Dreams are given by God: Joseph's Dreams: Genesis 37:1-10

sealchan · Sep 27, 2018

Joseph has two dreams which get him in serious trouble with his already jealous brothers. Joseph naively volunteers the contents of his dreams to his brothers with seeming ignorance of that impact, or perhaps a lack of empathy due to a sense of entitlement nurtured by his father (who had cause, perhaps, to feel under-entitled during his own life).

These dreams indicate to his family some effort on Joseph's part to claim superiority. But did Joseph ask to have these dreams to justify himself?

I have studied my own dreams and worked with others for several years. In my view, few, if any, people are responsible for the content of their dreams. As such they reflect something important in our psyche and something relevant for our spiritual development. Dreams tend to compensate for the biased attitude of the individual. In this case Joseph's sense of superiority might be seen to have been aggravated by these dreams. For that reason the dreams seem to me the invention of the author with some lack of insight into the true character of dreams.

However, knowing what was about to happen to Joseph, could it be that these dreams served to help lift him up in spite of the depths to which he had fallen?

JoshuaTree · Sep 27, 2018

I interpret dreams.

Kenny · Sep 27, 2018

God does speak through dreams... but I know that some are from the pizza I ate late the night before

2ndpillar · Sep 28, 2018

sealchan said:
Joseph has two dreams which get him in serious trouble with his already jealous brothers. Joseph naively volunteers the contents of his dreams to his brothers with seeming ignorance of that impact, or perhaps a lack of empathy due to a sense of entitlement nurtured by his father (who had cause, perhaps, to feel under-entitled during his own life).

These dreams indicate to his family some effort on Joseph's part to claim superiority. But did Joseph ask to have these dreams to justify himself?

I have studied my own dreams and worked with others for several years. In my view, few, if any, people are responsible for the content of their dreams. As such they reflect something important in our psyche and something relevant for our spiritual development. Dreams tend to compensate for the biased attitude of the individual. In this case Joseph's sense of superiority might be seen to have been aggravated by these dreams. For that reason the dreams seem to me the invention of the author with some lack of insight into the true character of dreams.

However, knowing what was about to happen to Joseph, could it be that these dreams served to help lift him up in spite of the depths to which he had fallen?

Some people talk with God, and some follow the devil. Dreams can be so out of touch with the spirit of Revelation, that the dreamer can eventually be ashamed of his dream (Zechariah 13:4).

sealchan · Sep 28, 2018

2ndpillar said:
Some people talk with God, and some follow the devil. Dreams can be so out of touch with the spirit of Revelation, that the dreamer can eventually be ashamed of his dream (Zechariah 13:4).

Here, I suspect, these prophets' visions are more fantasies sculpted by their conscious desires rather than dreams given them when their consciousness is largely disabled. I think that it would be difficult to determine which dreams are from God and which are not without resorting to one's own understanding of the difference. In Job we are led to believe (and I would argue the same for the Garden of Eden) that God will use individuals with malicious intent to do His will.

Dreams may appear fair or foul. And for God to put Adam to sleep and pull out an Eve...I think we can sometimes experience a mixture of both. That goes for women as well regarding men, of course.

2ndpillar · Sep 28, 2018

sealchan said:
Here, I suspect, these prophets' visions are more fantasies sculpted by their conscious desires rather than dreams given them when their consciousness is largely disabled. I think that it would be difficult to determine which dreams are from God and which are not without resorting to one's own understanding of the difference. In Job we are led to believe (and I would argue the same for the Garden of Eden) that God will use individuals with malicious intent to do His will.

Dreams may appear fair or foul. And for God to put Adam to sleep and pull out an Eve...I think we can sometimes experience a mixture of both. That goes for women as well regarding men, of course.

