Thomas Manns tetralogy, Joseph and His Brothers, written between 1926 and 1942, is an excellent "historical and psychological exploration" of sacred texts, which, recounted in Mann's smiling and sublimely tedious tone, instantly cease to be sacred: God, who in the Bible exists for all eternity, becomes in Mann's work a human creation, the invention of Abraham, who brought him out of the polytheistic chaos as a deity who is at first superior, then unique; recognizing to whom he owes his existence, God cries: "It's unbelievable how well that dust-dumpling knows Me! I'm starting to make a name through him! Truly, I'm going to anoint him!" But above all: Mann emphasizes that his novel is a humorous work. The Holy Scriptures making us laugh! As in the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife: crazy with love, the woman bites her tongue and then pronounces her seductive lines lisping like a baby, "thleep with me, thleep with me," while the chaste Joseph, day after day for three years, explains patiently to the lisper that they are forbidden to make love. On the fateful day, they are alone in the house; she starts up again, demanding "thleep with me, thleep with me," and he yet again patiently, pedantically explains why they must not make love, but as he explains he gets hard, harder, my God he gets so superbly hard that Potiphar's wife is driven mad by the sight; she rips his garment off him, and when Joseph runs away, still with his erection, she- demented, desperate, enraged-howls and shouts for help, accusing Joseph of rape.

Mann's novel won universal respect; proof that profanity was no longer considered an offense but was henceforward an element of customary behavior. Over the course of the Modern Era, nonbelief ceased to be defiant and provocative, and belief, for its part, lost its previous missionary or intolerant certainty.