A Short Critique of Mark Brett

In his recent book, _Genesis: Procreation and the Politics of Identity_, Mark Brett argues that Genesis (the first book of the Hebrew Bible) is a political text that addresses the debates within the `post-exilic' or `Persian' period concerning the nature of Israelite identity. The dominant push for ethnic purity found in the postexilic books of Ezra and Nehemiah is time and again undermined in Genesis by an integrationist polemic against the priestly desire for the `holy seed.' In other words, Brett argues that there is a discernible, 'inclusivist' (anti-ethnocentric) voice in Genesis. In this essay, I dispute the value he places on that alternative voice. That is, I dispute the subversive status that Brett gives to this antiethnocentric, inclusivist voice. I agree that it is contestatory, but not subversive. I shall make this argument by focusing on a specific story in Genesis: the so-called "rape" of Dinah (Gen. 34), which on the surface is a text that deals explicitly with these dueling socio-political voices. On the one hand, we have the subversive exogamy-desiring integrationist position represented by Dinah, Shechem, Jacob, Hamor, and the men of Shechem. On the other hand, we have the dominant ideological voice of the endogamy-desiring ethnocentrists, represented by Dinah's brothers, especially Simeon and Levi. Genesis 34 is read as an explicit narrativisation of this politico-religious tussle. Briefly, I dispute Brett's suggestion that the lack of agency available to women at this time in history is simply a convention we need to "understand" so as to better come to terms with the editorial response to Simeon and Levi's crime in Genesis 34. It is my contention that the silencing of women is the principal feature of male dominance, and this silence is the pre-requisite of the debates at hand. In other words, the only subversive voices are those that are intentionally silenced. These are the voices of