Why this story matters

(commentary on Genesis 38)

(Page 1 of 4)

Introduction

The story of Onan’s demise has been the subject of controversy for two thousand years and it continues today. Many people assume Yahweh killed Onan because he masturbated, but this is too simplistic. The controversy goes deeper. The truth is that no one knows why Yahweh killed him. The text just isn't clear. One of the following three reasons is usually given: he sinned by masturbating, he sinned by practicing birth control, or he sinned by failing to fulfill a cultural obligation. Unfortunately, this ambiguity has allowed certain religious groups to interpret the passage in whatever way suited their own political or moral agenda.

To err is human; To kill Er is divine

Of course we can’t forget that God killed poor Er too. In Er’s case we have little idea what he had done wrong. We're just told he was wicked:  "But Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the LORD put him to death (Gen. 38: 6-7).” Some analysts suggest that, because he was killed in a similar fashion to Onan, Er was also guilty of masturbation. However, in the book, The Beginning of Wisdom, Leon Kass explains how scholars have traditionally interpreted this: Er was killed because he didn't consummate the marriage, and he did this for selfish reasons. Since Tamar was so beautiful, Er wanted to avoid spoiling her looks with pregnancy (Free Press, 2003, p. 529)

At any rate, while we may not know what Er did, we certainly know what Onan did. We also know how this story has been manipulated to fit specific agendas. We'll  start with the issue of masturbation.

The sin of masturbation

It's actually not clear that Onan masturbated at all. We're only told that he “spilled his seed” on the floor. He may simply have pulled out at the moment of climax and let the semen fall on the floor. There are no direct references to masturbation in this story. In fact there are no direct references to masturbation anywhere in the Bible. For religious leaders who believed masturbation to be immoral, this must have been very frustrating. If they wanted to condemn masturbation as sinful, they really had no choice but to interpret this story as a condemnation of the practice. And since Yahweh's punishment of Onan was so severe, moral zealots have imagined the sin to be rather heinous and have atributed all kinds of terrible consequences for those who practiced masturbation.

In 1722, a book was circulated called Onania - Or the Heinous Sin of Self-Pollution. (author unknown). It reads rather like a sermon in very high moral tones but with a medical veneer. The book warned of many harmful effects from masturbation including sterility, stunted growth, epilepsy, memory loss, weak limbs, and pale skin.

In 1760, the Swiss physician Samuel-Auguste Tissot published L’Onanisme, an ostensibly academic medical treatise on the subject where he listed similar ill effects including tuberculosis, rounded back, and poor eyesight. It is from these notions, that we get the once popular admonition, “If you don’t stop it, you’ll go blind.”

© IllustratedBibleStories.ca