One snip later, the men are in no condition to fight when the boys burst in, slaughter the men of the village and rescue their sister. Jocob’s sons tell the prince that to marry their sister, he and all the men of the city have to be circumsised, and the moron agrees to this. The Bible tells us that Dinah get’s kidnapped and raped by a prince, He then goes to her family, admits that he kidnapped her and raped her, and that she’s a good lay so he wants to marry her now. So that’s fine, it’s what happens next that bothers me. I’m no Biblical scholar, but considering what “he knew her” is code for, it makes sence to me that “visiting the women” was referring to something along the line of midwifery. We are told in Genesis 34 that Dinah was “visiting the women of the land” which the novel interprets as Dinah acting as a midwife, which I think was a good move. The story is quickly taken over by her brothers, and then Dinah is never mentioned again. You can find more biblically acurate information from a kids cartoon.ĭinah’s story is found in Genesis 34. Really? These women were naming their kids stuff like “maybe now my husband will love me” and you expect me to believe that they got along and were happy little sister wives? Nope, not buying it.

In the novel, Leah and her sister Racheal scheame together to both marry Jacob. So right out of the gate Dinah is established as an unreliable narrator, and it gets worse from here. It is narrated (and I used that term loosely) by Dinah, the only daughter of Jacob mentioned in the Bible.ĭinah starts the story with her mother, Leah, meeting her father, Jacob, for the first time.Įvents she obviously couldn’t have seen, but is narrating nonetheless.

The novel tells a fictionalized version of Genesis 28-49. They may have been bronze age nomadic shepherds living in tents, but I hold this as proof that they were an advanced society! Freed from physical labor, they would relax and enjoy the company of only other women. The Red Tent refers to an ancient Jewish practice where the women of a tribe would be isolated from men during their time of the month. “If you want to understand any woman you must first ask about her mother and then listen carefully.”ĭo I need to warn about a spoiler alert? Can you really spoil a Bible story?

The red tent bible story