Dinah

[Guest pixy]

In the Hebrew the text says literally:

1. He took her

2. He lay with her

3. He defiled her (literally humbled her).

There does not seem to me to be anything mutual about it. It was a forced encounter that left her defiled and humbled

I understand that. But... Wouldn't she have been defiled and humbled also if it was consensual sex?

[traveller]

In the Hebrew the text says literally:

1. He took her

2. He lay with her

3. He defiled her (literally humbled her).

There does not seem to me to be anything mutual about it. It was a forced encounter that left her defiled and humbled

I understand that. But... Wouldn't she have been defiled and humbled also if it was consensual sex?

Absolutely. At that point, unless she married the man who defiled her, she was no longer marriage material.

[Guest pixy]

2) God is not mentioned in this chapter at all, which is a bit odd... Do you think that there is significance in that? Or, would I just be way over-analyzing the whole thing by thinking it's significant in some way? I know that some scholars would compare this to other like passages, where God's name is also absent, and draw some comparisons there, but is that really a valid way to look at this?

Okay... at the risk of over-analyzing, I'm going to attempt to answer my own question here... Various commentaries and footnotes in study Bibles (and I've noticed also), state that God's name seems to be absent in certain places where His wrath is being displayed...

We see this in Genesis, in the latter part of chapter 7, when the flood happens...

Would it be reasonable to conclude then, that chapter 34 is somehow a display of God's fury??

Or, would that just be way overthinking things??

Edited December 29, 2006 by pixy

[Leonard]

The Bible is very honest about even the most horrible deeds of it's "heroes." These sons of Jacob and Jacob himself, had put the morality of God FAR out of their minds. Notice Jacob does not rebuke his sons for their deplorable, vile murders of innocent people, but rather is only afraid for his own hide: "You've made a stench in my neighbor's nostrils." And his answer is not to do right, but to move away! Not until later does he decide the family has to 'repent and do its first works' and go "back to Beth El".

[Guest pixy]

Okay, so, I've been really fascinated by Dinah lately, for some reason, so I've been looking through some Google results... I really can't believe how some people twist scripture around... But anyways, I came across this "children's" version of Genesis, chapter 34:

http://www.alltruebible.com/genesis_34-01.shtml

As you can see, in an effort to "simplify" the story, it ends up being a lot more explicit than the Bible is... This got me to thinking... Should parts of the Bible, such as Genesis, chapter 34, or Song of Solomon be shared with young children?

Like, if I had a pre-school aged daughter, and I was reading to her about Dinah, I'm not sure what I would say if she had questions about it? I wouldn't want to simplify the story to the point where it became a fictional account, and I wouldn't want to scare her either with explicit details... So, I would be more inclined to just skip over that chapter until she was older...

Any thoughts on this??