What if dinah is not raped? (genesis 34)

Journal for the Study of the Old Testament

Volumn 19, Issue 62, 1994, Pages 19-36

  Bechtel, Lyn M ^a  

^a Moravian Theological Seminary   (United States)

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EID: 84902633183     PISSN: 03090892     EISSN: 14766728     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/030908929401906202     Document Type: Article

References (71)

1. For the categories of individual-orientation and group-orientation, see M. Douglas, Natural Symbols: Explorations in Cosmology (New York: Pantheon, 1970).
2. Most analysis of Gen. 34 proceeds on the assumption of rape: S.R. Driver, The Book of Genesis (London: Methuen, 1904)
3. J. Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1930)
4. G. von Rad, Genesis (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961)
5. E.A. Speiser, Genesis (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964)
6. J.H. Otwell, And Sarah Laughed: The Status of Women in the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1977)
7. C.M. Carmichael, Women, Law, and the Genesis Tradition (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1979), pp. 33–48
8. R. Davidson, Genesis 12–50 (London: Cambridge University Press, 1979)
9. S.A. West, ‘The Rape of Dinah and the Conquest of Shechem’, Dor le Dor 1 (1980), pp. 144–151
10. W. Brueggemann, Genesis (Atlanta: John Knox, 1982)
11. M.M. Caspi, ‘The Story of the Rape of Dinah: The Narrator and the Reader’, Hebrew Studies 26 (1985), pp. 25–45
12. M. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative: Ideological Literature and the Drama of Reading (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985)
13. ‘Biblical Poetics and Sexual Politics: From Reading to Counter-Reading’, JBL 111 (1992), pp. 463–488
14. C. Westermann, Genesis 12–36 (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1985)
15. R.B. Coote and D.R. Ord, The Bible's First History (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 167–171
16. D.N. Freedman, ‘Dinah and Shechem: Tamar and Amnon’, Austin Seminary Bulletin: Faculty Edition 105 (1990), pp. 51–63
17. S.P. Jeansonne, The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar's Wife (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), pp. 87–97
18. S.A. Geller, ‘The Sack of Shechem: The Use of Typology in Biblical Covenant Religion’, Prooftexts: A Journal of Jewish literary History 10 (1990), pp. 1–15
19. I.M. Rashkow, ‘Hebrew Bible Translation and the Fear of Judaization’, Sixteenth Century Journal 21 (1990), pp. 217–233
20. I. Sheres, Dinah's Rebellion: A Biblical Parable for our Times (New York; Crossroad, 1990)
21. D.N. Fewell and D.M. Gunn, ‘Tipping the Balance: Sternberg's Reader and the Rape of Dinah’, JBL 110 (1991), pp. 193–211.
22. My definition of rape is a composite of the work of T. Beneke, Men on Rape (New York: St Martins, 1982)
23. L.B. Bouque, Defining Rape (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1989)
24. S. Brownmiller, Against our Will: Men, Women and Rape (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975)
25. S. Griffin, ‘Rape: The All-American Crime’, in D. Chappell, R. Geis and G. Geis (eds.), Forcible Rape: The Crime, the Victim and the Offender (New York: Columbia University Press, 1977)
26. C.V. Horos, Rape (New Canaan, CT: Tobey, 1974)
27. S. Tomaselli and R. Porter (eds.), Rape (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986)
28. P.R. Sanday, Female Power: Male Dominance: On the Origin of Sexual Inequality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981).
29. Bouque, Defining Rape, p. 15.
30. For general boundary issues see R.J. Lifton, Boundaries: Psychological Man in Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1967).
31. See L. Rowlett, ‘Inclusion, Exclusion and Marginality in the Book of Joshua’, JSOT 55 (1992), pp. 15–23.
32. See N. Steinberg, ‘Alliance or Descent? The Function of Marriage in Genesis’, JSOT 51 (1991), pp. 45–55.
