HoW TAMAR’S VEIL BECAME JoSEPH’S CoAT 167 13 and an unrelated “long-sleeved garment” that Joseph wears in Genesis 37. Thus, if the thesis presented above is to be maintained, then one must deal with the fact that the meaning “veiling garment” ill fits the context of Genesis 37. This objection is an appropriate one, but it is not without a solution. In this case, however, the explanation is not sociological or even literary in nature. Rather, a close examina- tion of the textual (pre-)history of Genesis 37 and its surrounding ma- terial will demonstrate that the ~ysp(h) tntk that appears in Genesis 37 is probably not original to the text, but likely entered it via a scribal gloss, perhaps with the intention of connecting the Joseph story to the story of Tamar and Amnon. The phrase ~ysp(h) tntk appears three times in Genesis 37. First, in Gen 37,3 Jacob gives Joseph the garment. Second, in Gen 37,23, his brothers strip it from him. Finally, in Gen 37,32, his brothers dip it in blood and bring it to Jacob, who recognizes it as Joseph’s garment and goes into mourning for his presumably dead son. In addition, tntk appears alone (i.e., without ~ysp) five times: once in apposition to ~ysph tntk (Gen 37,23), three times in the description of the brothers’ dipping it in goat’s blood and bringing it to their father (Gen 37,31- 32), and once when Jacob recognizes the garment as that of his son (Gen 37,33). Notably, despite the fact that the garment first appears in 37,3, it plays no real role in the story until 37,23, when the brothers take it from him in order to deceive their father in 37,31-33. The nar- rative opens in 37,3: “Israel loved Joseph more than all his brothers, for he was the son of his old age, and he made for him a ~ysp tntk”. Immediately following this, one reads: “His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and they hated him. They were not able to speak to him peaceably” (37,4). While one could assume that the gift of the ~ysp tntk is the occasion for the brother’s hatred (as many interpreters, both ancient and modern, have), this is never ex- plicitly stated. The narrative could stand just fine without any mention of Jacob’s gift, with Jacob’s “love” itself being the instigating factor. Likewise, later in the narrative one reads that the brothers “took Joseph’s garment (@swy tntk). They slaughtered a male goat, and they dipped the garment (tntkh) in blood” (37,31). When they bring the garment to their father, they ask: “Is this the garment of your son (tntk $nb) or not?” (37,32), to which he replies: “The garment of my son!” (ynb tntk) (37,33). The function that the garment plays in the narrative is to convince Jacob that Joseph has died. The only necessary detail for it to serve this function is that it be recognizable as Joseph’s gar- ment (@swy tntk). The narrative itself in no way requires that this be