Welcome to the We Are More podcast. My name is Alyssa.

And my name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about

all things faith and feminism. We believe that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy.

I'm working late because I'm a singer. Just that line has been stuck in my head so thoroughly

all day. I think you've at least quoted it probably 15 times this morning because I'm working late because I'm a singer. I've heard that song so many times lately. Yeah. It's everywhere.

Really all of her music. That's all I've been listening to.

I know. And now it's on the Dunkin' Donuts commercial too. Is it? Because she has a shaken espresso there.

That makes sense. I saw, a TikTok or something. It was like, I have to get her credit. I haven't heard the word espresso in about five years. Yes.

Hallelujah.

Oh my gosh. Or express oh, no.

I can't. Especially. Especially. I can't say that. I I can't even say it.

Especially. I hate that. There are certain things. Like, I'm I'm big on grammar, but there's certain things that I just can't I can't even look past. I my brain can't function.

Like, when people say could of instead of could apostrophe v e Mhmm. Like, could have.

Mhmm.

When people say could Of. Of.

There are certain things that I say that I just will not change about myself, like the the big the big box store. How do you say it?

I'm gonna need more than that.

The big the big store with the pizza and the hot dogs and the chicken. Costco. Yeah. That's not how everybody says it. Yes.

Everybody says Costco. You say Costco. I say Costco because that's how it should be said.

There's first of all, there's a t in there. You sound pretentious. Costco.

Yeah. You sound like a loser.

It there's a t in there. And second of all, you say the o like it's an a. Costco. Costco. Costco.

Costco. You're in

need of it. Going. Costco. What do you want from there? Chicken.

At Costco. Costco. No. I'm not. I'm going to Costco to get my rotisserie chicken and one slice of cheese pizza and a cookie.

Frankly, that's exactly what I'm going to get. If, we're having a Costco open in less than a month. Yeah. Really close by. And I'm very excited, super pumped.

Mhmm. And once it does open, I will go there, and I will go to the Costco, and I will get one rotisserie chicken and one slice of cheese pizza and one cookie, and I'll be happy about it.

I'm going to Costco, and I'm getting a sample of everything.

Not everything. Sometimes the samples are bad. Sometimes.

And then you have to throw open the trash cans that are sporadically, you know, throughout the aisles.

Sure. They have this chair, though, I really want. People are I've seen it on on the TikTok, but I also saw it in the actual store. And people are calling it the reading chair because it's this, like, fleecy sort of white chair.

Yeah. And it's almost the size of a chair and

a half, but not quite. And then it's got it's kind of round. It's got this beautiful ottoman.

Yeah. And it just looks

like the best chair to just curl up in and read a book.

Do it. Buy it. Get it.

It's not that expensive. I wanna say it's, like, 3 or $400

is not terrible. That's cheaper than my contacts. Get it.

A lot cheaper. It's, like, half the price of your contacts. So who knows? Maybe I'll maybe I'll get a chair in the near future. Get it.

So we left off last week on a cliffhanger. Did we? Oh. Yes. Which We did.

What are we gonna talk about today? You'll never know.

Frankly, we didn't know until recently. So Yeah. You're welcome. For us. But I do wanna put a little bit of a trigger warning on this episode.

We're gonna be talking about one of the women of the Bible that went through some really traumatic stuff. Mhmm. Attack and violence and Assault. Assault. Yeah.

Yeah. So if you are uncomfortable with that in any way, shape, or form, feel free to go back through our many other episodes if you just wanna spend some time and hear our voice. We've been inappropriate and a little crazy on some of those other episodes, but, I mean, feel free to pick and choose which one.

This one just might be a little bit triggering if that's something that you have dealt with or struggle with or anything like that because her story is it's tough. It's a tough one.

Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of. So it's about Dinah Mhmm. And her story is in Genesis. So Old Testament women kinda had it rough.

Not that New Testament women really had it any better. But Not

that women now have it that much better.

That's true. But just like Old Testament stories are wild.

Yeah. So we're gonna be talking about her story, and she's not in our Christian Bible a whole lot. Mhmm. She there is a chapter in Genesis that talks about her, and she's mentioned a couple of other times here and there. But she's actually mentioned in the Torah a bit Mhmm.

And then also the Septuagint. So Brie and I were talking about this earlier. What's really interesting is as we study our religion and see how it overlaps with other faiths

Yeah.

And see that, like, the characters in our Bible are the same as in the Jewish religion,

are some

of the same ones as are in the Islam religion. You know?

And, like, seeing that. Interesting to hear the same story spun different ways. Yeah. You know? Like, the way that our our NLT version of the Bible is saying it is different than the book of Judith Right.

Which I've never read before

Yeah.

Until today.

Yep. So we're gonna talk through some of that and and bring in some different versions of her story. We're also gonna talk through possibly the weirdest version of a story that I've ever read. We've talked about the book All the Women of the Bible before. We've referenced it as kind of, like, our jumping off point for a lot

of the women that we talk about. Yeah. It just has, like, a massive list of all of the women mentioned in our Bible. Mhmm.

