> Why would men with west Semitic names in Canaan be uncircumcised? Because their parents didn’t circumcise them, and they didn’t feel compelled to do it themselves as adults. No big deal.
> Why would Dinah, at such a young age [about 3 years after her father Jacob > had worked his last 6 years for Laban] go “out to see the women of the land”? > What’s the significance of that? And why would young Shechem see such a > young female as being wife material? Humans happen to be social beings, you know. Young women generally like to hang out with other young women. I’ve actually seen it happen myself here in Australia. But I don’t deduce from this that Dinah’s girlfriends were Australian. And obviously Shechem is your average heterosexual male. No surprises about his intentions there. > How do you explain that statement? Young Shechem obviously tried very hard > to make Dinah his wife, even going to the extreme of getting all the men of > Shechem to circumcise themselves, rather than treating Dinah like a > prostitute. Simeon and Levi just might possibly be a little angry that their sister has been sexually abused. End of story as far as I’m concerned. I haven’t looked under every rock, but I’m pretty confident there are no more Hivites about. So, you can rest easy now, Jim. Problem solved! GEORGE ATHAS Moore Theological College (Sydney, Australia) www.moore.edu.au _______________________________________________ b-hebrew mailing list [email protected] http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew
