ABSTRACT
Biblical scholars have long recognized that the narrative of Genesis 34, telling the story of Dinah and Shechem, raises more questions than it answers. The surface language of the story of Dinah and Shechem tells of the impropriety of mixed marriages, with the added piquancy that while a man marrying outside the kinship group is a matter for regret. Dinah may have been a reluctant conquest, but we are not told. It further carries the message that an unrestrained response to such emotions, such as was pursued by Simeon and Levi in slaughtering the entire male population of the city of Shechem, was not to be countenanced. Genesis 34, according to the common interpretation of Shechem's action as rape, appears to differ from all these versions in that they all deal with a seduction or an episode fired by mutual passion.