Like a glossary almost. But then it has another portion of it where the author kind of does, like, a fictional portrayal of the women, kind of bouncing off of their biblical story. But, with Dinah, I'm a be honest with you, he did a bad job. He It's really bizarre. Think it's a man.

So we're gonna talk about that version of it as well. But I think let's start with her biblical story. I'm gonna say if this is triggering for you, this would be the moment to click over to a different episode.

Mhmm. I recommend the one about Deborah. She's a good time. And if you're not triggered by DENT PEGS, then it's fine.

If you are triggered by DENT PEGS, that's not the way to go. So Dina's story and if you haven't heard it, don't feel weird about that because I had not ever heard her name. And when I mentioned her to my husband earlier, he's like Who? What?

Because when I hear the name Dinah, I think of a cat. Me too. Isn't there, like, some kind

of weird story? Or maybe it was

a little golden book about a cat named Dinah? I think there's a little Alice in Wonderland. Yeah. Her cat's named Dinah.

Her cat's name is Dinah.

Okay. That's where I got it from. Yeah. I knew it was somewhere

Yeah. The depths of my mind. So was mentioned a few times, but the main part of her story is in Genesis 34. And it's kind of the whole chapter. She takes up the whole chapter.

But, essentially, because I I don't super wanna read, like, a whole chapter of the bible too.

Why not? It's reading rainbow.

And after that has drug up some memories for all you millennials. Butterfly in the sky. Stop it.

I can fly twice as high. Take a look. It's in the book. Reading rainbow.

We're gonna get copyrighted again. Again, this is

Not with that version of the song. It was truly bad. They're like, that's okay.

So she the the basics of the story, I would encourage you to go read it in whatever translation you prefer, but I'm looking at the NLT right now. And, basically, her story is that she was the daughter of Jacob and Leah. Now Jacob had 12 sons who went on to be the 12 leaders of the tribes of Israel.

I feel like it's easiest to recognize him as, you know, Joseph who had the coat of many colors.

Mhmm.

It's his dad.

I'm a be fully honest with you. Not a big fan of Jacob. Jacob kinda seems like not a great dad

No. In my opinion. Hot take.

I don't know. I mean, any story that you hear about Jacob and it's tough. The stories in the Bible are tough because you hear about like, god spoke directly to Jacob.

Mhmm.

As you read through this, God God is speaking directly to Jacob. So Jacob had some relationship with God, and yet you hear these stories about him with Rachel and Leah, with his sons, with Dinah. You'll hear about it in

a second. He's not the best dude. I mean, it really just shows you that God can use anyone. Yeah. Just anyone.

And if you feel like maybe you're trash, just read just read the Bible and realize you're not that bad. Encouragement is bananas. There's worse.

So, anyway, so, Dinah is, I believe, his only daughter and certainly the only daughter of Leah who had six of Jacob's sons. According to tradition, Leah had prayed for a girl. She really, really wanted a girl, and this was her last child. She finally has a girl, and Dinah goes when she's an adult or it doesn't give her exact age, but When she's oldish. Older.

She goes to visit some of the women in her area. Mhmm. Goes to hang out, and she is kidnapped by I'm gonna butcher a bunch of names. Okay? I this is not my forte.

Listen.

I'm only here to judge you.

Thank you. Anyway, so I'm gonna I'm gonna say his name is Shechem. I could be fully wrong. I could be fully wrong. Shush.

But that's what we're going with. That's his name today.

We could call we could give him a nickname.

Shush. Shush. No. We're not doing that because What

a piece of shush.

Well, you're not wrong. So he was the local prince in the area. Now Jacob and his family were, like, traveling, so they weren't necessarily settled in a particular area at this point. And so they were in this area, and the local prince was Shechem, and the land was also called Shechem. And the prince found Dinah Mhmm.

And assaulted her. Now according to some traditions, she became pregnant from that, but that's not actually featured in our Protestant bible. So after he did that, it says that he fell in love with her,

which based on, like, reading the rest of the story, I don't know how much he fell in love with her as much as he obsessed over her.

Yeah. Kinda wanted to control her, maybe, control the situation. Mhmm. Now the bible the NLT version does say, but then he fell in love with her. But you do have to ask the question of, like, what does fall in love with her mean Yeah.

When you've known her for three seconds?

And it doesn't say that she fell in love with him. It absolutely doesn't. That's the thing.

Right. So it says he tried to win her affection. So he's still keeping her hostage.

Mhmm.

Mind you. Like and, again, you have to question what love means because in my mind, love does not mean Control. Attack and then keep her locked in a room. Right. So he tries to win her affection, and then he sends his father to Dinah's father, Jacob, to try and get Jacob to allow him to marry her.

So Jacob heard what happened. He heard what actually happened. Yep. Where did it go, Jacob? Yeah.

Jacob, not just not the best. Just not the best. Okay? Now this probably was not an uncommon occurrence at the time. So Jacob didn't do anything about it right away.

His sons were out in the field working, whatever, and he waited until his sons came back. And once they came back and found out what happened, and Shashem's father is, like, discussing this with them, whatever, trying to get them to agree to let Dinah marry Shashem. The brothers were shocked and furious. Now I wanna know, and this isn't necessarily important to the story, but Jacob, not shocked and furious. It does not say that he's shocked and furious.