33. Those not assuming rape: N. Ararat, ‘Reading according to the “ESeder” in Biblical Narrative: To Balance the Reading of the Dinah Episode’, Hasifrut 27 (1978), pp. 15–34
34. Y. Zakovitch, ‘A Survey of the Literary Study of the Bible in Israel’, Newsletter of the World Association for Jewish Studies 20 (1982), pp. 19–38.
35. W. Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1951), p. 719.
36. See L. Bechtel, ‘Shame as a Sanction of Social Control in Biblical Israel: Judicial, Political, and Social Shaming’, JSOT 49 (1991), pp. 47–76.
37. See D.N. Freedman (‘Dinah and Shechem: Tamar and Amnon’, pp. 51–63)
38. Freedman (‘Dinah and Shechem: Tamar and Amnon’, p. 54) finds consensual sexual relations here and in Deut. 22.28–29.
39. Driver, The Book of Genesis, p. 303.
40. See D. Daube, ‘The Culture of Deuteronomy’, Orita 3 (1969), pp. 27–52, for a discussion of this phrase.
41. Sternberg, Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 446–447
42. Jeansonne, The Women of Genesis, p. 92
43. Rashkow, ‘Hebrew Bible Translation’, p. 226
44. In contrast, Fewell and Gunn (‘Tipping the Balance’, pp. 19597) recognize the extraordinary quality of these verbs.
45. See L. Bechtel, ‘Rethinking the Interpretation of Genesis 2–3’, in A. Brenner (ed.), Genesis (A Feminist Companion to the Hebrew Bible; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1993) for the use of dbq.
46. P. Trible, Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984), p. 67.
47. Jeansonne (The Women of Genesis, pp. 93–94) observes the incongruity of rape for such an honorable man, as well as the incongruity of his not apologizing or expressing remorse.
48. Westermann (Genesis 12–36, p. 534) interprets bth (trust) as modifying Simeon and Levi rather than the city folk.
49. See further, E.F. Campbell, ‘Shechem (City)’, IDBSup (Nashville: Abingdon, 1976), p. 821.
50. E.g. Sternberg, Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 445–475.
51. Westermann (Genesis 12–36, p. 534) states that Shechem is paying to atone for his crime.
52. See P. Bird, ‘Images of Women in the Old Testament’, in R.R. Ruether (ed.). Religion and Sexism (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1974), pp. 41–88
53. ‘Harlot as Heroine: Narrative Art and Social Presupposition in Three Old Testament Texts’, Semeia 46 (1989), pp. 119–139
54. C. Newsom, ‘Woman and the Discourse of Patriarchal Wisdom: A Study of Proverbs 1–9’, in P.L. Day (ed.). Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1989), pp. 142–160.
55. Cf. Speiser (Genesis, p. 265), who suggests that those who ‘go forth’ may be defenders of the city who participate in the city council.
56. Sheres (Dinah's Rebellion, pp. 6–7) maintains that ‘going out’ entails a process of ‘self-discovery’
57. Cf. von Rad, Genesis, p. 332
58. Sternberg, The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 449, 471.
59. Pointed out by Geller, ‘The Use of Typology’, pp. 2–3.
60. I.e. the ‘bridegroom of blood’ in Exod. 4.26. For a discussion of primitive circumcision, see H. Eilberg-Schwartz (The Savage in Judaism: An Anthropology of Israelite Religion and Ancient Judaism [Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990]).
61. Westermann, Genesis 12–36, p. 540.
62. Skinner, Genesis, p. 419.
63. See also Carmichael, Women, Law, and the Genesis Traditions, p. 33.
64. Brueggemann, Genesis, p. 278.
65. Caspi (‘The Story of the Rape of Dinah’, pp. 30–32)
66. Rashkow (‘Hebrew Bible Translation’, p. 230) claim that the vengcance is justified because Simeon and Levi are only paralleling the actions of Shechem.
67. Brueggemann (Genesis, p. 276) proposes, ‘The response of the sons of Jacob (vv. 13–17) is one of religious zeal, but not an unreasonable zeal’.
68. Sternberg (Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 446, 472–73, 468
69. For example, Speiser (Genesis, p. 267) declares that ‘Jacob is presented in an unimpressive light’.
70. Von Rad (Genesis, p. 332)
71. Sternberg (The Poetics of Biblical Narrative, pp. 448, 473–74.