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the unusual name that the Pharaoh gave Joseph upon his elevation to being second in command over all of Egypt

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Genesis 41:45:

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"Pharaoh gave Joseph the name Zaphenath-Paneah and gave him Asenath daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, to be his wife. And Joseph went throughout the land of Egypt."

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until recently since the decipherment of the Egyptian hieroglyphic language

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readers of the Bible had no idea what this name meant

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this is why Bibles usually simply transliterate the letters for the reader

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Rabbinic readers understood the name as "breaker of codes"

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this meanings fits nicely with the story of Joseph solving the puzzle of dreams

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St. Jerome

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in his translation of the Bible into Latin, he rendered the term Salvator Mundi, or Savior of the World

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the meaning from the Egyptian hieroglyphic language is a bit more surprising

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the context of the chapter

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Egypt is divided into two parts by the river Nile

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because agriculture was driven irrigation instead of by rain, Egypt could weather droughts much better than its neighbors, especially its neighbors to the north and east

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was considered the "bread basket of the ancient Mediterranean"

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Egypt was a dependable food source

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we have wall paintings from the second millennium BC which show Semites coming into Egypt to escape the hardship of famine that struck their land

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in the Joseph story, it's not only the immediate family of Jacob who comes into Egypt seeking food

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Genesis 41:53-55

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"The seven years of abundance in Egypt came to an end, and the seven years of famine began, just as Joseph had said. There was famine in all the other lands, but in the whole land of Egypt there was food. When all Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh for food. Then Pharaoh told all the Egyptians, "Go to Joseph and do what he tells you."

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the line that must have drawn Jerome's attention was the line, "all the earth came to Egypt to Joseph to buy grain"

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the universal thrust of Joseph's good deed

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the Bible begins with an account of the downward trajectory of humankind

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the fall of Adam and Eve

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the slaying of Abel by Cain

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the rise of violence that will lead to the sending of the flood

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the generation that builds the Tower of Babel

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it appears the God has failed to manage mankind as a whole, but he does not despair

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in Chapter 12 he embarks on a new strategy

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he chooses one man, Abram, through whom he will begin his grand project of restoration

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the call of Abram, Genesis 12:1-3

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"The Lord had said to Abram, Go from your country, your people and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you."

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the key sentence is the pledge of salvation for all the world

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the entire world has been delivered by the actions of this single man

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Joseph becomes the savior of the world

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this note of universalism is important to sound

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many Christian readers of the Bible carry with them an unstated assumption that the chosenness of the Jewish people is at its core a primitive, chauvinistic, and ethnocentric concept

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what makes the Jews so special, many have asked

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in order to counter this prejudice, it's important to see the universal stage that the Bible provides at least initially

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paradoxically, the universal theme carries with it a few dangers as well

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we say in effect that the only role for the Jews is to be a conduit of blessing for others

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there is nothing intrinsically good, then, about the Jewish people that exceeds this utilitarian function

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we can avoid these errors by attending to the meaning of this last verse:

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"through you all the people of the Earth will be blessed."

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"to bless", in the reflexive state

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the nations of the world will bless each other

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Abraham and his progeny become examples

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if we take the verb in this reflexive sense, the specialness of Israel is immortalized

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the second meaning

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Israel will mediate God's blessing to all the nations of the world

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as Joseph did this during the famine in Egypt

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both of these interpretations should be affirmed

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God loves the Jewish people for their own sake, not simply what they can do for others

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God loves the Jewish people unconditionally simply for who they are

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but at the same time God plans to save the world through their agency