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  • From: JimStinehart AT aol.com
  • To: JimStinehart AT aol.com, fournet.arnaud AT wanadoo.fr, George.Athas AT moore.edu.au, b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Eve and the Hivites
  • Date: Mon, 8 Nov 2010 14:51:24 EST


If the Hivites/XW-Y in chapter 34 of Genesis are the Xeba worshppers, then
most of the otherwise inexplicable aspects of chapter 34 become
self-explanatory.

1. Circumcision. Normally men with west Semitic names in Canaan would be
circumcised. Jeremiah 9: 25-26 But Xeba worshippers seem to have adopted
the custom of Heba’s homeland in northern Mesopotamia, where circumcision was
not practiced.

2. Dinah Out and About with the Young Local Ladies. Those local teenage
ladies, being a little older than Dinah, were probably discussing whether to
initiate a Phoenician-style cult of prostitution for the pagan goddess Xeba.
(See #4 below for confirmation.) Dinah had no intention of joining any
such salacious cult, but Dinah was just getting old enough now to begin to be
interested in hearing the teenage girls at Shechem talk about it.

3. Dinah Caught Young Shechem’s Eye. Without realizing it, Dinah, by
being present with, and listening to, the older girls discuss cult
prostitution,
inadvertently signaled to the local males at Shechem that young Dinah
herself was now “available”, despite her tender age.

4. Horrible Word at End of Chapter. The horrible word that Simeon and
Levi use at the end of chapter 34 of Genesis is probably just an
intentionally
harsher, uglier version of the proper word for the situation: “cult
prostitute”. Dinah had been listening to the local teenage girls of Shechem
talk
about instituting a possible cult of prostitution there for Xeba. That meant
that Dinah herself was at some risk of being caught up in that demeaning
and (for a Hebrew) prohibited institution, which in this case would have
involved the notorious pagan goddess Xeba.

* * *

The point is that if “Hivites”/XW-Y means “Xeba worshippers”, then the
rest of chapter 34 of Genesis practically tells itself.

Jim Stinehart
Evanston, Illinois




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