Bible Discussion Thread

OK, I can 't let it go. I cannot but feel sorry for Shechem. OK, maybe he was a little heavy handed in his "courtship " of Dinah, but I think that may have been the custom of the day. The record is silent as to her desires regarding her continued association with him. BUT, he had it bad. He LOVED the lady. He and his father enter into negotiations to make the union acceptable to all. Ultimately, they even agree to have their whole clan undergo circumcision a not so trivial procedure as an adult . That this offer was really a ploy to incapacitate the men of the clan is especially a dirty trick. So poor Shechem, notwithstanding his impatient approach to Dina, having fallen in love, even submits to circumcision the first of his people . There is little to challenge his good faith, nor his people 's, in submitting to this in order to become "one people " with Jacob 's band. As they say, all that they have will be ours, and all the we have will be theirs, and their women can be our wives and vice versa. Good enlightened self-interest and even good for Darwinian increasing the gene pool, not to mention even good for demonstrating the brotherhood of man. But the sons of Jacob would have it otherwise, more interested in avenging their "honor " than in the welfare of anyone, even of their own band.