Brutality in the Bible

Now that we have read the story of Dinah, it would be a good time to talk about brutality in the Bible. There will be a lot more to come.

If we take this story as an isolated incident contained within the book if Genesis, what do we see? The first thing I notice is that,  so far, God has given no universal commands that apply to all humans, other than: 1. Be fruitful and multiply 2. Do not eat meat with blood in it. 3. Whoever sheds the blood of another man, by man shall his blood be shed.(Genesis 9:4-7) Levi and Simeon murdered all the men in the city of Shechem. They were never made to pay for their crime by Jacob or God.

By modern standards, this killing spree is disturbing to say the least. In first world countries today, the killers would be incarcerated, given psychiatric examinations, put on trial, and probably jailed for life or put in an institution for the criminally insane. I dare say that there has been no place in the world at any time where any group of people would choose to be slaughtered because one of their men assaulted a woman from another tribe.(If we read the story as factual, it is not even clear that Dinah was assaulted.)  At most, they would give up the man for punishment, pay her bride price, or give one of their own women as restitution.

The argument that this was a cultural thing has no precedent in Genesis. Obviously, the people of Shechem had no idea that they had done anything worthy of annihilation. There is no big picture here, just psychotic rage. The argument that this "just goes to show that they were human" is based on the assumption that all humans are essentially depraved. I reject that assumption.

I recommend The History Of Violence with Steven Pinker