[Avodah] Ahab

[Ilana Elzufon via Avodah]

RBW: Whatever Yosef and Moshe did, that wasn't good enough for Yitzhaq and
Yaacov, who dafka had to marry family. Locals were out.  So my original
point remains: For at least some of the Avot, it wasn't simply patriarchal
descent.

The specific problem was marrying Canaanites. Yosef married an Egyptian,
and Moshe a Midianite.

The problem with marrying Canaanites was not necessarily that they weren't
Jewish (whatever "Jewish" meant at that stage - Abrahamic monotheists).
There are various other problems. The curse. The fact that this would have
muddled the promise of the land to Avraham, Yitzhak, and Yaakov and their
descendants davka as part of the brit - rather than their having some claim
on the land as the result of marrying into Canaanite families. The presence
of a large local Canaanite clan of ovdei avodah zarah in-laws and the risk
of being assimilated into such a clan or being unduly influenced by their
values and culture. (Yaakov had such a problem with Lavan, but he was able
to physically pick up and leave and establish a border between them. This
would have been much more challenging had Lavan lived in Eretz Canaan.)

By the generation of Yaakov's sons the small family had become a somewhat
more extended clan, so this may have been less of a problem by that stage.

- Ilana
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