Manasseh or Menashe () was, according to the Book of Genesis, the first son of Joseph and Asenath (). Asenath was an Egyptian woman whom the Pharaoh gave to Joseph as wife, and the daughter of Potipherah, a priest of On (). Manasseh was born in Egypt before the arrival of the children of Israel from Canaan (). Biblical narrative According to the biblical account in Genesis 41:51, the name Manasseh (given to him by Joseph) means "God has made me forget entirely my troubles and my father's house". Jacob, Joseph's father, adopted Joseph's two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to share in Jacob's inheritance equally with Jacob's own sons (). Manasseh is counted as the father of the Israelite Tribe of Manasseh, one of the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob also blessed Ephraim over his older brother (). Manasseh had a son, Asriel, with his wife; and Machir with his Aramean concubine (). and refer to a son called Jair, who "took all the region of Argob, as far as the border of the Geshurites and the Maachathites, and [who] called Bashan after his own name, Havoth Jair. Biblical criticism In the Biblical account, Joseph's other son is Ephraim, and Joseph himself is one of the two children of Rachel and Jacob, the other being Benjamin. Biblical scholars regard it as obvious, from their geographic overlap and their treatment in older passages, that originally Manasseh and Ephraim were considered one tribe - that of Joseph; according to several biblical scholars, Benjamin was also originally part of this single tribe, but the biblical account of Joseph as his father became lost. A number of biblical scholars suspect that the distinction of the Joseph tribes (including Benjamin) is that they were the only Israelites which went to Egypt and returned, while the main Israelite tribes simply emerged as a subculture from the Canaanites and had remained in Canaan throughout. According to this view, the story of Jacob's visit to Laban to obtain a wife originated as a metaphor for this migration, with the property and family which were gained from Laban representing the gains of the Joseph tribes by the time they returned from Egypt; according to textual scholars, the Jahwist version of the Laban narrative only mentions the Joseph tribes, and Rachel, and doesn't mention the other tribal matriarchs at all. The Book of Chronicles states that Manasseh was married to