S5, Ep. 7: Don't Cry Over Spilled Seed

Mandi furthers her case about Sodom & Gamorrah by sharing the interpretation shift of Onan's story.

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Transcript

Mandi: Mandi A. here welcoming you to my podcast - Find Your Beautiful: Life Through the Eyes of a Christian Disabled Woman.  

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Mandi: At the start of this season, I told you that I wanted you to act as a jury, coming into this case with an open mind and drawing conclusions based on the evidence presented. Many times in court cases, attorneys bring up other cases or instances in which they can demonstrate a pattern. This is especially useful when using circumstantial evidence to prove someone has a pattern of behavior.

I've been making the case in the last 2 episodes that the story of Sodom and Gamorrah has been impacted by a shift in interpretation, or better yet, has been reinterpreted. I've argued that the original interpretation, based on biblical text, views the sins of these 2 cities as inhospitality, violence and arrogance. The reinterpretation that their sins were linked to same-sex relations was started by Philo and then was further reinterpreted as homosexuality much later.  

Today I will share an unrelated story, though it circles the idea of "sexual sins," to show you a pattern in how Scripture faces interpretation shifts. My purpose in highlighting this pattern is to stress that we must seek God's truth on our own. We can't allow humans to be the sole dictators of God's love. As I stressed before, do not take my word alone for fact. Go directly to God in prayer, read the Word, and study history for yourself. I believe this is the responsibility of anyone who calls themselves a Christian, to lead others directly to the source because all we humans can do is interpret.

So let's delve into today's main story. Today's story again has strong sexual content, so listener discretion is advised.

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Mandi: We will be looking at a story that has historically been used to condemn all non-procreative sex including masturbation, sex with contraceptives and same-sex relations. This is the story of Onan, which can be found in Genesis 38. 

Before we get into who Onan was though, we must first understand an important law God passed under the Old Covenant, before Jesus saved us from our sins. This law is called levirate marriage. Levir in Latin means brother-in-law and levirate marriage obligated a man to marry his brother's wife if he died without having a son. According to the law set in Deuteronomy, the first son the brother has with the wife will carry on the name of the dead brother. The child would also not be considered a child of his biological father, but instead would be considered the child of the dead man. This would entitle the child to the inheritance of the dead man. In ancient Israel, passing on the family name and keeping the inheritance, mainly land, within a tribe were very important. The importance of keeping inheritance within the tribe is highlighted by verses like Numbers 36:7 and 1 Kings 21:3. 

Ok, now that we know what levirate marriage is, let's get to the story of Onan. In Genesis 38, we see Judah marrying a Canaanite woman. She gets pregnant 3 times and births Er, Onan and Shelah. By verse 6, Er is old enough to marry and his father finds Tamar to be his wife. We quickly learn that God found Er to be wicked, though we don't find out why. Due to his wickedness, God puts Er to death in verse 7. Judah attempts to follow the law of levirate marriage and tells Onan to sleep with Tamar and have children to fulfill his duty to the family. Onan does in fact have sex with Tamar, and by biblical context it seems like he does so on more than 1 occasion. However, Onan selfishly decides he wants the benefits of sexual pleasure with Tamar without the responsibility of fulfilling his duty to have a son on his brother's behalf. Genesis 38:9 says, "But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother." Verse 10 reads, "What he did was wicked in the Lord's sight; so the Lord put him to death also."

At the beginning of this story, I said it has been historically used to condemn masturbation, but as we've just reviewed this story directly from Scripture, masturbation is never mentioned. What we see is interrupted sex, or what some people today might refer to as "the pull out method." This may be where the argument against contraception comes from, but in understanding the context of the story, it is clear that it wasn't the act of spilling his semen on the ground that made Onan wicked. He was found to be wicked because he refused to fulfill his familial duty, to fulfill the law of God. However, this story was later reduced to the fact that Onan spilled his seed, thus masturbation, contraception and all non-procreative sex were condemned and this story was used as Scriptural support. 

We talked about the fact that many ancient Christians went so far as to believe and propagate the idea that sex should only be done as an act of procreation. Therefore, in their view, any sex that was not for the purposes of pro-creation and anything that prohibited pro-creation was considered "unnatural." This is how same-sex relations fits into the "unnatural" realm, because sex in this type of relationship does not reproduce.

Just as the story of Onan never condemns masturbation, contraception or non-procreative sex, the bible never tells us that the sin of Sodom was same-sex relations. Even though early Christians reinterpreted the story of Sodom, it's important to remember that they still didn't have the same concept of sexual orientation that we do and therefore, they didn't have a concept of what it means to be a gay Christian.

Over the last several episodes, we've only addressed the first "Scriptural proof" non-affirming Christians typically resort to in order to condemn homosexuality. What about the 5 others? Stay tuned!

    

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Mandi: If you listened all the way through, thank you! Whether you're listening to prove me wrong, or because you are seeking how you can reconcile your faith with affirmation of the LGBTQIA* community, I'm grateful for your time. 

If you find value in my podcast, please leave a review on my on my website at mandiboxbeauty.com. You can also connect with me on Instagram and Facebook at MandiBox Beauty. 

[Mandi voiceover to 'Compton' music]:  In next week's episode, we'll talk about abominations! ‘Til next time Beauties.