There are many people who consider themselves knowledgeable about "what the Bible says" and don't know about the story of Dinah. I've even met people that didn't believe me when I told them about it. It's one of those stories not mentioned in children's Sunday school classes. You can read it yourself at Genesis 34.

I read this book long before my Goodreads.com days. So I haven't written my own review. Below is the short review from PageADay's Book Lover's Calendar for March 26, 2013.

A wonderfully fresh and involving historical novel that takes as its protagonist a minor character from Genesis. Through the eyes of Dinah, daughter of Jacob and Leah, we view an ancient world in which women are bound by culture, religion, and their own cycles. Dinah is given a dramatic part to play, and she also grants us a new angle on some familiar old stories.
n  THE RED TENTn, by Anita Diamant (1997; Picador, 1998)

An interesting read.

i’ve never read a book that took place in the biblical time period so this was a first for me! i really enjoyed it and the spin of feminism prevalent in middle eastern culture

Piercing, revealing, and moving. Dinah's narration of the women's culture in Canaan is eye opening. This novel has stuck with me for years and I needed to have the women back in my heart and mind again. -Sara S.

Terrific historical fiction. -Sky L.

As I read The Red Tent, a little thing started to bug me. Almost without fail, the women were strong, smart, and moral. On the other hand, the men were virtually always weak, selfish, and kind of dumb. It struck me as rather two-dimensional.

Then I realized what author Anita Diamant was doing. She was asking, “What would the Bible be like if it were written by women?”*

I can’t be the only one who gets frustrated by the Old Testament because practically every woman in it ends up looking bad -- weak, easily tempted, a harlot, a pillar of salt...face it, women don’t fare too well in the OT. I always chalked this up to the fact that the Bible was written (or written down, however you want to look at it) by men, men that brought their own outlooks and prejudices to the text.

Diamant turns the tables on men. She tells the story of Jacob and his family from the point of view of his only daughter, Dinah. The result is that, in The Red Tent, those bad things you read about in the Bible still happen, but this time, they’re all the fault of those big, dumb men.

It was fun for awhile, but after the novelty wore off, I found myself longing for a little more complexity and maybe just a hint of the old familiar Bible stories. In particular, I missed the humility and wisdom of Joseph who, in this telling, is a selfish, despotic jerk. I think Diamant is a good writer and it was easy to immerse myself in her world. I only wish that world hadn’t been so black and white.

(Note: You may want to avoid this book if you don’t like...er...people “knowing” each other in the Biblical sense. This book is positively saturated with that sort of thing. Some of it even made me cry, “TMI!”)

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* Alternatively, Diamant could have been imagining the story of Dinah taking place in that evil parallel universe in Star Trek where the people that are normally good are all bad, but I discarded that theory because I saw no evidence of an over-abundance of goatees.


Update: (8/25/10) So I upped the review to four stars because even now, weeks after I finished the book, I am still thinking about it. Many of the characters could have used more development, but Dinah is complex, interesting, and flawed and gives a person a lot to think about. And I always have to remind myself that just because a book doesn't turn out the way I'd like it to, or just because I don't like certain characters doesn't mean it isn't a good book. Sigh.

Find all of my reviews at: http://52bookminimum.blogspot.com/

n  n

Ouch. What a slog this friggin’ thing was. The Red Tent has literally been pushed on me by real life friends/family/acquaintances for the past 10 years. Being a not-so-religious type of gal, I actively avoided it knowing it would most likely not be my cuppa, as well as to keep the peace. When the library challenge came around requesting readers to “push their shelf” I figured it was time to bite the bullet. Now I only hope that this doesn’t accidentally get shared to Facebook so I can continue pretending I’m not a complete heathen.

The Red Tent is Dinah’s (fictional) “memoir” which tells the stories of herself and her family passed from woman to woman the first week after the new moon while they all cohabitate in the red tent due to . . . .

n  n

It confirms the theory that if you put a group of females together long enough, they will all surf the crimson wave at the same time each month.

It also is a great example of how we should maintain the sanctity of marriage between and a man and a woman FOUR women. Yeah, don’t let those homosexuals cheapen things, let’s go back to sisterwives of the bible times! /endsarcasm

Oh and you ladies don’t need to worry about becoming a bridezilla or “saying yes to the dress.” According to the Old Testament, all you have to do is make the sexuals with your crush and you will officially be wed.

