When Jacob asked Joseph who the two boys standing beside him were (Genesis 48:9), the question was not about identity. Jacob was old and nearly blind, but he recognized his grandsons. The question was about legitimacy. Were these children born to Joseph within a valid marriage, according to the standards of the house of Israel?
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan gives us Joseph's answer in full: "They are my sons which the Word of the Lord gave me according to this writing, according to which I took Asenath the daughter of Dinah thy daughter to be my wife."
The Ketubah in Joseph's Hand
Joseph, the Targum tells us, produced a document. A written marriage contract. A ketubah — or its ancestral form. He showed his father the writing that proved his marriage to Asenath had been properly contracted.
This is striking. The Torah does not yet mention the institution of the ketubah, which the rabbis would formalize centuries later. But the Targum imagines that some form of written marriage document existed from the patriarchal period — and that Joseph, vizier of Egypt, had the presence of mind to preserve it so that his sons' pedigree could be proved when it mattered.
Asenath Daughter of Dinah, Again
The Targum also reinforces the identification it gave earlier on (Genesis 46:20). Asenath is not the daughter of an Egyptian priest; she is Dinah's daughter, Joseph's cousin. The written contract, in other words, proves both the legality of the marriage and Asenath's Jewish lineage. When Jacob accepts the document and moves to bless the boys, he is affirming that Ephraim and Menasseh are fully of the house of Israel on both sides.
The aggadic tradition preserved in <a href='/categories/midrash-rabbah.html'>Midrash Rabbah</a> at Bereishit Rabbah 97 strengthens the same reading. Jacob refused to bless the boys until he was satisfied about their mother's lineage. Joseph produced the paper. The blessing proceeded.
Why Written Records Matter in Jewish Life
The Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, reaching its final form between the 4th and 8th centuries CE, is the product of a culture that had learned — sometimes painfully — the value of written documentation. In exile, oral tradition could be lost. Marriages could be questioned. Lineages could be contested. A Jew who carried his ketubah carried his family's legal standing with him.
The Talmud (Ketubot 5a) would later rule that a man is forbidden to live with his wife "even for one hour" without a ketubah in force. The reason is not romantic. The reason is protective — especially for the wife and any future children. The Targum retrojects that principle back into Joseph, making him the first patriarch who relied on a document to secure his family's future.
The takeaway is concrete. Keep the paperwork. The written word has protected Jewish families for as long as Jewish families have traveled. Ask Ephraim and Menasseh — whose blessing depended, in the Targum's telling, on a sheet of writing their father had thought to save.