The brothers are. I think something important to note is you may not think that Jacob is a bad guy in this situation because he didn't react, but not reacting is bad. Mhmm. Not doing anything when you see that something is wrong is bad. Mhmm.

In a way, you're complicit. Yeah. In a way, you're allowing not just this to happen, but the next thing to happen.

Mhmm.

Because you don't deal with the situation at hand. When you allow bad behavior to happen once, you allow it to happen the second time.

Mhmm.

And I think that's what I see a lot in our world today is when you don't stand up against wrong once. Mhmm.

Because it it's not affecting you. Right. So you don't do anything. But that's not how we as Christians should behave Right. In my opinion.

And in this story, we see, Dinah's brothers

are furious. They are reacting. They wanna protect their sister. They wanna step in. Now don't, like They're not the best.

They're not the best.

Keep in mind they sold their brother.

Yeah. Let's remember. These are the same brothers that I actually don't know where in the story, Joseph Yes. Because these are the same brothers that either have or will later sell Joseph into slavery. So, like, this is not a great family.

Okay? Like, you don't wanna be in this family.

There's some there's some drama.

Lots of drama. Save.

This is this is not a full house family. No. This is not where

you wanna be. Plus, like, Rachel and Leah are a disaster. Things are not going well here.

I mean, does anything ever go well with sister wives?

I don't know. Probably not. I mean, you've seen the show.

I've seen the show. So

so what happens is Shisham's dad is trying to, like, talk things down. He's like, no. She he's really in love with her. Really. Like, really.

Yeah.

He loves her. Let him marry her. And, also, if you let him marry her, we'll here's what we'll give you. Mhmm. And so he is, you know, he's making the deal.

This is Shark Tank now. He pretty much says, like, anything you want. I'll give you anything you want. Yep. We'll let you live here.

You can settle here. You don't have to just roam the lands anymore.

Mhmm.

And then we start trading in women, which, of course, at the time Yeah. We always do. He says, we'll give you our daughters to marry. You can give us your daughters to marry. We'll become one people.

Because at the time, women are property. Right.

And you can have our cattle. We'll have your cattle because, again, women are the same as cattle in this situation, unfortunately, and the lands will be ours together. Mhmm. Like, they're basically offering them the moon and stars just so that he can marry this girl. Right?

Mhmm. This is a lot. This is quite the big ask. So Jacob is sitting there like, well well, maybe. But the brothers are not satisfied.

Mhmm.

But it's pretty hard to say no to this because this is everything that they could want. Right?

Mhmm. Stability, safety, numbers, and someone in a higher up position in power is coming to you and demanding this of you almost. Right.

It's hard to say no at that point. They also say, the father says, whatever dowry or gift you demand, I'll pay it, which is interesting because, normally, the girl's family would pay the dowry.

Mhmm.

So it's it's a little bit of role reversal there. They're essentially begging for her Yeah. Which is very interesting. Like, we don't get

a lot of her story. Who was she? She was great, I guess.

I mean, she must have been amazing. Right? But you do have to ask that question. Who who was this wonderful, incredible woman that inspired this? Now, obviously, this was about control.

There was, like, there was that aspect of it. But behind it, there was an incredible woman. Mhmm. There was an incredible woman that sparked a whole series of events that happens from here.

Well, also, I mean, like, she also had the love of her brothers. Keep in mind, her brothers are kind of crazy.

Mhmm. But but She had earned that.

Yeah. Her brothers cared about her. They didn't just say, you know what? That's fine. We'll just take what we want out of this.

Fantastic.

Right. Right. So then, again, this is quite a long chapter, and I would encourage you to read it because it's it's a really it is a hard story to get through, but it is a really interesting story.

Mhmm.

So it says, but since Shechem defiled their sister Dinah, Jacob's sons responded deceitfully. So they're sneaky.

Right? As we know about them.

We do. They're sneaky sneaker tins. They are. And so they said they're and I wanna know, did they have to, like, go back into a secret room and, like, discuss this? Or are they, like, mind melding amongst are they, like, you and me?

And they just glanced at each other and they're like, alright. Here's what we're gonna do.

Each other a one click. Yeah. You can't say me, but I'm winking.

Wink, wink. Okay? But here's what they do. So they say, we can't possibly allow her to marry you because you're not circumcised, and it would be an affront to our sensibilities. It would be horrible for us if she married you because you and all of your people are not circumcised.

And at this time in the Jewish faith, men had to be circumcised. Now at this time in the Jewish faith, boys were circumcised as babies. Right?

Mhmm. You're

not talking about full grown men getting circumcised. So they basically say, like, that's the thing that's standing in the way.

Also, no numbing. No numbing.

No numbing. Ow. And so the father

Mhmm.

Takes this back to his son and is like, this is what they're saying. You can't marry her because because you're not circumcised. And he's like, well, let's do that then. Think this through. Okay?

Not just him, though. Not just him. Every man Right. In that area. So

Hashem and his father now have to go to, like, the high council or whatever and say, okay. In order for me to marry this girl that I've decided I'm in love with Mhmm. We all have to get circumcised. All of us Yep. Have to agree to this.