Feel free to worship false idols as well. Especially if you can steal them from your molesty, wife-beating granddaddy ‘cause that bastard sure as hell doesn’t deserve them.

Oh, and are those 12 sons (and god knows how many nameless daughters since females are stupid and shouldn’t even bothered being mentioned) wearing you out? See your sister/husband’s other wife and she’ll hook you up with some morning after herbs. Just don’t ask the government to pay for it!

I know, I know, I know . . . .

n  n

Save your breath.

The one thing this book did was prove that all the religious zealots are just as fucking nutty as I always thought they were. Try reading more than Leviticus before becoming morally outraged. For the people like me who aren’t so bible-y? If you like world building, this is a winner. You’ll hear all about walking across the desert and great details about EVERY. SINGLE. THING. THEY. ATE. (spoiler alert: bread, goat cheese, olives and beer - for every fucking meal - but it was still written about EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.) What you won’t be privy to is anything that is actually interesting. Like slicing the throats of every man in an entire city. Because, what kind of flatbread they had for dinner is definitely more important than genocide . . . . .

n  n

2 Stars (barely).

Book #3 in my quest for new free crap. Go me!

n  n

I passed over this book many a time in my younger years... but it was well enough because now is the time that I could appreciate it fully. I loved Dinah's strong voice. The stories, culture, religious ceremony, and customs were all such welcome treats. Her brazeness, honesty, intelligence, and kindness were all appreciated. Diamant is able to give such life and humanity to characters we may only know through a few lines, a mention or parable... I loved this story and could not stop reading it. It was full of pain but also love, passion, and beautiful friendship. What I loved the most was how women were at the forefront of this story.

I was at Border's Express one day searching for a little something to curl up in a chair with for an extended period of time. When I was approached by a clerk asking me if I needed help with anything, I KNOW, WEIRD!, right? Customer service? Who knew it even existed anymore? Anywho, I made my desire known to the saleswoman and she points me to this...

I immediately think to myself, "Oh crap! a religious book!" I know I'm taking a chance at offending the church goers among you, but let's not throw stones... Think totally oppressed religious upbringing, among the most offensive group of hypocrites you can imagine and perhaps you can cut me some slack... Okay, so back to the book.

Being the 'uber-polite, can't imagine offending someone to their face' type of woman that I am... Just consider it a given that I would've bought the book no matter how much it cost. Quite simply because I knew this gal would be ringing me up at the register and I just couldn't allow her to think I didn't trust her judgment, especially after asking for her advice!

So I schlepped home with my 'religious' book... And you know what? I LOVED it! What an amazing story of the courage, determination and resiliency of women. Hey, just try to imagine what it would be like to be thrown into a cramped tent, with a plethora of other menstruating women, in a time when tampons had yet to be invented. The hormones alone in that one tent, make it completely understandable as to why the men steered clear and thought it best to risk their lives in the dessert in search of food, even if the 'food' ate them first!

Seriously though, this book will make you proud to be a woman. I recommend reading it while you have your period... It'll make you cry.

There are so many other books I've read that I'd like to mention, but this post is already long and I haven't yet gotten to the good part...

One of my favorite books. After I read it, I began taking "Red Tent Days." I live in a household of men (one husband, three sons), but one day a month I go to my room and drink tea and read and tune out the testosterone.

The red tent is the place where women gathered during their cycles of birthing, menses, and even illness. Like the conversations and mysteries held within this feminine tent, this sweeping piece of fiction offers an insider's look at the daily life of a biblical sorority of mothers and wives and their one and only daughter, Dinah. Told in the voice of Jacob's daughter Dinah (who only received a glimpse of recognition in the Book of Genesis), we are privy to the fascinating feminine characters who bled within the red tent. In a confiding and poetic voice, Dinah whispers stories of her four mothers, Rachel, Leah, Zilpah, and Bilhah--all wives to Jacob, and each one embodying unique feminine traits. As she reveals these sensual and emotionally charged stories we learn of birthing miracles, slaves, artisans, household gods, and sisterhood secrets. Eventually Dinah delves into her own saga of betrayals, grief, and a call to midwifery.
"Like any sisters who live together and share a husband, my mother and aunties spun a sticky web of loyalties and grudges," Anita Diamant writes in the voice of Dinah. "They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl. They told me things I was too young to hear. They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember." Remembering women's earthy stories and passionate history is indeed the theme of this magnificent book. In fact, it's been said that The Red Tent is what the Bible might have been had it been written by God's daughters, instead of her sons. --Gail Hudson

Joseph, the guy with the Technicolor Dreamcoat is the brother of the main character in this book - his sister - Dinah (Dee-nah). The name of the book comes from the women's tent where all who are in an "unclean" status must go. Unclean can be menstruating, or fulfilling the time after the birth of a baby, and means hanging out with other ladies in this same situation, propped over bowls to catch their blood, all while talking, fighting, singing, bonding, sleeping, and surely smelling ripely in the family's (more tribe than our idea of family) Red Tent.

