Asenath & Zipporah Trivia Quiz

Answer: Joseph

Joseph (Genesis 37) is mentioned as being 17 in the beginning of his story. I'm assuming that he was also 17 when his father, Jacob, gave him his coat, because it is in the same chapter and no other age is listed.

In Genesis 39, Joseph refused to commit adultery/fornication with Potiphar's wife, so she falsely accused him of raping her. Yes, he was put into prison because they thought that he raped her, but really, he ended up in prison because he didn't give her what she wanted. This seems to be a pretty famous story.

A little after he was released from prison, Asenath became his wife (Genesis 41:45).

Now, is it just me, or does it seem that the miserable, wretched, and nameless Potiphar's wife gets more recognition than *Joseph's wife* does?

I will add, however, that "Joseph and Asenath" is a cute story, and the animated movie "Joseph: King of Dreams" (2000) is quite nice as well.

Answer: It doesn't say

The Bible doesn't state how old Asenath was when she married Joseph. The apocryphal tale "Joseph and Asenath" says that she was about 18, though. "Joseph and Asenath" was specifically written to talk about Asenath, because the Bible says so little about her and people wanted to know more about her, even if what it ("Joseph and Asenath") told about her was just imagined. The Bible does suggest that Joseph was about 30 when he married Asenath (Genesis 41:44-57). He died when he was 110 (Genesis 50:26) so 30 was young for him. (Don't get me wrong; I think 30 is pretty young for anyone.)

Her being about 18 and him being about 30: well I guess that doesn't seem too far-fetched.

Apparently, there are people who believe that the New Testament Joseph was 90 when he married a 12 or 14 year old Mary. Now, if that's true, *that* is just creepy! And it certainly isn't anything that we're used to in our cute little Christmas shows.

Answer: On

Her father, Potiphera, was a priest of On. A few versions of the Bible actually translate it as Heliopolis; the cities (On and Heliopolis) are believed to be synonymous.

Canaan was the land where Asenath's husband (Joseph) came from.

Ur Kasdim is a place where Abraham may have been born.

Moab is the place where Ruth (from the book of Ruth) lived.

Answer: No name is given

The Bible doesn't say anything about Asenath's mother. We are told that her father was an Egyptian priest named Potiphera, so the easiest conclusion would be that Potiphera's wife was her mother. Still, even if that's the case, there is no name given to her or any background information.

I decided to include Dinah as an incorrect choice. Dinah was Joseph's sister. Believe it or not, there is a tradition/theory which states that Asenath was actually the daughter of Dinah and her father was Dinah's rapist. The angel Gabriel brought Asenath to Egypt, where she became the adoptive daughter of Potiphera.

I don't believe that, because I believe that Potiphera was her biological father. No offense to anybody who believes the theory.

Jochebed is the name of Moses' mother and Sarai was the original name of Sarah, Abraham's wife.

Answer: False

Genesis 46:20 says that Asenath had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, with her husband, Joseph. So, the question is false.

Genesis 41:50 also says that she had two sons and they were born before the famine came to Egypt. (Their names aren't mentioned in that verse, but they are the same sons in 46:20.)

If Asenath ever had any daughters, the Scriptures don't mention them. Asenath is only, unfortunately, mentioned three times in the whole Bible herself.

Answer: Abraham's

Well, they don't call him "the father of many nations" for nothing, right? Genesis 25 talks about the sons that Abraham had with his wife Keturah. He married Keturah after his first wife, Sarah, died. One of Midian's brothers had a similar name, Medan.

Two of Abraham's most famous sons are Isaac (Sarah was the mother) and Ishmael (Sarah's maid Hagar was the mother) but he had many other children and grandchildren, etc.

Moses was a Levite (Exodus 2:1) which means that he was from the House of Levi. Levi was one of Joseph's brothers.

I decided to include Sodom as one of my incorrect choices, but honestly, there is no actual person named Sodom in the Bible, as far as I know. Sodom was just a city that God said was wicked so He destroyed it. Like Midianite, Levite, etc, one can still use the title Sodomite for people of Sodom, even though it doesn't seem to originate from a single person. A lot of times in certain Christian settings, the term "sodomite" (lower case s) is used to refer to homosexuals; likewise "sodomy" can mean homosexuality. (This is due to the fact that the Sodomites mentioned in Genesis 19 seem to be men who like to do "you know what" with other men.) But I digress...

Enoch is mentioned in Genesis 5 as being the father of Methuselah; Methuselah was the father of Lamech and Lamech was the father of Noah.

Laban was the father of Leah and Rachel (Genesis 31).

Answer: She was his wife.

Oh, Moses is so overrated! Who cares if he led the Israelites out of oppression? Why should we care if he received the Ten Commandments? So what if he wrote the first five books of the Bible! What's the big deal!

Okay, I'm just kidding/being sarcastic above. I actually love Moses.

Moses escaped to Midian after he killed an Egyptian who was hurting a Hebrew slave. While he was in Midian he married Zipporah. Zipporah's father was Jethro, also called Reuel. Moses and Zipporah went on to have two little boys together.

Moses' brother, Aaron, married a woman named Elisheba. Zipporah certainly wasn't Moses' sister-in-law, niece, or daughter.

Answer: True

Sephora is the way it is spelled in the movie "The Ten Commandments" (1956). But the Douay-Rheims 1899 American Edition (DRA) also spells it like that.

Tzipporah is used in the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) and the Orthodox Jewish Bible (OJB); Moses is also spelled as Moshe.

The Revised Standard Version (RSV) uses Zippo'rah.

Asenath has more than one spelling too, including Aseneth (DRA), Osnat (CJB), Asnath (DARBY) and Asenat (OJB).

All of my translation references come from Bible Gateway.

Answer: She had to circumcise their son.

The whole chapter of Exodus 4 is a good read. When it comes to 4:24-25, it's unclear why Moses' son wasn't already circumcised, but apparently God was upset with Moses over it and He almost killed him. Zipporah noticed this and she took out a little knife and circumcised their son by herself. She then threw the skin at her husband and said, "You are indeed a bridegroom of blood to me."

I have a feeling that Zipporah was upset/disgusted for some reason. It's possible that she didn't want her child circumcised to begin with, but I'm sure that she wasn't happy about the fact that Moses was almost killed either. Then again, if she didn't want him circumcised, it's probably her fault that he was almost killed anyway.

Answer: It doesn't really say, but he probably wanted to protect her.

The Bible does, unfortunately, leave us with some unanswered questions at certain times, especially with the cases of Asenath and Zipporah. Even though it doesn't specify why Moses sent Zipporah away, it can be assumed that he didn't really want to part with her. This is because (1) it apparently wasn't just her that he sent away; he sent their sons, Gershom and Eliezer, away too; (2) Moses' father-in-law brought Zipporah and her sons back to Moses and Moses greeted him with a bow and a friendly kiss. Exodus 18:5 says that the two men also asked each other about their welfare.

It's probable that Moses felt that his wife and children were unsafe in the wilderness so he sent them to live with his father-in-law for a while.

One of my favorite scenes in "The Prince of Egypt" (1998) is when Moses, shortly before he saw the burning bush, whispered in Zipporah's ears, "I love you", while she was still mostly asleep.