Now there there's, like, positives for the whole community, I guess, which are All the girls. That's what it is. It's it's now there's more women, and that's unfortunate. I mean, I don't know I don't know how to get around that. This whole story is about women as currency.

Yeah. Which old testament. Yeah.

I mean yeah. But this man somehow manages to convince an entire community of men to have their junk sliced into. And I just wanna know Oh. What kind of manipulation he had to do to get that to happen. Did they all line up?

I don't know. Like, what doctors did they find to do this? They just go Chomp. Chomp. Chomp.

Like, no numbing. There's no way there's enough certified medical professionals. What's going on here? The bloodbath. Okay?

Like, what is happening? Bad times. So much screaming. No one wants to be around at this point.

You know what? At this point, I'd like to move on. I don't I don't wanna talk about it anymore.

Okay. Ew. Maybe we should have added that bit to our trigger warning for all the poor men that just had to hear that. So, anyway, so they all do it, though. Mhmm.

The the whole community of men. But remember, Dinah's brothers are sneaky. Right? Sneaky. Sneaker tins.

Sneaky. Sneaker tins. And so they wait a couple of days. So everybody can get chopped. Yeah.

Everybody's been chopped. Mhmm. And they sneak into town, just two of them. There's a whole community, but only two of them sneak into town with their swords. And all the men are still very weak because you're not talking about a current procedure where, like, yeah.

I'm sure you'd still be in pain three days later, but you've had all of the medical, you know, numbing and whatever else needs to be

done. For after and all

of that. You're not talking about that. You're talking about trauma to your body.

Mhmm.

So they're gonna it's gonna take a long time for them to heal from, and they kill them all. They take them all out. Okay? All of the men in the community, anyone that they saw as complicit, anyone that they thought might have been part of anything, they take them all out, and they steal everything. They steal all of the livestock, anything that they saw of value.

They took all of the kids and all of the women back to their camps. And Mhmm. It doesn't really say, like What happens after that? Yeah. It doesn't say that they attacked them necessarily, but it says that they brought them back to their homes.

So we don't really know what happened to them at that point. Remember, we're not trying to make out her brothers as, like, these saviors of whatever. They're still not great guys. It's just in this instance, they did come and save their sister.

Mhmm.

Morally gray. We'll go with that. That's what all the the book talk girlies are saying. Morally gray characters. Not great, but doing one good thing, I guess.

Thing? I mean, they did save her. They yep. Yep. Mhmm.

They got her out. They brought her back home. And the two that did save her were Simeon and Levi.

So though they became the Brothers of mass destruction?

I mean, yeah. So then the rest of Jacob's sons show up, and they see what these two

did. And they're like, woo,

but they help them get all the Mhmm. All the herds and everything back to Jacob's lands. And, Jacob is pissed. He's not happy because he was not consulted about this situation, and his boys have been plotting this because he's a terrible father, and he has no idea what his children are doing at any time. Jacob did nothing.

Jacob did nothing.

That's the thing. Yeah. Jacob did nothing.

Yeah. And now was this the right route? Maybe not. Maybe this was not, like, the best

life choices here. I'm not defending those choices, but they did something.

They did something. Now this is an extreme situation here. Okay? We're not proponents of attacking and, you know, murdering a whole village of people.

Yeah. And chopping off everybody's weenies.

But in this situation, like, you have to ask what was what was the best move here.

Mhmm.

You know? And it's it's just an interesting, I guess, question to ask. And it's I think it's good to dig into the Bible and ask really hard questions of even the people that that were taught good things about. You know? Like, Jacob is the father of all the tribes of Israel, and a lot of times, one of the good guys in our stories.

But he's not a good guy in this story. Yeah.

I think it's interesting to look at the story and be like, what am I supposed to learn here?

Mhmm.

Because it's important enough to be written in the Bible. It's the first book of the Bible. Right. It's important enough for generations and generations and generations of people to go back and look and learn from this story. What am I supposed to learn from this?

For me, it's do something. Mhmm. Maybe not murder. Maybe not, you know, torture, but something. Mhmm.

Don't stand by. Don't just let things happen to the people that you care about.

Right. And in the end, Dinah is saved. She comes out of this. And so we'll talk a little bit about the Jewish traditions of what happens to her afterwards because this is just what's in, like I said, the Protestant Bible of what happened to her. But there are other traditions of what is believed to have happened to her.

But, essentially, they come back, and Jacob tells them, like, you've ruined us. Mhmm. We're done for. Because once everybody else in the area finds out what you did, there's nowhere we can go and be safe because everyone's gonna come after us. Everyone's gonna think we're gonna come after them, so they're gonna come after us first.

And they basically said, but why should we let him treat our sister like a prostitute?

Mhmm.

And so they they don't regret it. They said, we're gonna stand up for our family. We're gonna stand up for our sister, which is interesting because then they, you know, sell Joseph into slavery. But it's it's a very complicated story.

It's not like the story from Taken where the dad's like, I have a

very particular set of siblings.