Primarily, the dream/vision in question (Zechariah 13:4), which is described as shameful, kind of reflects on the following comment of "strike the shepherd and the sheep may be scattered" (Zechariah 13:7), which per Matthew 26:31-35, pointedly refers to Peter. As to shameful behavior, that also points to the holder of the keys to the house of David, Shebna, who represents Peter, who shamed his master's house, and made a place for himself in the "rock" (Isaiah 22:25).

sealchan · Sep 28, 2018

2ndpillar said:
Primarily, the dream/vision in question (Zechariah 13:4), which is described as shameful, kind of reflects on the following comment of "strike the shepherd and the sheep may be scattered" (Zechariah 13:7), which per Matthew 26:31-35, pointedly refers to Peter. As to shameful behavior, that also points to the holder of the keys to the house of David, Shebna, who represents Peter, who shamed his master's house, and made a place for himself in the "rock" (Isaiah 22:25).

I see in Zechariah 13 that the shame emerges from the prophets critique by his parents. But there is the greater authority of the prophet Zechariah himself who assumes that these are all false prophets. The presumption is that the prophets are false but this makes no mention of the source of the prophecies these false prophets spoke. As such it does not speak clearly to the question in my OP.

2ndpillar · Sep 28, 2018

sealchan said:
I see in Zechariah 13 that the shame emerges from the prophets critique by his parents. But there is the greater authority of the prophet Zechariah himself who assumes that these are all false prophets. The presumption is that the prophets are false but this makes no mention of the source of the prophecies these false prophets spoke. As such it does not speak clearly to the question in my OP.

You seem to be confusing "prophesizing" of (Zechariah 13:3), with visions of (Zechariah 13:4). Those that claim speaking for God (prophesizing), would have those who gave birth to him pierce him. Such an example would be the false prophet Paul, who is supposedly speaking for God, and his mother country, Rome, has him killed.

sealchan · Sep 28, 2018

2ndpillar said:
You seem to be confusing "prophesizing" of (Zechariah 13:3), with visions of (Zechariah 13:4). Those that claim speaking for God (prophesizing), would have those who gave birth to him pierce him. Such an example would be the false prophet Paul, who is supposedly speaking for God, and his mother country, Rome, has him killed.

I think that the divergence of our differing interpretations of the Bible may be too much for us to be able to constructively talk on this matter. I have to see Paul as an equally valid source of God's Word as any other author in the Bible.

Hawkins · Sep 28, 2018

One of the categories of the false prophets is the shallow understanding of prophesying. "Prophesying" is typically understood as foretelling which is superficial. There's a kind of protocol for God to communicate with true prophets in terms of passing information more unambiguously. In a certain prospective, foretelling is just the mean of confirming a message.

Acts 14:3 (NIV2011)
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.

This is almost typical of what it is. The "signs and wonders" is not the purpose of what it is. "Signs and wonders" serves the purpose of confirming the message. In effect, humans don't have the capability to foretell the future precisely. A true prophet carrying message from God can foretell precisely because this acts as a confirmation that he actually carries the information from God.

Dreams behave in a similar fashion. The dreamer can be very clear that the dream (or its interpretation) is from God, because a "missing part" can only be located in reality with its "location" foretold. For an example, God wants you to carry or deliver a message about, say, churches. In your dream you saw the character string "cuce" which appeared to by catchy and odd to you. After waking up, the Holy Spirit will keep reminding you the oddity of this character string. At the same time, God wills you to do something related to the churches. You feel very obligated to do an important job God wills to do through the Holy Spirit. Then somehow in reality (not in dreams), you say another character string "hrhs". The Holy Spirit again will draw your attention to the oddity of this string in reality. At this point, you may even try to find someone who specialized in interpreting dreams for advice. But in the end, you somehow figured out that "cuce" are the characters in odd number while "hrhs" are in even number. They thus forming the word "c h u r c h e s". You thus know that 1) the dream is from God, and 2) the task God wills you to do for the churches (or a related message for the churches) is for real.

Prophecies, signs and wonders, dreams all can behave in a similar manner but for information/messages to flow. It is so because, 1) God is an invisible entity and 2) you still need faith to believe in such an invisible God as long as He doesn't show up physically to you.

sealchan · Sep 28, 2018

Hawkins said:
One of the categories of the false prophets is the shallow understanding of prophesying. "Prophesying" is typically understood as foretelling which is superficial. There's a kind of protocol for God to communicate with true prophets in terms of passing information more unambiguously. In a certain prospective, foretelling is just the mean of confirming a message.

