genuine conversion, whereas in the haggādāh the mixed marriage becomes possible because A. was not foreign but of Jewish origin (Dina’s daughter). Thus there is nothing in common between the two attempts to explain Joseph’s mixed marriage with the Egyptian woman.
The work is of Christian origin, probably from the Byzantine period; it presupposes knowledge of the Septuagint and of the liturgical practices of the Church (prayer is directed toward the East and not, as among the Jews, toward Jerusalem), and even employs its liturgical language. It is an allegory, probably developed in a monastic milieu. Joseph is a type of Christ, who appears in the form of the archangel Michael. There are evident allusions to the Eucharist, as well as reminiscences of the life and virginal asceticism of the Church.