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Asneth Jones (1786-1867)


From a site on cartes-des-visites:

A portrait of Asneth Jones of Winchelsea, a carte-de-visite published in 1867 by R. B. Thorpe, 110 High Street, Rye. (The christian name Asneth was also spelt Asseneth or Asenath) Asneth Jones (born c1786) had acquired local celebrity status because she had sat on the knee of the Methodist preacher John Wesley during his visit to Winchelsea in 1790. John Wesley (1702-1791) preached his last open air sermon at Winchelsea on 7th October 1790. Asneth Jones died towards the end 1867 at the age of 84.

At the base of the card itself, it says:

In the year 1790, the Rev. John Wesley preached at Winchelsea his last outdoor Sermon, and was the guest of Mr Jones, Asneth’s father. The chair is the one in which Mr Wesley sat with Asneth on his knee and is always considered as the Preacher’s Chair.

I wonder where the chair is today. I did a quick google in case it had come up for auction, but no luck (lots of cool old chairs called the preacher’s chair, though).

Curious about her name, Wikipedia tells me:

Asenath is a minor figure in the Book of Genesis. Asenath was a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman. She was the wife of Joseph and the mother of his sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. There are two Rabbinic approaches to Asenath: One holds that she was an ethnic Egyptian woman that converted to marry Joseph. This view has her accepting the Lord before marriage and then raising her two sons in the tenets of Judaism. This presents her as a positive example of conversion, and places her among the devout women converts. The other approach argues she was not Egyptian by descent, but was from the family of Jacob. Traditions that trace her to the family of Jacob relate that she was born as the daughter of Dinah. Dinah was raped by Shechem and gave birth to Asenath, whom Jacob left on the wall of Egypt, where she was later found by Potiphar. She was then raised by Potiphar’s wife and eventually married Joseph.

A bit of old history and a bit of old, old, old history.

December 7, 2022 — 8:47 pm
Comments: 6