Rape Plots

Rape Plots documents the cultural significance of biblical scholarship and the Bible to the prevalence of rape in contemporary society. Focused on Genesis 34 and informed by feminist scholarship, this study examines ideas on rape reflected in nineteenth-century German commentaries as well as interpretations from 1970 to 1997. Cross-disciplinary references to forensic medicine and feminist theories place the views of biblical readers into cultural contexts. Similar to other discourses, biblical scholarship has minimized rape. An exegesis restores this imbalance and reads Genesis 34 as Dinah's story.