Blyth C. Terrible Silence, Eternal Silence: A Feminist Re-Reading of Dinah’s Voicelessness in Genesis 34

Biblical Interpretation 17 (2009) 483-506.This article explores the theme of Dinah’s narrative silence in the text and interpretive traditions of Genesis 34. Although Dinah’s rape is of central importance to the narrative development of this text, she remains throughout the story a marginal character. The author explores the ethical implications of Dinah’s suppression within both this biblical text and its interpretive traditions, comparing her plight to that of contemporary rape survivors, and proposes a means of utilizing the testimonies of these survivors as a hermeneutical key to conceptualize Dinah’s narrative elision as an intrinsic part of her rape experience.