A Uniform Rather than Multicolored Story

The Joseph Narrative in Contemporary Evangelical Fiction

Abstract

The article analyzes representations of Joseph’s masculinity with a focus on Genesis 39, in dialogue with modern biblical scholarship and classical rabbinic literature, and examines five North American evangelical novels (1979–2023). The study argues that the Bible’s ambivalence—including queer inflections and readings of Joseph as a victim of sexual violence—is elaborated and problematized in Jewish traditions but largely flattened in evangelical fiction. These novels privilege a message-oriented notion of biblical fidelity, heteronormative and binary masculinities, and an idealized, near un-traumatized sanctity, with only marginal diachronic change. The conclusion questions the genre’s formative effects and calls for readings that restore Joseph’s “rainbow-hued” complexity, thereby strengthening the text’s ambiguity and critical potential.