Acts 14:3 (NIV2011)
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.

This is almost typical of what it is. The "signs and wonders" is not the purpose of what it is. "Signs and wonders" serves the purpose of confirming the message. In effect, humans don't have the capability to foretell the future precisely. A true prophet carrying message from God can foretell precisely because this acts as a confirmation that he actually carries the information from God.

So by extension, Joseph's dreams and his voluntary sharing of them not only amp up his being hard to endure by his brothers, but they also indicate that since the dreams come true, they are an indication, indirectly, that they are from God, correct?

Hawkins · Sep 28, 2018

sealchan said:
So by extension, Joseph's dreams and his voluntary sharing of them not only amp up his being hard to endure by his brothers, but they also indicate that since the dreams come true, they are an indication, indirectly, that they are from God, correct?

You can say that. Joseph can be so sure actually indicates that there is a similar way for him to confirm whether a dream or an interpretation is actually from God. If Joseph goes wrong, he may get killed. God usually won't risk someone like Joseph this way. That is, God will have a more unambiguous way to indicate to Joseph what to do or say. God cares.

At the same time, the false prophets will be ashamed because they don't have such a "protocol" to confirm a truth!

2ndpillar · Sep 28, 2018

sealchan said:
I think that the divergence of our differing interpretations of the Bible may be too much for us to be able to constructively talk on this matter. I have to see Paul as an equally valid source of God's Word as any other author in the Bible.

And that is a "stumbling block" for you. We are now at the "end of the age" whereas all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness, will be gathered out and burned (Matthew 13:29-42). The major stumbling block is Peter (Matthew 16:23), and the main man of lawlessness is Paul (Romans 7:6). Paul would be the son of the enemy/devil, who sowed the tare seed in the same field as the "good seed" had already been planted (Matthew 13:9 & 13:24-25).

sealchan · Oct 1, 2018

KenS said:
God does speak through dreams... but I know that some are from the pizza I ate late the night before

When I interpret dreams, if I know the person, I help them try to find the trigger from the previous day...some small event that generated some seemingly little emotion that was. let's say, squealched...then it becomes the centerpiece of a dream that night.

What you eat can change your wakefulness and dream recall as well of course. But to reduce a dream to pizza is usually to miss an opportunity for self-knowledge.

sealchan · Oct 1, 2018

2ndpillar said:
And that is a "stumbling block" for you. We are now at the "end of the age" whereas all stumbling blocks and those who commit lawlessness, will be gathered out and burned (Matthew 13:29-42). The major stumbling block is Peter (Matthew 16:23), and the main man of lawlessness is Paul (Romans 7:6). Paul would be the son of the enemy/devil, who sowed the tare seed in the same field as the "good seed" had already been planted (Matthew 13:9 & 13:24-25).

We see through a glass darkly...hard to judge who is stumbling...

sealchan · Oct 1, 2018

JoshuaTree said:
I interpret dreams.

Do Joseph's dreams seem like authentic dreams that you or someone you know might have? Or do they seem a bit crafted for story-telling sake?

sealchan · Oct 1, 2018

If I were to make an improvement on this section of scripture I think that I would link each dream to each of the stories of what Joseph was experiencing as a day before event and flesh the story out a little bit with Joseph's naivete and sense of helplessness.

When you are really on top of your dreams you will notice that often the dream you remember can be seen to be inspired from an event which took place the day before. Something happens and you experience a burst of emotion that is just as quickly squelched by your own psyche's practically unconscious censoring of certain thoughts and feelings. This bottles up a bit of psychic energy which gets released that night in the remembered dream.

So let's "hook up" Joseph's waking world experience with his dreams and see what we get...

Let's put Genesis 37:3-4 and have Genesis 37:9-11 follow it on the night after the same day. Joseph receives a robe from his father that no other child has received. Then Joseph dreams of celestial signs bowing to himself. That Joseph would tell this dream to everyone could signify that he really is clueless about his capacity to be the leader of the family. He might almost be inviting the sort of reproach he has already endured because of his father's preferential treatment of him.

