Religion and Theology

The Red tent is a fictious and melodramatic story about Dinah, the biblical character daughter of Jacob and Leah .Dinah comes out as a fascinating and courageous lady in this fiction. At puberty she enters the Red tent, which is a place where women enter when giving birth, experiencing menstruation or sick, its in this tent, where Dinah is initiated and taught the traditional, religious and sexual practices of her tribe by her mother Leah and stepmothers, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah. She falls in love with Shalem, a wealthy and good looking Egyptian, who reciprocates her love and makes his intention of marrying her known to her father and brothers this proves as an impetus to conflict as her brothers savagely murder the Egyptian, without their fathers knowledge. Its upon this tragedy that she travels while pregnant to Egypt where she becomes a consummate midwife. In essence the story revolves around the seemingly untold life of Dinah from childbirth to adulthood as she traverses two regions that are Cannan and Egypt.

Diamant novel is inspired by the story of Dinah in the Bible, as its noted, Now Dinah the daughter of Leah, whom she had borne to Jacob went out to visit the women of the land and when schechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, the prince of the land, saw her, he seized her and lay with her (Revised standard version Bible, Gen. 34.1-2). Though based on a Bible story, Diamant has recreated this story using fictious characters. According to her, the protagonist, Dinah meets and falls in love with a wealthy Egyptian man, Shalem, with whom they engage in sexual intercourse resulting in pregnancy. However despite his willingness to buy and marry her, her kindred refuse to accept. They plot and tragically murder the Egyptian. The point of contrast is born in the sense that this story goes contrary to what is described in the book of Genesis.    Some of the critics of this book aptly deny some of the writers information for instance, the writer depicts Dinah as a willing lover of the prince in that she was never raped as told in the Bible but rather willingly escaped to get married.

Also according to some Jewish rabbis, Diamant tries to depict Dinahs brothers as selfish, bloodthirsty and uncaring individuals this has been seen as controversial given the fact that, they were avenging an act of crime committed against their sisters. Jacob here is depicted as a barbaric and uncaring father, who will go to any extend to destroy the love of the two lovers. However, this according to scholars and proponents of the bible is completely untrue in the sense that, Jacob is believed to have, reprimanded and regretted the deeds of his sons, even on his death bed.

Though unpopular to men, the novel can be termed as a success in the sense that the plight of women is brought into light. For long the bible has been criticized by some as not telling much about women in the historical Christian life, here the issue of cannons is brought into light, thus by writing this novel Diamant  tells the untold life of women in traditional Christian society. 

Also through the novel the importance of religion is brought out and more so the role of women in teaching and passing knowledge to the youth, as ardently described. They traded secrets like bracelets, and these were handed down to me the only surviving girl.  They held my face between their hands and made me swear to remember.

 Diamant has also made us understand women trials, and misgivings in the journey of life as regards love, childbearing, and marriage. Thus she gives women a voice not before herd in traditional Christian community. The issue of inequality is also brought out in that we are told of how women were isolated at times in the Red tent this enables us to better understand our Christian traditional past and the achievements achieved so far.