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The sentence "Onan's crime is often misinterpreted to be masturbation but it is universally agreed among biblical scholars that Onan's death is attributed to his refusal to fulfill his obligation of levirate marriage with Tamar by committing coitus interruptus." appears twice- once in the introduction and once in the "Biblical account" section. This is redundant and interrupts the flow of the article. If no one objects, I'd like to delete the second sentence. ThisParrotIsNoMore ( talk) 17:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Another scholar who is a lawyer states that what Onan did could be rubbing his penis on Tamar's legs or hips or anal sex which prevented conception of children with the death of Onan being connected not on his act but why he did the act which was to prevent his brother's widow from conceiving thus denying his brother offspring. [9]
Does anyone else think the above sentence is retarded?
"The transgression was disobeying God, not spilling his seed"... Says who? Verse 10 says that what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord. This sentence from the article is clearly an interpretation, and not even a convincing one; it's clearly not encyclopedic. Ajcounter 07:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd counter that argument by merely repeating the first, saying it was the sight of disobedience that displeased the Lord. But as there is nothing specifically pointing us either way, it's unprovable exactly what was meant here. Personally I feel no other passage's interpretation has caused so much grief, for Catholic schoolkids especially. 98.246.184.50 ( talk) 22:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed:
This is fairly semantic and technical. Most Jewish sources agree that the Patriarchs observed most commandments voluntarily, especially in the Land of Israel, and were held accountable for violations. I think this paragraph was inserted as an attempt to provide a rebuttal for the modernist claims. Unless this is the "classical" response to these claims, it is probably original research. JFW | T@lk 23:18, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
116.91.78.243 ( talk) 06:26, 19 May 2012 (UTC)== Monty Python at the bottom ==
The song "Every Sperm is Sacred" is not about masturbation, it's about birth control, though the Catholic Church looks at both the same way. I'm changing "masturbation" to "birth control".--Reverend Distopia 18:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Hey, the last time I did my sister-in-law, I pulled out too; what's the problem?
There's no information on the painting of Onan. Can somebody please correct this?
Narrative
Onan was the second son of Judah. After God killed his older brother Er, Onan was required by the tradition of levirate marriage to marry Er's widow Tamar. According to Genesis 38:7-10, when he had sexual intercourse with Tamar he "spilt his seed upon the ground" because the resulting child would be considered his late brother's, not his. In response to the transgression of disobedience, God killed Onan too.
The statement here makes it seem as if Onan was commanded by God to be living by the Law of Moses. The Yibbum as established in the Law was generations later than Onan's time. It was Onan's father Judah that commanded Yibbum in this instance, not God. And was Onan's pretense and rape (sex by pretense) of Tamar who'd just suffered a triple pain (husband just died, he was childless and she's still childless). If failure to Yibbum was the crime Onan was killed for, then why wasn't Judah also killed for not allowing his 3rd son to preform it? And besides that, The Law added quite a few limits to punishments. Eye for an eye is a famous limitation (as in, only an eye for an eye and no more than an eye). The Hebrews, after the Law was given, lived under its rule and protection. After the Law was fulfilled, Christians were no longer under its rule but also not under its protection. Case and point, Ananias and Sapphira pretended to donate the proceeds of their land to the church but kept some back. They also were struck dead, and a twofer no less. Both parties pretended to do the right thing outwardly but tried to secretly reneg. Both parties premeditated their ruse. Both parties tried to get their pleasure without the responsibilities. Both parties were pioneers in their crimes (1st fake donation for their eras) and so had to be made an example of. Neither party was under the protection of the Law. But a possible difference is, Onan's eternal fate is unclear. Ananias and Sapphira had been promised heaven. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.248.53 ( talk) 12:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
"The Jewish attorney Alan Dershowitz has suggested that Onan and Tamar engaged in frottage (non-penetrative sex) or in anal sex. Also, he suggests that the anger of Yaweh was directed not at the sexual act, but at Onan's disobedience by refusing to impregnate his brother's widow. [1] "
Is it important that Dershowitz is Jewish to this statement? Does that make him an expert on Onan? Does that he is a lawyer make him an expert on Onan? I agree with the thought of the statement, but I am not sure that it is appropriate. Lets just put in the statement of opinion, who gave the opinion and a citatin that supports that accurately. Atom ( talk) 12:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
...but performed coitus interruptus each time, spilling his...