It's not that. Jacob doesn't care. Nope. Jacob's more concerned with, like, himself Mhmm.

I would say. Jacob would have sacrificed his daughter Yeah. At the end of the day. Mhmm. I don't think Jacob was horribly concerned about his family.

Mhmm. And they were. And what does that say? Mhmm. And you have to wrestle with that yourself Yeah.

Of what does that say. I don't have a conclusion. I don't like, it's a morally gray story. It's a complicated story. Mhmm.

One thing I do think is interesting is as you look up her story, Dinah's name means judgment.

Mhmm.

Now Leah named her that as a baby. Mhmm. So from the time she was born, her name was judgment. Imagine walking around with that.

That's true. Name. Judgment.

Judgment. So what came what came down through her Mhmm. Through her story, through her very broken, very painful story?

Mhmm.

Judgment. Judgment on a broken people. Judgment on men

Mhmm.

Who betrayed her. Mhmm. Her whole story is a story of men who betrayed her.

Yeah. Which, unfortunately, is super common for women of that time Mhmm. Because they're not people. Mhmm. They're property.

Right. They're similar to cattle

Mhmm.

Just like we said.

Now the story goes on and Jacob and his family, they end up leaving that area. They're kind of, like, fleeing Jacob's brother. And this story sets off a chain of events Mhmm. That leads to them settling eventually. And we're not gonna go into the whole story because then I'd have to read the rest of Genesis to you, and I don't wanna do that.

Actually, settle in girls in story time.

But I would encourage you to read the rest of it. But her story is is important, and we we say this all the time. I know like, I I feel like I'm a broken record half the time. But we go into church all the time, and we hear these big stories of Paul and Moses and Noah and whatever. Like, the big ones.

Right? Mhmm. And we forget these stories. And her story is an entire chapter in the in the Bible. It takes up a whole chapter.

But have you ever heard it?

Mm-mm. No. Alyssa and I were looking through this book, the All the Women of the Bible book. We're like, what should we talk about? And I randomly picked Dinah's story and we both are like, who?

Mhmm. I don't know who that is. Now, if you've been, you know, studying the Old Testament lately, you might recognize her name, but you're not hearing it in church.

No. And yet her story is a critical part of why Mhmm. Jacob's family winds up where they wind up, why the 12 tribes of Israel wind up where that they wind up, why then David winds up where he winds up, why his line ends up with Jesus.

Maybe why Joseph was in the area where he was when he got sold.

I mean, really, everything about this story leads to Jesus. Mhmm. Without Dinah, Jesus isn't where he should be.

Mhmm.

But we forgot her part of the story. And for goodness sakes, with the amount of Sundays I have sat in a church pew. Okay? Like, we can dedicate one to the importance of her story.

Mhmm.

And yes, it's short, but this part is important. The part that she played, the part that her brothers played, the part that Jacob played, the part that her mother played, all of it weaves together to create a very complicated, very not easy for us to understand, not comfortable necessarily, but important part of Jesus's story. Mhmm. Now I wanna talk also about her story kind of in the Jewish tradition because, again, it's important to know that our stories weave in with other religions too.

Mhmm.

And that other religions have the Jewish history has I think they maintain a different level of their own history than than we as Protestant Christians do. Yeah. Because it's their actual, like, history is their ancestors' history. Mhmm. Whereas it's not necessarily my ancestors' history even though I claimed the religion itself.

Yeah. So this is on Shabad.org, if you all wanna look that up. My favorite website. And it's just Dinah in the Bible, and there's 10 facts about her. And so I'll go through them relatively quickly so that we don't have a four hour long podcast.

Although, frankly, it's our podcast, not yours, so I do what I want. Hi. Everyone out there is like, what were those sounds? Did some monster

just walk in the room? Monstrous laughs. Yes. Laugh laugh.

So the first fact is that she was the daughter of Jacob and Leah. Mhmm. Now if you know the story of Jacob, he married two sisters. Sister.

Sister.

Leah and Rachel. Leah, he was kind of forced to marry. He wanted to marry Rachel, but he got kinda tricked into marrying Leah first. Yeah. So Leah was not necessarily the wife that he wanted to have.

Mhmm. And my understanding of the story is that that impacted all of their relationships moving forward. But Leah had six sons, six of his 12 sons, and then afterwards, she had Dinah. And I believe she was his only daughter. She was definitely Leah's only daughter, like I said, but I think she was also his only daughter.

According to Jewish tradition, Leah prayed for a girl. And let me just tell you, if I had had six boys, I would also be praying for a girl.

I would be praying for a girl, but at the same time, in the culture that they're living in, I'm surprised because men have so much power. That's true. And I would have a hard time wishing for

a girl. Now, this is

coming from a feminist perspective, but I would have a hard time praying for a girl knowing what world she's gonna grow up in.

That's very true. Knowing what she'd have to go through. Mhmm. Knowing what Leah went through. Yeah.

Yeah. And how hard Leah had to fight just to be seen at any point. The stories that you read between Leah and Jacob and how she just was not cared for

Mhmm.

Are really heartbreaking. Yeah. Especially because it was her sister. She was fighting with her sister at the end of the day. Yuck.