When this book first came out I tried to read it. A number of chapters in, after detailed descriptions of the reasons for the red tent, conversations taking place in the red tent, and then all the animals being abused on a regular basis by shepherds while the ladies were not available, I remember slamming the book shut. Every Sunday School lesson I'd ever had was offended beyond all justification. Joseph is very close to Jesus in my line-up of biblical heroes. Shepherds and angels. . .almost the same thing in my religious lexicon. So these cackling women, as womanly as one can get, bloody, horny, gossipy, laughing at Jacob and the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel. . . . Well, I couldn't bear it.

I don't think I'm all that changed these many years later, but this came up again in my list - and I chose to approach it from a different direction - audiobook. By the first chaper, I was head over heels in love with Dinah in a way that print hadn't invited. Listening to the offensive conversations, I found myself chuckling. I've been there before, and it was funny for me, too, without me feeling I was disrespecting a prophet. Prophets weren't even on the topic list. Just men and women and all the weirdness there. . . .so I was in this book, to the very end.

The author took liberties with the story as told in the bible, but very, very few. And, as I've always tried to imagine what it must have been to be Dinah, this helped that fantasy. Surely there were other sisters, and women. The Red Tent filled in some of those blanks for me.

This is a long, epic story. At every turn Dinah finds a way to celebrate her womanhood (and that's not a word with which I'm comfortable!), through the profound depth of her embracing who she was, and rather than wishing she was a male, and made herself powerful through who she was, how she was, what she was and what she knew. . .by acknowledging the tribe of women throughout her life who helped get her to the very end of her days. I confess - I wept.

Dinah lived a long time ago, and she may or may not have had a life just like Anita Diamant captured in the Red Tent, but that truth Anita Diamant wrote of being a woman goes way beyond Dinah. She was writing of me and my experience as a woman with other women I have known, who have loved me, cherished me, fought over me, raised me, disillusioned and comforted me. Of women who taught me good habits, and those who taught me bad ones, of women who showed me the desirability of perfection, and the impossibility of it, those who illustrated the force of gratitude, apology, regret, sorrow and the deep wisdom of silence standing by. By assigning these all to Dinah, there is a moment in the text where you catch your breath and realize: she is me, I am her, I know this. I.know.this. It filled me, like spiritual truths do, causing a deep harmonic response up and down my spine, tearfalls breaching lashes. . .that's writing shot from a bow, hitting my heart.

That's 5 stars. Ruby.Scarlet.Crimson.Burgundy.Maroon.

This book was so good that I don’t think I can properly rate it. It deserves more than five stars.

This was a retelling of a biblical tale, but this time, the story revolved around the women and their way of life. Unlike many other feminist texts, this one focuses more on what the women accomplished and not on what they weren’t allowed to accomplish.

When I started my reading process, it was just a matter of time before I fell in love with the characters and the setting. Everything was described with vivid detail, and the writing style was just what I was looking for. This definitely makes the list for the top 20 books I’ve ever read.

I suffered through this book...just because I felt like I'd started it, I may as well finish it. The "chick flick," of biblical revisionism...the "Ya ya sisterhood," of desert matriarchy.

It seemed to go on forever rewriting the histories of Jacon, Leah and Rachel...then elaborating on the amazing sisterhood and bonding that happens around the red tent...implying all the way that women have all the power, men take all the credit.

The writing finally became compelling upon the description of the deception and murder of Dinah's (Jacob's only daughter) husband (Prince of Shechem) father and all of the cities inhabitants.

It parallels the biblical story - and at the very least it reminded me of the inanity of the bible. Jacob, the deceiver of Abraham and Esau, somehow gets to be the father of the 12 tribes of Israel...what the fuck? God is a freak..obviously not big on integrity.

The ending made me wretch as well...the 100 Years of Solitude/Midnight's Children style ending where the main character sees a parade of his dead family members/loved ones leading him into the after-life.

YAWN.