[b-hebrew] jacob's daughters in Gen. 37:35
Yigal Levin
leviny1 at mail.biu.ac.il
Sat Jun 17 17:15:34 EDT 2006
Hi Doug,
So does the Hebrew. That's just the point. In theory, the reference coud be to daughters-in-law, his sons' wives. Statistically, it would be reasonable for a man with 12 sons to have more than one daughter, but since only Dinah "got into trouble" she's the only one mentioned. But the midrash makes each of those daughters a twin of each of Jacob's sons, and assume that they all married their half-brothers, since, as I wrote, the sons "could not" have married Canaanitesses. In fact, even when Gen. 46:10 specifically says that one of Simeon's sons is "Shaul son of the Canaaitess" the midrash explains that this is actually Dinah, who is called a "Canaanitess" because she had been "taken" by the Canaanite Hamor of Shechem.
As I wrote, I don't think that the rabbis meant for such midrashim to be taken "literally".
Yigal
----- Original Message -----
From: Revdpickrel at wmconnect.com
Hi Yigal,
I checked the Septuagint and it says, all the sons and the daughters. Plural sons and daughters.
Rev. Doug Pickrel, Litt.D.
Tejas Valley
San Antonio, Texas
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