Joseph's Tomb

Joseph's Tomb (Hebrew: קבר יוסף‎, Qever Yosef, Arabic: قبر يوسف‎, Qabr Yūsuf) is a funerary monument located at the eastern entrance to the valley that separates Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, 325 yards northwest of Jacob's Well, on the outskirts of the West Bank city of Nablus, near Tell Balāṭa, the site of biblical Shechem. Biblical tradition identifies the general area of Shechem as the resting-place of the biblical patriarch Joseph, the eponymous ancestor of the northern kingdom of Israel, and his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh.

Joseph's tomb has been venerated throughout the ages by Jews, Samaritans, Christians and Muslims. Post-biblical records regarding the location of Joseph's Tomb at this site date from the beginning of the 4th-century AD. The present structure, a small rectangular room with a cenotaph, dates from 1868, and is devoid of any trace of ancient building materials. While some scholars, such as Kenneth Kitchen and James K. Hoffmeier still affirm the essential historicity of the biblical account of Joseph, many others, such as Donald B. Redford, argue that the story itself has ‘no basis in fact’.

Modern scholarship has yet to determine whether or not the present cenotaph is to be identified with the ancient Biblical gravesite. No Jewish or Christian sources prior to the 5th century mention the tomb, and the structure originally erected over it appears to have been built by the Samaritans, for whom it was probably a sacred site.

At key points in its long history, Joseph's Tomb has witnessed intense sectarian conflict. Samaritans and Christians disputing access and title to the site in the early Byzantine period often engaged in violent clashes. After Israel captured the West Bank in 1967, Muslims were prohibited from worship at the shrine and it was gradually turned into a Jewish prayer room. Interreligious friction and conflict from competing Jewish and Muslim claims over the tomb became frequent. Falling under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) following the signing of the Oslo Accords, it remained under IDF guard with Muslims prohibited from praying there. At the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, just after being handed over to the PNA, it was looted and razed. Following the reoccupation of Nablus during Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in 2002, Jewish groups returned there intermittently. Recently the structure has been refurbished, with a new cupola installed, and visits by Jewish worshippers have resumed.