Joseph

Joseph's story is one of the most compelling narratives in the entire Bible — it's got betrayal, false accusations, prison, dreams, and one of the most emotional family reunions ever recorded. He was the eleventh of Jacob's twelve sons, and his father's obvious favorite. Jacob gave him a special coat (the famous "coat of many colors"), and Joseph had dreams suggesting his family would one day bow to him. His brothers did not take this well.

When Joseph was seventeen, his brothers threw him into a pit and then sold him to traders heading to Egypt. They smeared goat blood on his coat and told their father he'd been killed by a wild animal. Jacob was devastated. Meanwhile, Joseph ended up as a slave in the house of Potiphar, an Egyptian official. He did well there until Potiphar's wife tried to seduce him. When he refused, she accused him of assault, and he was thrown in prison.

In prison, Joseph interpreted dreams for two of Pharaoh's servants, and those interpretations came true. When Pharaoh later had troubling dreams that nobody could explain, one of the servants remembered Joseph. Pharaoh brought him in, and Joseph interpreted the dreams as predicting seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh was so impressed that he put Joseph in charge of the entire food storage operation — making him essentially the second most powerful person in Egypt. He was 30 years old.

When the famine hit, Joseph's brothers came to Egypt to buy grain, not recognizing the brother they'd sold years ago. Joseph tested them, messed with them a little (understandably), and eventually revealed himself. The moment he broke down crying and said, "I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?" is one of the most emotionally powerful scenes in Scripture.

Joseph forgave his brothers and brought his entire family to Egypt, where they settled in the land of Goshen. His famous line sums up his entire theology: "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good." He lived to 110 and made his family promise to carry his bones back to the Promised Land when God eventually led them there — which they did, centuries later under Moses.