Yeah. Yeah. Yuck. Yuck. Yuck.

But it does say that Dinah means judgment. And it says the sages, so kind of like the historians in this situation, explained that Leah chose it because she had passed judgment on herself is

what they say. So that's interesting.

As we all do.

You know?

Oh, so this says she had had six sons, and the maids so it was prophesied that Jacob would have 12 sons to be the 12 tribes of Israel. Right? So she had had six sons, and the maids had had four. So that's 10 sons altogether. Rachel had only had one son.

And so Leah prayed that she would not have another son so that Rachel could have that second son so that she wouldn't have just as many sons as the maids. Mhmm. So that she would have one more to be slightly more important than the maids.

Don't you love the Old Testament?

It is a wild place.

Don't you just love, like I'm sorry. I'm sorry. When we talk about marriage, now, we need to go back to tradition. Okay. Let's go back to tradition.

Not the nineteen fifties. I'm gonna go marry a man who has 17 wives and he loves all his servants too. Traditional.

We're we're not proponents of that? Just so that just so we're clear.

Just so we're clear. Depends on how rich that guy is.

It doesn't it doesn't depend on that.

I promise it doesn't depend on that.

Okay. So then, again, according to Jewish tradition, it says that Jacob protected her from Esau. So Esau would have been Dinah's uncle. He was Jacob's brother, and Esau was the one that Jacob ran away from. Now if you know the biblical tradition, essentially, like, Jacob ran away from him, and then they end up, I believe, like, reuniting and being okay in the end.

On that website, it calls Esau a rogue man.

Yeah. But according to Jewish tradition, Jacob introduced his wives and their sons to Esau but did not introduce Dinah

Mhmm.

Which this website now, again, this is all kind of, like, tradition, myth, you know, things like that, not necessarily biblical context. Mhmm. Some of this is coming from

the Pass down stories.

To a gent yeah. But pass down stories. So it says Jacob hid her in a box

And put that box in a bigger box.

Hopefully, did not smash the box. Smashed it with a hammer. That's from The Emperor's The Emperor's New Groove.

So it

says, so that Esau wouldn't see her and want to marry her because that was the thing back then.

Mhmm.

So then, again, when and this is part of the story that now does overlap with the Bible. When she was in the city of Shechem, Shechem saw her, wanted her, attacked her, and then sent his father, whose name interestingly means donkey. So that's a fun one

to ask, to put

her hands in marriage. Then her brothers rescued her, made all the townspeople get circumcised, and then killed off the town. Just bold. So then the rest of the, like, little facts about her are kind of after

Mhmm.

After that point. And there's some of these that kind of they can't all be true necessarily. Mhmm. So, again, it's myths and legends about what could have happened to her next because she didn't just disappear. So what happened to her?

Yeah. We don't know. So we do know that her brother, Joseph, was sold as a slave in Egypt. We know that part of the story. He eventually rose to power and then married the daughter of Potiphar.

We know that. According to one rabbinic tradition, it says Asenath was Dinah's daughter. So the woman that Joseph married Was his name? Dinah's daughter born after she was impregnated by Shechem.

Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah. The I'm just reading Tradition. Things like that. So one thing it does say is that she did probably go to Egypt Mhmm. With Jacob.

So we know that, eventually, Jacob and his family did go to Egypt Mhmm. Because their land had been there was famine. There was all kinds of stuff that so they went and found Joseph in Egypt, and she likely was with them. Some say that she was the mother of Saul. So it says the list of Jacob's progeny includes a certain Saul, the son of the Canaanite woman.

So not the Saul that you're thinking of, a different Saul. And then it asks, like, who was the Canaanite woman? According to one tradition, it could have been Dinah, who was thus named because she had been violated by a Canaanite. And then another one is that some say she married Job of the Bible.

Mhmm.

And then another is that she is buried alongside her brothers in Arbel, which is somewhere that you can actually visit in Israel. Interesting. So those are just some different, like, things, traditions about her that if you're only reading the Bible, you're not gonna hear about. Mhmm. And again, they're not necessarily biblical, but they're just interesting things to know historically about someone who was an actual historical figure.

Mhmm.

And something that you can kind of take what you want from it and help it to make a real person out of

Mhmm.

What can kinda seem just like a story sometimes.

I think that's the most powerful thing you can do with these stories in the bible is, like, really make them into real people. Mhmm. Like Jonah. Yeah.

Think about that one. I that one I that one just oh,

I just saw a TikTok the other day. These two guys were kayaking in the ocean. I don't know where. But the guy literally, a whale came up and he went into the whale's mouth, and then he was spit back out. And his friend

was like, oh, well. I have many a question. I'm

gonna share it on our, TikTok. The guy was eaten by a whale and spit back out.

I have many a question. The first one, is you can kayak in the ocean?

I don't know where they were. They were kayaking.

If it was a whale got eaten by a whale. I think it has to be the ocean.

I don't think whales live on the place.

Anywhere there's water. I don't think so.

I think you can.

In a teaspoon, you can kayak in a teaspoon?

Mhmm. Depending on the size of the kayak.

