Stories of Joseph revolves around an analysis of a Judeo-Arabic retelling of the story of Joseph titled The Story of Our Master Joseph the Righteous. It is not surprising that the story captivated the attention of both Jewish and Muslim communities, such that the Judeo-Arabic tale under investigation enjoyed wide popularity. After all, the entire final third of Genesis, Chapters 37–50, tells the tale of Joseph. And, in the Qur'an, an entire surā (chapter) bears his name. Like Abraham and Moses, Joseph exhibited an upright, resilient character that served as a model for the Prophet Muhammad, who would himself face tribulations and prevail. Rooted in the midrashic tradition, yet at the same time adapting Islamic material from qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā‘ (Stories of the Prophets) literature, this narrative, as Marc S. Bernstein's comprehensive examination demonstrates, is paradigmatic of cross-cultural intertextuality evidenced in the Judaic and Islamic scriptural and exegetical traditions surrounding the figure of Joseph.

The Joseph story interweaves elements from both Jewish and Islamic cultures. Surviving in many manuscript collections and found throughout the Arabic-speaking world, the Joseph tale, as Bernstein notes, “constitutes a broad palimpsest of literary allusions to Jewish traditions from the Bible onward, woven together in the form of a romance with Joseph cast as a hero” (27). At the same time, the story incorporates a great deal of Islamic material. Although “it exhibits a high degree of Islamic influence, so much so that it appears to be largely an adaptation of a Muslim text,” by rejecting certain motifs and using Hebrew script, Bernstein argues, it retains its independence.

Bernstein's text is divided into two major parts, the first of which consists of a translation of the story based on several nineteenth-century manuscripts. He provides ample annotations that signal important parallels to scriptural and exegetical material in both Jewish and Islamic traditions. Part 2 is devoted to a close reading of the narrative not only in light of the biblical and Qur'anic accounts of the story of Joseph, but also in view of the vast corpus of legendary literature about Joseph in both traditions that has accumulated over the centuries. For this purpose, Bernstein bases his study on a Karaite manuscript from Cairo, copied in 1836 and now housed in the Karaite Collection of the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California. For purposes of clarification and comparison, he utilizes several other manuscripts and two printed editions, one published in Baghdad in 1914 and another in Tunis dating from 1910. Rarely straying from a literal rendition, and only doing so for purposes of clarity or style, Bernstein's translation attempts to make the tale available to a modern audience, but does so in a manner that preserves the distinct voices that blend in unison. Moreover, his scrupulous, heavily annotated translation in and of itself is a praiseworthy achievement.

Anyone who is familiar with both the biblical and Qur'anic accounts of the Joseph cycle will find The Story of Our Master Joseph the Righteous exceedingly engaging in the way in which it stitches together various motifs from both traditions. Bernstein highlights these motifs by introducing readers to extrascriptural sources such as midrash, the qiṣaṣ al-anbiyā‘ (Stories of the Prophets), and tafsir or Qur'anic interpretation. The second part of the book focuses on the two major subplots of the narrative—Joseph's relationship with his brothers and his interactions with the wife of Potiphar.

Unlike in the Genesis account, there is no mention of the special tunic that Jacob gave to Joseph as a sign of his special status vis-à-vis his brothers. Its absence seems to reflect the rabbis' sensitivity to the role that Jacob's preference may have played in the brothers' behavior. In our Judeo-Arabic retelling, Joseph's two dreams appear to be the sole motive behind his brothers' maltreatment. Their hatred stems from the transparent interpretation of the dreams and not from Jacob's preferential treatment of their younger brother. In the Qur'an, the only indication of the brothers' resentment of Joseph is in their own perceived treatment of him and Benjamin: “It is clear Joseph and his brother are more beloved by our father than we, even though we are a sizeable bunch” (Q: 12:8). Islamic exegetes, however, include the two dreams, and indeed one involves the tunic.

Bernstein claims to draw on a wide range of fields from comparative religion, folklore, Semitic philology, and literary theory. Although the extent to which he engages these various fields is at times limited, for the most part, he integrates philological techniques within a comparative literary framework in order to call attention to, and perhaps enrich our understanding of, the mechanisms involved in the transfer of cultural artifacts.

Bernstein also draws on psychoanalytic theory. For example, Joseph's dreams in the Joseph story parallel those recorded in the Bible and in Islamic tradition. According to Bernstein, these childhood dreams of future superiority may be caused by Joseph's insecurity and precarious state as a motherless child. The dreams of self-aggrandizement present a reversal of his position vis-à-vis his brothers, suggesting that in the future they will bow down to him. Bernstein also notes that Jacob's denial of the dream in Genesis 37:10 “manifests a reversal of the ‘anxiety of influence’ according to which the sons must do battle with the father. Reading the enigmatic conclusion to the dreams thusly, we sense the father's disquiet at the prospect of being surpassed by the son. This would constitute, in effect, the paternal side of the Oedipal struggle whose roots might lie in the competition between the father and son for the affection of Rachel” (175). Intriguing as this inquiry into the psychoanalytic aspect of the dreams may be, it does little to explain the rendition found in the Joseph story, which displays no indication of “Jacob's possible Oedipal tergiversation vis-à-vis Joseph.” When Joseph tells his first dream to his brothers and father, we read, “[When] they heard his dream, all of them treated it seriously because they understood [from it] that he would rule all of them and it would be their destiny to bow down to him.” And when Jacob hears the second dream, he says to his son, “There is no doubt but that you will attain a high station and all of us will come and kiss your hands; but do not let them know, for your brothers will rely upon this. O son, do not make me have to urge you to take care of yourself” (57).

At times, the second half of Bernstein's book reads like a commentary, and at other times, it uses several motifs to highlight the interweaving of various traditions. This can sometimes present the reader with a disjointed analysis of the Joseph story. Furthermore, as has been amply stated here, and all the more so in the monograph, one of Bernstein's objectives is to detect “the pattern of borrowing that ensued in Jewish and Islamic works” in order “to better understand the nature of the byways, or ‘the subterranean passageways,’ along which these narrative elaborations traveled” (139). That is all well and good, but more often than not, these passageways remain dimly lit and difficult to traverse. This is not meant as a criticism of Bernstein's work, but rather as an acknowledgment of his impressive undertaking. Overall, his careful analysis of the relationship between the Joseph story and other sources yields many insights, and should be considered an important contribution among the works dealing with the intercultural intersections and possible areas of symbiosis between Judaism and Islam.