Now let's try Genesis 37:2 along with Genesis 37:5-8. The reporting on bad shepherding along with binding sheaves of grain doesn't quite match up. But we might look ahead to the future and realize this was more of a prophetic dream. I would put this dream second for that reason alone while the first dream was a closer fit and commentary to his receiving the robe.

To augment Joseph's naivete I would have him tell the first dream as scripture has it but I would have him hesitate (but still tell it) for the second dream because Joseph is starting to get a clue...but his curiosity and trust in his second dream (a prophetic one) overrules and he sets up the motivation for his brother's act in resentment.

sealchan · Oct 1, 2018

Hawkins said:
One of the categories of the false prophets is the shallow understanding of prophesying. "Prophesying" is typically understood as foretelling which is superficial. There's a kind of protocol for God to communicate with true prophets in terms of passing information more unambiguously. In a certain prospective, foretelling is just the mean of confirming a message.

Acts 14:3 (NIV2011)
So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to perform signs and wonders.

This is almost typical of what it is. The "signs and wonders" is not the purpose of what it is. "Signs and wonders" serves the purpose of confirming the message. In effect, humans don't have the capability to foretell the future precisely. A true prophet carrying message from God can foretell precisely because this acts as a confirmation that he actually carries the information from God.

Dreams behave in a similar fashion. The dreamer can be very clear that the dream (or its interpretation) is from God, because a "missing part" can only be located in reality with its "location" foretold. For an example, God wants you to carry or deliver a message about, say, churches. In your dream you saw the character string "cuce" which appeared to by catchy and odd to you. After waking up, the Holy Spirit will keep reminding you the oddity of this character string. At the same time, God wills you to do something related to the churches. You feel very obligated to do an important job God wills to do through the Holy Spirit. Then somehow in reality (not in dreams), you say another character string "hrhs". The Holy Spirit again will draw your attention to the oddity of this string in reality. At this point, you may even try to find someone who specialized in interpreting dreams for advice. But in the end, you somehow figured out that "cuce" are the characters in odd number while "hrhs" are in even number. They thus forming the word "c h u r c h e s". You thus know that 1) the dream is from God, and 2) the task God wills you to do for the churches (or a related message for the churches) is for real.

Prophecies, signs and wonders, dreams all can behave in a similar manner but for information/messages to flow. It is so because, 1) God is an invisible entity and 2) you still need faith to believe in such an invisible God as long as He doesn't show up physically to you.

The human psyche has been noticed to do much the same thing so whether this comes from God or the psyche is ambivalent IMO. One is free to consider either source but in either case one's willingness to hold onto the riddle of the "missing part" is all part of the experience either way it would seem.

My own interactions with God have stayed with me...since the day that I was lifted out of my depression after attempting to rewrite Genesis until today when I find my love of scripture persistent over years and my continued motivation to do a sort of creative, literary archeological (mythological) exploration of Genesis. Of course this strikes most believers as heretical, but I think that God has called me to this nonetheless. Believers and non-believers are free to shrug their shoulders and walk away...I won't pursue them and beg for their attention.

2ndpillar · Oct 1, 2018

sealchan said:
We see through a glass darkly...hard to judge who is stumbling...

But it is not hard to know who is "a stumbling block to me" (Matthew 16:23).

Hawkins · Oct 2, 2018

sealchan said:
The human psyche has been noticed to do much the same thing so whether this comes from God or the psyche is ambivalent IMO. One is free to consider either source but in either case one's willingness to hold onto the riddle of the "missing part" is all part of the experience either way it would seem.

No. psyche can't tell the future precisely. A prophet however can tell a future precisely because God wants it so to confirm His message. Dreams, signs, miracles and etc. are only variance of the effect of foretelling.

In the end, it's more about pattern recognition. When you have God's message at hand, you will be able to see how a foretelling comes to pass repeatedly till the point when your double is gone. You can thus foretell repeatedly and precisely till you are persuaded that the message you are holding or your task at hand is from God. It's completely different from the psychic situation.

Dreams are given by God: Joseph's Dreams: Genesis 37:1-10

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