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Dinah

Female - Yes, date unknown


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  • Name Dinah  
    Gender Female 
    Died Yes, date unknown 
    Notes 
    • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dinah


      According to the «u»Hebrew Bible «/u», «b»Dinah«/b» («u»Hebrew«/u»: , «u»Modern «/u» «i»Dina«/i» «u»Tiberian «/u» «i»Dîn«/i» ; "Judged; vindicated") was the daughter of «u»Jacob «/u», one of the «u»patriarchs «/u» of the «u»Israelites «/u» and «u»Leah «/u», his first wife. The episode of her abduction and violation by a «u»Canaanite «/u» prince, and the subsequent vengeance of her brothers «u»Simeon «/u» and «u»Levi «/u», commonly referred to as "The Rape of Dinah", is told in «u»Genesis 34 «/u»
      «b»The Rape of Dinah
      «/b»Dinah, the daughter of Leah and Jacob, went out to visit the women of Shechem, where her people had made camp and where her father Jacob had purchased the land where he had pitched his tent. Shechem the son of Hamor, the prince of the land, "seized her and lay with her and humbled her. And his soul was drawn to Dinah ... he loved the maiden and spoke tenderly to her," and Shechem asked his father to obtain Dinah for him, to be his wife.
      Hamor came to Jacob and asked for Dinah for his son: "Make marriages with us; give your daughters to us, and take our daughters for yourselves. You shall dwell with us; and the land shall be open to you," and Shechem offered Jacob and his sons any bride-price they named. But "the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and his father Hamor deceitfully, because he had defiled their sister Dinah," saying they would accept the offer if the men of the city agreed to be circumcised.
      So the men of Shechem were deceived, and were circumcised; and "on the third day, when they were sore, two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brothers, took their swords and came upon the city unawares, and killed all the males. They slew Hamor and his son Shechem with the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went away." And the sons of Jacob plundered whatever was in the city and in the field, "all their wealth, all their little ones and their wives, all that was in the houses."
      "Then Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, 'You have brought trouble on me by making me odious to the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites and the Perizzites; my numbers are few, and if they gather themselves against me and attack me, I shall be destroyed, both I and my household.' But they said, 'Should he treat our sister as a harlot?'"
      «b»Origin
      «/b»The 19th century scholar «u»Julius Wellhausen «/u» divided the Dinah story between two origininal texts, the «u»Elohist «/u», which tells of Jacob's purchase of land at Shechem and his erection of an altar, and the «u»Jahwist «/u», telling the rape-and-vengeance story which takes up the bulk of the narrative. Wellhausen believed that the Jahwist's story was designed to cast a bad light on the northern «u»kingdom of Israel «/u», which had Shechem as its first capital, the Jahwist text itself originating in the southern «u»Judah «/u». The brief Elohist account of the purchase of land by Jacob in Genesis 33 represents the northern kingdom's more peaceable account of the origins of Shechem.
      Later scholars have questioned Wellhausen's analysis, often drastically, but the general view is that Genesis does combine originally separate strands and does not pre-date the 1st millennium BC.Post-Wellhausian scholars have suggested two layers of narrative within Genesis 34 itself, an older account ascribing the slaughter of Shechem and to Simeon and Levi alone, and a later addition (verses 27 to 29) involving all the sons of Jacob One contemporary biblical scholar, Alexander Rofé, has suggested that the verb describing Dinah as "defiled" was added at this time also, as elsewhere in the Bible only married or betrothed women are "defiled" by rape; the fact that Genesis 34 is the sole exception suggests that it reflects a "late, postexilic notion that the idolatrous gentiles are impure [and supports] the prohibition of intermarriage and intercourse with them." The anachronistic preoccupation with racial purity indicates a date in the 5th or 4th centuries BC, when the restored Jewish community in Jerusalem was similarly preoccupied with anti-«u»Samaritan «/u» polemics. It is not clear that Dinah was actually raped at all in the original story: the narrative is vague about what happened between Shechem and Dinah (the verb translated as "humbled" or "violated" can also mean "to subdue"), and the older version of Genesis 34 may therefore reflect a custom of abduction marriage.
      «b»Dinah in rabbinic literature
      «/b»The «u»Midrash «/u» (later explications of the bible by the rabbis) provide many further investigations of the story of Dinah, answering questions such as her offspring from Shechem and possible links to later incidents and characters. One implicates «u»Jacob «/u» in Dinah's misfortune: when the Patriarch went to meet «u»Esau «/u» he locked Dinah in a box, for fear that Esau would wish to marry her,but «u»God «/u» rebuked him in these words: "If thou hadst married off thy daughter in time she would not have been tempted to sin, and might, moreover, have exerted a beneficial influence upon her husband" (Gen. R. lxxx.). The rabbis noted that Simeon and Levi had acted rashly in massacring all the men of the city, but pointed out that they were only 14 and 13 years old, respectively, at the time. One midrash told how their father «u»Jacob «/u» later tried to restrain their hot tempers by dividing their portions in the «u»land of Israel «/u», and neither had lands of their own. Dinah herself, widowed by her brothers' action, demanded that Simeon marry her and remove her shame. (According to «u»Nachmanides «/u», she only lived in his house and did not have marital relations with him.) Therefore Dinah's son by Shechem was counted among Simeon's progeny and received a portion of land in Israel, Dinah herself being "the Canaanite woman" mentioned among those who went down into Egypt with Jacob and his sons (Gen. xlvi. 10). When she died, Simeon buried her in the land of «u»Canaan «/u». (According to another tradition her child from her rape by Shechem was «u»Asenath «/u» the wife of «u»Joseph «/u», and she herself later married the prophet «u»Job «/u» («u»Bava Batra «/u» 16b; Gen. R. l.c.).)
    Person ID I61503  Glenn Cook Family
    Last Modified 3 Dec 2009 

    Father Jacob (Isreal) Ben Abraham, King of Goshen,   b. Abt 1892 B.C., Haran Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Abt 1745 B.C., Egypt Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Mother Leah (Lia) bint Laban,   b. Paddan Aram Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. Canaan Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F1799  Group Sheet