I'm gonna need some serious proof that a man in a kayak in the ocean was swallowed up by a whale while his friend sat there and watched.

What was he gonna do?

I I'm gonna guess that the wave from the whale would have carried him away.

I'm not insane. He just got swallowed by the whale, and he got spit back out.

Alright. Now another part of her story that I I guess this isn't really part of her story, but, I'm gonna say An interpretation. An interpretation of her story that I want to talk about because I think we often make stories easier for us to digest.

A little bit more palatable. Yeah. Which I think is maybe why we don't hear these stories in church.

Mhmm.

Because they're tough stories to talk about. Mhmm. And it paints a bad picture of Jacob. Right. Or it paints a bad picture of, you know, his sons.

But we need to be talking about these stories so that we can be telling men and women in our church families like, here, look at this story. Hey. By the way, this isn't okay. Mhmm.

There is not a black and white, like, good and bad in this story. Mhmm. There is not a this person did the perfect thing, and this person did the completely wrong thing.

And Well, I mean, Shechem.

Okay. Okay. There's one. But, like, for the most part, like, her brothers didn't do the perfectly right thing. You know?

Like, there's not there's not someone you can point to and be like, and they were the shining example of whatever. Mhmm. But but it is in the Bible.

But it is something we should

talk about because it was important enough to put there, so we need to talk about it. However, I think there was someone that did it wrong.

So An El Del

maestro. Ugh. So we talk about this book, fairly often because we use it as, like, a glossary, basically, a jumping off point. And we've said it a couple times throughout this episode. It's called All the Women of the Bible, and it has two sections to it.

It has what it calls the book of names, and that's in the front. And that's literally just a list and description and then where the women are mentioned in the bible. And that that's mostly where we live when we use this book. Mhmm.

But then it also has the book of stories.

Oh. And that's essentially, like, a fictional account. Mhmm. I would have guessed it was biblically based. It doesn't appear to be.

This story certainly is not. So Dinah's story is just maybe, like, two and a half, three pages. And I just I wanna real quick go over it because I would guess that if you're ever hearing this story, this might be the version that you're hearing or something similar. Mhmm. So the version that is told here is basically that Dinah, while her family was hanging out in this area, Dinah goes into town to visit with some people, and she meets Shechem.

And she voluntarily, of her own free will, goes and sleeps with him. Mhmm.

And falls in love with him.

And falls in love with him. And he falls in love with her. And she comes back home, and she's talking to her mom and her aunt, I think. And, her mom kind of pushes her a little bit and questions her and is like, so what actually happened? Because I know something happened.

Give me the tea. Yep. Why are you blushing?

And she she just comes out with it. She's like Mhmm. Alright. Well, we slept together. But don't worry.

I've had my period, so it's fine.

Which is absolutely not the story. No.

Like, the Bible is very specific

Mhmm.

About what happened. Yep. It says what he did to her. Mhmm. It was not consensual.

She was not okay with it. Now this story is not necessarily blaming her. I don't wanna say that it's putting the blame on her because that's not the vibe that you're getting as you're reading it.

It paints it as a love story.

Yeah. Which it absolutely is not. It is not. This is a story of control.

Mhmm.

This is a story of who's in power and how can we put women where we want them. Mhmm. That's what this story is. But in this book, you're right. It's a love story.

And it's Dinah's love story, and I hate that. It feels really icky. Mhmm. And so Dinah tells her mother, like, it wouldn't even matter if I was pregnant because he told me he wants to have children with me, and we're gonna fall in love. We're gonna have babies.

So she begs Leah to go to her father and ask him if they can get married, which, again, did not happen

Mhmm.

In the bible, in every tradition that we could find. His father goes to her father because only men have these conversations. The women are not involved. They're not consulted, and the the men discussed it. Yeah.

In this story, which has no bearing on reality, Leah goes to Jacob and has that conversation. And then from there, kind of it it goes a little bit more biblical. Shechem's dad does come to Jacob and asks, and then the brothers are involved a little bit. The brothers do think that Shechem forced himself on her. Mhmm.

And they're unhappy about it, but they do agree to it. But they're not being sneaky sneaks yet. They according to this story, it doesn't sound like they planned it.

Mhmm.

It sounds like they just sort of so happened? They took advantage of the situation. Basically, they saw that the men were now weak, and they wanted the wealth for themselves. It wasn't about her. It wasn't about defending her.

Mhmm. It was that they wanted the wealth of themselves. Power. Yeah. Which is a really strange way to spin this story.

Yeah. It's just weird. Like, obviously, this is a fictional account, and this is not an uncommon thing to do with Bible stories. Like, there's plenty of authors that will take a simple story from the Bible and make it a fictional story.

But you keep the core of the story the same. You can add, like, bits of dialogue Yeah. Or maybe emotion, how that person may have been feeling even though we don't know. But the core of the story should stay the same. Right.

The core of this story that he's saying, this Maestro person Mhmm. Is not the truth

No. At all. No. He's turned instead of turning Shechem into the villain, he's turned her brothers into the villains. Mhmm.

And I'm not entirely sure why because that doesn't seem like the easy option to me. Like, you kinda have to do some gymnastics in order to get there. Now, again, they they are not great people in this story either.

