| | As some other posts on here, this entry is rated at least PG-13, if not R. It's not of my own doing but of God's (or his minions who wrote the Bible).
Here we are treated to talk about semen, prostitution, sex between a woman and her brother- and father-in-law, and two deaths at God's hands. Pretty much par for the course in the Bible so far, but disgusting nonetheless. Plus, this chapter is often used to attack anything from masturbation to homosexuality, because God is apparently not ashamed to have semen, murder, and prostitution with one's father-in-law in his Holy Book, but allegedly didn't want to come out and clearly say that masturbating or homosexuality is wrong in his eyes.
Judah finds a wife named Tamar for his firstborn son, Er, but God thought his son was evil, so he killed him. What he did must be so wicked, it's unmentionable, and there's plenty of twisted wickedness mentioned in the Bible. If only God had known this beforehand, he could have told Judah not to bother marrying him off! So Judah, instead of just counting on his second son to find a wife and continue the family line, decides he wants him to have sex with Tamar. This is called a "duty", so apparently this sort of thing was expected. I feel sorry for the brother-in-law and the widow in cases like this...
The second son, Onan, isn't keen on this because the children "would not be his" (Genesis 38:9, NIV). I guess the idea is that they would be his brother's children since his brother's wife (who in those days would have basically been considered as property) would have bore the children. So instead of knocking up his sister-in-law, he decides to practice (or invent?) the withdrawal method. God kills him for doing this. What is interesting is that God doesn't kill him after the first time he does this, for according to NIV the Bible says "whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen" (verse 10, emphasis mine). How much could it have displeased him if God let it happen repeatedly before he killed him?!
Tamar then gets the idea to have her father-in-law lay with her by dressing up as a prostitute. She did this because, the Bible tells us, she hadn't been married off to Judah's 3rd son, even though he was now old enough to inseminate her. Sounds like solid reasoning to me. Tamar gets pregnant and it isn't until later that he finds out what happened, when he hears that his daughter-in-law prostituted herself. He orders her burned to death (because it's apparently okey-dokey to sleep with a prostitute, but not to be one), but then she shows him his seal, cord, and staff to show Judah that she was the one he slept with. He decides not to kill Tamar because she is "more righteous" (NIV, verse 26) than he is, and not to sleep with her again. I don't know, neither of them come out smelling like roses in this one, but I will go on the record saying that I am all for not putting people to death. So I guess Judah and Tamar come off a little better in this chapter than God, since unlike Yahweh, they have no blood on their hands (at least for this chapter).
Tamar has twins who fight with each other before birth (apparently not uncommon in those days). Perez came out all the way first, but it was Zerah who reached his hand out of the womb first. So who wins the all-important firstborn contest? I guess we'll see.
So we know God doesn't like men not impregnating their grieving sister-in-laws (no mention is made of masturbation or homosexuality, by the way). God also doesn't like being vaguely wicked as the firstborn Er was, but God seems okay with people becoming or sleeping with a prostitute. A good lesson for Sunday School teachers out there to keep in mind...
PS Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. All rights reserved. |
| | Posted 5/20/2009 3:10 PM - 93 Views - 0 eProps - 0 comments
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