168 HEATH DEWRELL any sort of “special” coat. In short, unlike in the Tamar narrative, the fact that Joseph’s garment is specifically a ~ysp(h) tntk ultimately plays no real role in the story. If this fact (i.e., that the identity of the @swy tntk as a ~ysp(h) tntk is an extraneous detail) were the only reason to be suspicious of its presence in the story, then one would still have little reason for ques- tioning its presence here. However, there is also highly suggestive, text-critical evidence that the original narrative did not include this detail. In Gen 37,23b, MT reads: wyl[ rXa ~ysph tntk ta wtntk ta @swy ta wjyXpyw “They stripped Joseph of his garment, ~ysph tntk, which was upon him”. Here, somewhat oddly, the garment is named twice: once as simply “his garment” (wtntk ta) and then again immediately afterward as ~ysph tntk ta. The LXX, however, reads: evxe,dusan to.n Iwshf to.n citw/na to.n poiki,lon to.n peri. auvto,n. “They stripped Joseph of to.n citw/na to.n poiki,lon which was upon him”. That is, LXX apparently lacks “his garment”, present in MT, and only translates ~ysph tntk. There are three possible explanations for the variant: (1) the ancestor text of MT and LXX read only ~ysph tntk ta, and MT has glossed the phrase with wtntk ta. This seems unlikely, though, as no new information would be provided by the gloss. Would anyone have needed to have it explained that “~ysph tntk, which was upon him” was indeed “his garment”? (2) The ancestor text of MT and LXX read both wtntk ta and ~ysph tntk, and LXX has omitted the for- mer, either intentionally, to eliminate a redundancy in the text, or unin- tentionally, committing a haplography occasioned by homoioarcton. This is a possibility that cannot be ruled out, but I believe that there is a better explanation, namely: (3) The text originally read wtntk ta, but a later scribe, intentionally or not, altered this phrase to ~ysph tntk, creating a textual variant. This variant would then represent the Vorlage of LXX. MT, however, represents a conflation of the original reading and the variant. The original reading is no longer attested in any textual witness, but can be inferred from the combined evidence of LXX and MT. In sum: (original reading) wyl[ rXa wtntk ta @swy ta wjyXpyw (scribal alteration; LXX Vorlage) wyl[ rXa ~ysph tntk ta @swy ta wjyXpyw (conflation of the two; MT) wyl[ rXa ~ysph tntk ta wtntk ta @swy ta wjyXpyw