Sex lives of the Ancient Near East--plus a bonus complaint about the church. CFM through the HB 3/13

An ambiguous sex story

In Genesis 34:2 it’s clear that Shechem, son of Hamor has sex with Dinah, daughter of Israel. 

What isn’t clear is whether the sex was consensual. The NRSV reads “he seized her and lay with her by force,” But the “by force” part of the verse is actually a third Hebrew verb, which the KJV translates “and defiled her,” which only implies that Shechem’s act brought uncleanliness upon Dinah, not that he raped her. It’s an important question, since if Dinah has been raped, Jacob has a strong family obligation to act swiftly in protection of his daughter. But if the act is consensual, he has an obligation to act with compassion in the situation. Perhaps that’s why Jacob “held his piece” in verse 5.” 

Theologian Lyn M. Bechtel, writing in the Dictionary of Women in Scripture, sees two primary pieces of evidence that the sex was consensual. First, unlike the majority of other cases of rape in scripture, this instance is not coupled with other acts of violence perpetrated by the male counterpart. Instead, verse 3 says “his soul was drawn to Dinah, daughter of Jacob; he loved the girl, and he spoke tenderly to her.” He also follows an accepted and transparent protocol for soliciting her marriage. Second, at the end of the chapter, the sons of Israel identify what they see as the main issue, saying “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” Whores in the ancient near east were sex workers who, depending on the context, played a legitimate role in society. They were active sexual solicitors, and the word “whore” didn’t imply victimhood. 

But the sons of Israel don’t act with the careful reservation of their father. Instead they trick the Shechemites, insisting that they undergo the rite of circumcision before entering into an exchange of wives that would connect the families of Israel and Shechem forever. On the third day after circumcision, Israel’s sons murder the Shechemite men when they are most vulnerable. 

Let’s unpack this a little more. Israel–the person and the people–has been chosen by God as his people. They have been isolated from Abraham’s ancestral lands by generations. They have been promised a great inheritance, including the land of Canaan, vast posterity, and global influence. They have entered into covenants with God which have made them peculiar amongst other peoples in the area, and their nomadic lifestyle has certainly made it difficult to establish connections with groups outside the tribes. 

Dinah is perhaps the only example so far of the children of Israel seeking to build relationships with other communities in the Levant. Genesis 34:1 says that she “went out to visit the women of the region.” I’m going to go with the assumption that she has consensual sex with Shechem. There are certainly insights to be had based on the other assumption, but I find this one highlighting an extended theme of connection in Dinah’s story: She initiates a connection to the local community outside of the family of Israel which could be the start of a promising relationship between peoples. She offers Israel a solution to the problems of isolation brought out by their lifestyle and their peculiar status with God. And the sons of Israel screw it all up by tricking and murdering the Shechemite men. 

What opportunities do Israel similarly screw up today out of disdain for the world? The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fancies itself a “peculiar people.” We are covenant keepers who should not shrink from how our covenants make us special. But I fear that sometimes in our zeal to not be “of the world” we separate ourselves so much from the world that we further isolate ourselves and limit our ability to be a force for good in the world. 

But there’s a more grave error in the actions of Israel in this story. They use the terms of covenant as a weapon against the Schechemites. Just when the Shechemites are at are most vulnerable, having made the extremely intimate and personal decision to enter into a covenant relationship with Israel, Simeon and Levi murder them in cold blood. I think we need to be extremely careful about how we gatekeep with and weaponize the covenants that make us a peculiar force in the world. 

Two Themes on Biblical Womanhood

The story of Dinah is not the only story of a strong female character mistreated in this week’s reading. The story of Tamar in Genesis 38 carries similar themes–though it’s distinct enough for its own deep consideration. I’m tired, and even my thoughts on Dinah above are just a fragment. But there are two things that are becoming increasingly clear about the Biblical narrative so far in my study: 

1. Women play a narrow role in the culture, their worth tied directly to their ability to produce posterity and serve as binding links between families. 

2. Biblical matriarchs take sometimes drastic measures to seize full control over their narrow social roles. These actions often take the form of questionable moral decisions, but the Lord seems to be behind them, even when they act in ways that modern readers would find inappropriate. 

I think we need to be careful how we judge their actions, even when it seems clear that they are behaving badly by our standards. 

Gatekeeping CES

This week the church published a to-this-point confidential list of questions that are directed to ecclesiastical leaders of every prospective CES employee who is a member of the church. These mandatory questions were put in place by Church Education Commissioner Clark G. Gilbert*. 

These questions are very weird to me and I have questions about two of them in particular. 

One question reads, “Does this member have a testimony of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and of its doctrine, including its teachings on marriage, family, and gender?” The church’s teachings on “marriage, family, and gender” are literally the only church teachings asked about by name in the questions. My question, which isn’t new, nags ever harder at me, is this: Is the church’s anti-LGBTQ teachings really the hill we all must die on? More and more it seems like it is the most important thing, according to church leadership–a topic that is not in the scriptures at all. At this point, if I were applying to teach at a church school, I wouldn’t qualify. I think the church’s teachings on gender are entirely bogus. I like some of our stuff on marriage and family, but I get the sense that what this is referring to is the church’s opposition to marriage equality, something I also think is stupid beyond belief to hang on to so fiercely. I don’t know, it’s just very frustrating that in addition to all the harping we get about how we need to fight tooth and nail against the LGBTQ agenda, it’s now a locked gate between potential educators and the BYUs. 

Another question reads,

• Has this member demonstrated an exemplary and extended pattern (at least one year) of avoiding pornography?

• (For staff and administrative candidates, the standard is at least 90 days.)

Is it really okay for your employer to ask about the last time you viewed porn? Is it really okay for bishops to share details like this with CES administrators that were given to them under ecclesiastical confidence? And, sure, I get it, porn is bad. But then why is there a lower standard for administrators than there is for faculty?

Anyway, these questions really annoy me, so bear with this complaint into the void. 

*He was already on my bad side ever since he took over the College of Language and Letters Pre-Professional Conference at BYU-Idaho when he was a new president and I was a student there. In his keynote address at that conference he proceeded to tell us all that our humanities-focused majors weren’t good enough without supplementation because, according to his own statistics, salaries for our degrees could be up to 10% less than those of other majors. It was annoying, unsupported denigration of subjects I love.