Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Vadim Cherny" <vadimcherny AT mail.ru>]

A threatened woman must cry in town, but not outside it. It seems, the Torah 
presumes any adulterous affair involving a virgin outside camp a rape. Sort 
of the statutory rape in common law.
Dinah brothers' proposition was actually very sensible. Abraham made 
circumcision when he entered the land, thus the rite was very significant 
for the locals. Hebrew law allows marriage in circumstances similar to 
Dinah's.

Vadim Cherny

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "JAMES CHRISTIAN READ" <JCR128 AT student.anglia.ac.uk>
To: <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 19, 2007 11:00 PM
Subject: [b-hebrew] Dinah raped?


Hi Micheal,

this is something I've thought about before in the past.
There doesn't seem to be any linguistic evidence that I've
seen that indicates any element of force. Dinah went to
see him. Not him to Dinah. Also it would take an incredibly
stupid bloke, when approached by a recently victim's brother,
that would believe the proposition 'If you cut your foreskin
off I'll let you marry my sister'.

All things considered the context does seem to indicate
that Dinah was likely just as willing, although, being
Isreal's daughter it is easy to understand why we would
like to believe that Dinah was not a willing party to
the event.