He Said, She Said
This is Part 4 in a 5-Part Series on the Bible and the Me Too Movement.
Trigger Warning:
This 5-part series on the Me Too movement contains biblical descriptions of rape, sexual assault, and violence, which may be triggering for survivors.
Joseph was one of the youngest sons of Jacob, but through a series of unfortunate events, he had been sold into slavery to Potiphar, the captain of the palace guard and high-ranking official to Pharaoh (the King of Egypt).
After several years of proving himself very capable, Potiphar gives Joseph authority over his entire household. Unfortunately, however, Joseph had not only caught the attention of Potiphar, but also the unwanted attention of Potiphar's wife.
"She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible. One day, however, no one else was around when he went in to do his work. She came and grabbed him by his cloak, demanding, 'Come on, sleep with me!' Joseph tore himself away, but he left his cloak in her hand as he ran from the house.
When she saw that she was holding his cloak and he had fled, she called out to her servants. Soon all the men came running, 'Look!' she said. 'My husband has brought this Hebrew slave here to make fools of us! He came into my room to rape me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream, he ran outside and got away, but he left his cloak behind with me.'" (Genesis 39:10-15)
If that doesn't describe a textbook case of sexual harassment, I don't know what does! But, interestingly enough, in this situation, you have a woman in a position of power over a man. Although Joseph was in charge of the household and had quite a bit of authority, he was also a foreigner and a slave, so he was in a position of vulnerability for sure; it's not like he had the option of quitting his "job". And not only was he being sexually harassed, but when he wouldn't comply with her demands, she falsely accuses him of attempted rape! When Potiphar hears her version of events, he is furious, and he has Joseph thrown in prison.*
According to wiktionary.org, "he said, she said" is when you have:
"conflicting reports from two or more parties on an issue, prototypically involving a situation between a man and a woman with no other witnesses."
When looking at Old Testament law, you sometimes have to look at the spirit of the law to fully understand the intention behind it. In the book of Deuteronomy, in the context of a woman who is raped out in the countryside where there were no witnesses (i.e. - a "he said, she said" situation), the woman's testimony that she had been raped was to be taken as true and trustworthy, and the man would be held accountable for rape, because "it must be assumed that she screamed, but there was no one to hear and rescue her out in the field." - Deuteronomy 22:27. In other words, in the absence of physical proof or witnesses, a woman's testimony was to be believed.
That is a far cry from today's standards where the burden of proof is always on the victim, and the victim frequently isn't believed, sometimes even when there is a significant amount of physical evidence or witnesses. There are plenty of examples of situations in our country where there is a repeated pattern of behavior and multiple victims who come forward and yet, time and time again, it is brushed off or covered up, allowing the behavior to continue.
Why, in the Bible, was the benefit of the doubt always given to the victim? I think it's because God knows and understands the tremendous amount of courage required to come forward and speak up about what has happened, particularly when the perpetrator is in a position of power and authority. ... There may have been "no one in the field to hear her screams" ... but, rest assured, God had heard them.
That puts a tremendous amount of weight on the victim's testimony; the penalty for rape in the Old Testament was death, so it was not an accusation to throw around lightly. There is a tendency today to label any type of unwanted sexual encounter as "rape", but in our current legal system, there are different degrees of sexual assault (1st degree, 2nd degree, 3rd degree); to use the term "rape" when it doesn't meet the legal criteria of rape is to falsely accuse someone of a crime they didn't commit.
Unfortunately for Joseph, in this situation, it would make sense (especially based upon the relationships and the power dynamic involved) that Potiphar and his servants would take the word of Potiphar's wife and assume he had tried to rape her, but make no mistake about it, Joseph was the victim in this particular story. There are few characters in the Bible who were more victimized than Joseph, and he was victimized by both men and women: he was bullied and betrayed by his older brothers; left for dead; sold into slavery at 17; sexually harassed by his female "employer"; falsely accused of rape; imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit; and overlooked for the work he had done - all within the first 20 or so years of his young adult life.
But with God, your circumstances or experiences do not define you; God does! Historically, Joseph is never described, perceived, or remembered as a victim, and after a very difficult 15-20 years of vulnerability and victimization, God puts him in a position to be the second most powerful person in Egypt. You may have been victimized, but in God's eyes, your story isn't over yet; you are more than a "victim" ... you are, ultimately, a "victor"!
© I Lift My Voice, 2022.
* One of the things I find so fascinating about this story is how often Joseph is described as "successful", even while being enslaved and imprisoned. At that point in his life, Joseph hardly had the kind of life we would be plastering all over social media and describing as "successful", but, apparently, God has a different definition of "success" than we currently do!
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