Dear Dinah,
You were a victim of rape, not the first in Genesis but the
first where your violation is explicitly named as such rather than justified as
the giving of a slave or servant to a man to act as a baby machine for him.
The language in the early part of the passage sums up the
messed up way in which abusers talk on occasion. He rapes you and then says he
loves you and talks tenderly to you.
This is classic abusive behaviour and has a contemporary
ring to it.
You obviously felt the shame of everybody knowing what had
happened and discussing it. It must have been awful for you, particularly in a
culture where honour was everything.
With regard to your father’s view of the proposal given it
seems that religious purity was more important than what had happened to you. I
get that feeling through the circumcision.
The actions of your brothers is on one hand understandable
but on the other highlights how these things spiral when revenge is taken.
The women and children who were taken were most probably
abused too. This is awful too.
It seems that in different ways both your brothers and Shechem
were expressing their masculinity and women suffered as a result.
I think this is a very contemporary problem which is the
root of much oppression and pain in modern contemporary society too.
People talk about biblical values but the more I read of
the bible it seemed that what was going on in the early chapters of Genesis is
just as f*****d up as today and many of the same problems exist. This is one of
the reasons why I think it is so important that we rediscover the bible and
what it really says because we can use it to show how society continues to make
the unacceptable mistakes of the past.
This chapter can be used to show that survivors are in the
bible too & highlight the way in which abusers can use manipulative
behaviour and that the response of revenge can cause more problems and
suffering for women as a result.
No comments:
Post a Comment