Why is Joseph and His Brothers not simply a historical novel?

Joseph and His Brothers is not classified simply as a historical novel because Thomas Mann utilized the biblical narrative as a vehicle to explore deeper philosophical and psychological themes rather than merely reconstructing a past era.1

While the work is grounded in scholarly historical study, it functions primarily as a bildungsroman that reinterprets the story of Joseph as the emergence of individual responsibility from a tribal collective and the transition from myth to history. Mann intentionally infused the narrative with irony, humor, and conscious modernization to create a "myth for his own times".21

Ultimately, Mann’s goal was to define the essential principles of humane civilization and restore a belief in the power of reason during a period of cultural crisis, rather than providing a straightforward historical account.1