As Prof mentioned in class, there are parts of the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, that portray very different stories and ideas than we normally associate with the Bible. For those of you who haven’t read Genesis 34 I will provide a brief summary. Here is the link if you want to read the full story though:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+34
Genesis 34 is the story of Dinah and the Shechemites. Dinah, the daughter of Jacob, is raped by Shechem, the son of the Hivite ruler of the region. Shechem falls in love with Dinah, and goes to Jacob and Dinah’s brothers with the hopes of marrying her. Jacob does little to object, but Dinah’s brothers are furious and decide to trick Shechem and avenge their sister. They agree to let Shechem marry Dinah on the condition that Shechem and his father have all of their men circumcised. Two days after all of the men are circumcised and are still recovering, two of Dinah’s brothers attack the city and kill all of the men. They proceed to sack the city and take Dinah away. When Jacob expresses dismay at the brother’s actions and fear of repercussions, the brothers reply “should we have treated our sister like a prostitute?” What is more, in Genesis 35, it is stated that God protects the family from neighboring towns as they flee.
I was initially puzzled by the lesson that this story seems to convey. Rape is clearly condemned by God in this case, but does that mean that massacre and looting are endorsed as acceptable repercussions? This seems to go against many of the other morals in the Bible, most importantly the Ten Commandments which state “though shalt not kill.” In addition, the Old Testament and the New Testament represent God in very different ways. The Old Testament God is vengeful and harsh, while the New Testament God tends to be forgiving and loving towards his people. What accounts for these glaring discrepancies between different parts of the same religious text, and how can they still represent one cohesive set of religious views?
While reading the bible, it is important to keep in mind how the Bible came to exist. The theory of divine authorship asserts that the various books in the Bible were the word of God transmitted through and written by a human prophet. The 39 books chosen to be part of the Torah and Old Testament, and the 27 books chosen to comprise the New Testament are only the 66 most universally accepted books out of many more circulated writings. This full list wasn’t officially set forth until over three hundred years after the death of Christ. Although the list resulted from centuries of religious reflection, it is clear that some books were purposefully chosen and some were deliberately excluded. Whether or not you believe in the idea of divine authorship, this fact alone shows that the Bible may not be as representative of the whole of Christian writings as we often perceive it. It is also important to note the long time span between when the Old Testament and New Testament writings were authored. This could account for the dissimilarities in the portrayal of God in these two sections.
Although faith plays a large role in how you interpret religious writings, I think that evaluating how these writings came to exist is important to consider just as is evaluating your sources in scholarly works.
http://www.biblica.com/en-us/bible/bible-faqs/how-were-the-books-of-the-bible-chosen/
You mention Jacob feared repercussions for his son’s actions. Perhaps the story is meant to show that the men of Shechem should have similarly feared repercussions from God or, put in a more religiously neutral way, that these men should have taken more responsibility for their actions and either atoned for the rape or, at the very least, not have allowed themselves to be tricked into the lion’s den, so to speak, left in a very vulnerable state amidst men that they should have seen as enemies, as they eventually caused their deaths. In other words, whereas it may appear that God is elevating the severity of rape over that of killing an entire village of men, he might actually be elevating the severity of doubting God’s existence (that is, via the men’s lack of fear for their punishment and consequential lack of atonement) over that of killing these men. “Thou shalt not kill” is indeed a commandment, but “I am the Lord thy God” is commandment number one. Of course, only one of these men was guilty of the initial crime of rape, but perhaps the rest are just as culpable for their lack of atonement, since they all knew what Shechem had done. Alternatively, maybe Shechem and his father’s sincere attempt to make peace by offering an intermarriage deal was atonement enough and rather it is Jacob’s sons who should fear repercussions from God for deceiving these men who meant to make peace. Finding the right moral message in this story of course has a lot to do with whether or not we see God as vengeful or benevolent, as you say, which is definitely complicated by the lack of unity in the corpus of written biblical material that we see today. What does seem clear is that nobody acted completely rightly in this story, save perhaps for Jacob, though even he seemed to show little care for the rape of his daughter. If you’re a Hobbesian, you might simply say that this story is yet another example of men acting wrongly in the bible, proof that God (or some manifestation of him on earth) must constantly intervene in the affairs of men to make things right.