Prior to the Fourth Century A.D.
G. T. Zervos writes: "The composition of this work must be placed before the sixth- or seventh-century date of the papyri themselves, given that the two different hands represented in A-E indicate that the manuscript to which these fragments originally belonged was a copy of an older original. However, there seems to be ample reason for ascribing the History of Joseph to a substantially earlier period, especially in view of its parallels with the Targums, Joseph and Asenath, and the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs." (The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, p. 468)