Mhmm.

But maybe it's to have a distinct villain. Maybe. Maybe it's so that there's just one person you hate and not everybody kinda sucks.

But, unfortunately, that's not really how life works. Right. Like you said, there's a lot of morally gray situations, and you have to figure out for yourself what is good to take away from that story and what's bad to take away from the story. So I don't know.

Yeah. That's weird. I in the end

Oh, I just had to hand a Montana song.

In the end of of this story, and, again, not the biblical story, buddy. In the end of this story, basically, they tell Dinah what happened. And she's crushed, and she's like, I I should have stopped them. I should have saved my lover or whatever. Ew.

And, they were like, there's nothing you could have done. And she's sitting there talking to her loving parents, and they're like, there's nothing you could have done. They were bloodthirsty. And she was like, I loved him, but it's over, and there's just nothing I can do about it. And her mom says, except to go on.

And she just says, like,

I'll go on.

I'll go on. It's just so

Every night in my dreams. That's so strange. Oh my goodness.

I think Well Dinah's story because we don't we don't hear a lot from her in her story.

Mhmm.

You know, we a lot of the stories that we go over, you're hearing more from the women themselves. Mhmm. Dinah's story is about her, but it kinda circles around her in a way. You know, she's she's the centerpiece, but she's not the main character

Mhmm.

In some ways. But it's hard to think of her because nothing in her story is good.

Mhmm.

She's the only daughter

of a wife that was not loved Mhmm.

In a family that was a disaster. She's then attacked and brutalized by a man that just wants to control her.

Mhmm.

She's used as a pawn by her dad who's perfectly willing

Mhmm.

To sell her off for some security. Yep. And then she's saved by brothers who, yes, did save her, but then, you know, destroyed a whole town. So she's probably still scared of them. Yeah.

And then, eventually, they sell off another one of her brothers.

And then we

don't really know what happens to her. Like Mhmm. Maybe she, you know, does some of these other things that we talked about, but we don't really know what happens to her from there.

I mean, at the very least, her story's in the Bible. Mhmm. Bible. Mhmm. And we're gonna remember her forever and ever.

Mhmm. And she's up in heaven. Mhmm. Hanging with Jesus. Mhmm.

I just I can't get over her name. Mhmm. I think that's what what really stands out to me the most in this story. What will solidify her place in history Mhmm. Is the word judgment,

The girl called judgment.

Mhmm. When people came for her, judgment rang out over them. Yeah. When people attacked her, when people treated her like she was nothing Mhmm. Judgment came for them.

God came after them.

Mhmm.

Even when she felt like she was nothing, even when she was the lowliest of the children, of the wife that wasn't loved, of a people group that wasn't recognized, that didn't have a home, that was running from a brother that hated them, like, their story sucks. Yeah. They're not in a good position at this point. But still, judgment came after them when anyone hurt her, when anyone came for her. And I that's that's what I take from this is that god still had her.

Mhmm.

God still was there. Yeah. Even when everything collapsed around her, even when it felt so alone. But, yeah, that's our story about Dinah today.

Do you feel happy now? That's the thing is not

a lot not all the stories in the Bible end on a happy note. That's just stories, baby.

Yeah. Not everything is happy. That's why I'm reading a rom com right now. A rom com. A little bit of light

in my life. I am not. The book I'm reading through is 700 and some odd pages, and it will not end.

That's how I felt about Sharkheart. Oh my gosh. Alyssa and I have been on a reading kick, and I just read a book about a man that turns into a shark.

And she does not recommend it.

I don't recommend it. You know what? Everybody on the TikTok recommends it. They're like, surprisingly good. What the heck?

I thought it was bad. Bad. There are books there are books out there that are very popular

Mhmm. That are just not it. Yeah. They're just not where it's at.

Yeah. Yeah. What are you guys doing for fun?

We've been sitting reading because we've been dumped on by 45 feet of snow. Dumped on. And today, we barely got out to get our Starbucks, frankly. We had to risk our lives.

We risked our lives for coffee, and that's that.

And tomorrow, we'll do it again.

Actually, tomorrow, I have to take

a child to school, and you have to go to work. So I gotta risk my life for that anyway, so I might as well get a coffee out of it. Boo. Boo. Alright.

Well, we will, see you guys next week, possibly for another Woman of the Bible. Although, let us know. There's a really interesting verse in first Timothy that talks about childbearing being kind of like the say like, the salvation of women. And I just came across a really interesting article about it, and I would love to dive into it. But it's gonna take a good bit of research in order to really give that topic what it needs.

I'll tell

you what. If childbirth is what's saving women, there's a good chunk of us out there

not saved.

But I would really like to kinda dig into that and just,

I don't know, see see where all of the research winds up.

Mhmm.

So if that's something that you guys would be interested in, please let me know. That might be a multiple episode thing because I it I'm sure there's a lot out there on it. So let us know on our socials if you'd like to see that, and we will talk to you all next week. Maybe it

was something slightly more joyful. Wouldn't

that be fun?

Hooray. Alright. Love you bye. Love you bye.