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Case file

Tribe of Joseph

Wikipedia's first sentence called it “not usually listed with the hebrew tribes although joseph is one of jacobs twelve sons”. Today it says “one of the twelve tribes of israel”.
Measured, not asserted. Every count, date and revision on this page was taken from Wikipedia's own history and checked against the live article. The words quoted are theirs.
Machine-checked against the full current article on 2026-08-03.
We saved snapshots of this article over twenty years; you are reading the 2005 one. Red dashes: removed from Wikipedia since. Pale dots: rewritten; the numbered note shows what it says now. 1 tap a number or a side note to jump between them
The opening as it read in 2005

Tribe of Joseph is not usually listed with the Hebrew tribes although Joseph is one of Jacobs twelve sons, the eldest of Rachel . It is sometimes referred to as the House of Joseph . Rather, the two tribes founded by his sons Ephraim and Manasseh are listed separately. This is so because, upon his death-bed, Jacob grants the privilege of the Hebrew first-born upon Joseph ( Rachel 's eldest and not to Reuben who is Leah 's eldest). According to Torah law, the first born receives a "double portion" ( pi sh'tayim ) relative to his siblings. Thus Joseph is entitled to two tribes who will have rights to two portions of land in the Land of Israel . This also fits in with the fact that because the Levites do not receive any portion in the land (they are to tend to the service of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem ) that when the Tribe of Levi is omitted, the number of tribes still comes to twelve. See Tribe of Ephraim , Tribe of Manassah .1

This is Wikipedia's own text, saved in our repository. Their copy of it is revision 16198560.
Today
Wikipedia's first sentence called it “not usually listed with the hebrew tribes although joseph is one of jacobs twelve sons”. Today it says “one of the twelve tribes of israel”. Read the current article and compare.
2005201020152020Oct '232025
Counts in the opening at each snapshot. Green: the word gained ground. Red: it was cut. Grey: no change.

What Wikipedia says this is

Every article opens by defining its subject. This one was redefined since 2005, and today's defining sentence is their current revision.

Then

not usually listed with the hebrew tribes although joseph is one of jacobs twelve sons

Now

one of the twelve tribes of israel

Struck red text is no longer in the article; dotted amber text was rewritten. Every revision id links to Wikipedia's copy; the text shown is our own saved copy. Data: /data. Wikipedia text is CC BY-SA; quoted for the record; not affiliated with Wikipedia.

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