each time? That should be revised or explained. The narrative seems to refer only to one instance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.111.33.136 ( talk) 06:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
References
attorney, but had a named chair as a law professor at Harvard Law School. This gives him special insight and authority in matters of law, both modern and ancient. As coming from an Orthodox Jewish background, he surely has read the Hebrew Bible and some Oral Torah and had enough time to reflect upon it after he decided he is a secular Jew. tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:12, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
I think it is clear for any thinking person that the act described by the Bible is actually coitus interruptus, not masturbation. The reference from Coogan was required by WP:VER, but he is very far from being the only one who thinks so, in fact he expresses the consensus. There's not much to doubt about that, so it is not a matter of what "some modern scholars" believe, but a matter of reading and comprehending your own Bible translation. This is a factual claim, not an opinion; Coogan states it as a fact, not as an interpretation. The Bible does not use the word masturbation or any other synonym of it or any expression which could mean it, in fact there is not a single Bible verse mentioning masturbation or describing the act of masturbating. It is only a matter of using the proper English words for what the text says. If some have used their own imagination to guess that the Bible referred to masturbation, this is simply what their imagination has added to the clear text. I saw old porn films wherein actors were cumming before the camera without masturbating, so it is physically possible to commit coitus interruptus without masturbating. In fact, thinking that Onan's story refers to masturbation is a gross error of misinterpreting a written text. No matter what theologians had to say on this issue in the past, they were not using the text of the Bible but they were speaking as theologians, not as interpreters of the written text. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 19:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I just realised that I may have blasphemed in my last post. I'm in the process of cutting off my forefingers (I'm a two finger typist) so I apologise if I make fewer entries here going forward. PuppyOnTheRadio talk 00:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
There are multiple >'s and <'s used in the quote from this fellow, but there is no indicator as to what they're supposed to mean. Are they missing words? In that case they should be marked using square brackets []. Are they emphasised words? In which case italics should be used. I'm almost 100% certain that those characters did not exist when Epiphanius wrote that, so I highly doubt that they're in the original text. So why are they used? 1.157.95.133 ( talk) 05:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
Onan article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The sentence "Onan's crime is often misinterpreted to be masturbation but it is universally agreed among biblical scholars that Onan's death is attributed to his refusal to fulfill his obligation of levirate marriage with Tamar by committing coitus interruptus." appears twice- once in the introduction and once in the "Biblical account" section. This is redundant and interrupts the flow of the article. If no one objects, I'd like to delete the second sentence. ThisParrotIsNoMore ( talk) 17:46, 3 May 2024 (UTC)
Another scholar who is a lawyer states that what Onan did could be rubbing his penis on Tamar's legs or hips or anal sex which prevented conception of children with the death of Onan being connected not on his act but why he did the act which was to prevent his brother's widow from conceiving thus denying his brother offspring. [9]
Does anyone else think the above sentence is retarded?
"The transgression was disobeying God, not spilling his seed"... Says who? Verse 10 says that what he did was displeasing in the sight of the Lord. This sentence from the article is clearly an interpretation, and not even a convincing one; it's clearly not encyclopedic. Ajcounter 07:53, 28 September 2006 (UTC)
I'd counter that argument by merely repeating the first, saying it was the sight of disobedience that displeased the Lord. But as there is nothing specifically pointing us either way, it's unprovable exactly what was meant here. Personally I feel no other passage's interpretation has caused so much grief, for Catholic schoolkids especially. 98.246.184.50 ( talk) 22:45, 27 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed:
This is fairly semantic and technical. Most Jewish sources agree that the Patriarchs observed most commandments voluntarily, especially in the Land of Israel, and were held accountable for violations. I think this paragraph was inserted as an attempt to provide a rebuttal for the modernist claims. Unless this is the "classical" response to these claims, it is probably original research. JFW | T@lk 23:18, 25 December 2005 (UTC)
116.91.78.243 ( talk) 06:26, 19 May 2012 (UTC)== Monty Python at the bottom ==
The song "Every Sperm is Sacred" is not about masturbation, it's about birth control, though the Catholic Church looks at both the same way. I'm changing "masturbation" to "birth control".--Reverend Distopia 18:23, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
Hey, the last time I did my sister-in-law, I pulled out too; what's the problem?
There's no information on the painting of Onan. Can somebody please correct this?
Narrative
Onan was the second son of Judah. After God killed his older brother Er, Onan was required by the tradition of levirate marriage to marry Er's widow Tamar. According to Genesis 38:7-10, when he had sexual intercourse with Tamar he "spilt his seed upon the ground" because the resulting child would be considered his late brother's, not his. In response to the transgression of disobedience, God killed Onan too.
The statement here makes it seem as if Onan was commanded by God to be living by the Law of Moses. The Yibbum as established in the Law was generations later than Onan's time. It was Onan's father Judah that commanded Yibbum in this instance, not God. And was Onan's pretense and rape (sex by pretense) of Tamar who'd just suffered a triple pain (husband just died, he was childless and she's still childless). If failure to Yibbum was the crime Onan was killed for, then why wasn't Judah also killed for not allowing his 3rd son to preform it? And besides that, The Law added quite a few limits to punishments. Eye for an eye is a famous limitation (as in, only an eye for an eye and no more than an eye). The Hebrews, after the Law was given, lived under its rule and protection. After the Law was fulfilled, Christians were no longer under its rule but also not under its protection. Case and point, Ananias and Sapphira pretended to donate the proceeds of their land to the church but kept some back. They also were struck dead, and a twofer no less. Both parties pretended to do the right thing outwardly but tried to secretly reneg. Both parties premeditated their ruse. Both parties tried to get their pleasure without the responsibilities. Both parties were pioneers in their crimes (1st fake donation for their eras) and so had to be made an example of. Neither party was under the protection of the Law. But a possible difference is, Onan's eternal fate is unclear. Ananias and Sapphira had been promised heaven. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.109.248.53 ( talk) 12:41, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
"The Jewish attorney Alan Dershowitz has suggested that Onan and Tamar engaged in frottage (non-penetrative sex) or in anal sex. Also, he suggests that the anger of Yaweh was directed not at the sexual act, but at Onan's disobedience by refusing to impregnate his brother's widow. [1] "
Is it important that Dershowitz is Jewish to this statement? Does that make him an expert on Onan? Does that he is a lawyer make him an expert on Onan? I agree with the thought of the statement, but I am not sure that it is appropriate. Lets just put in the statement of opinion, who gave the opinion and a citatin that supports that accurately. Atom ( talk) 12:55, 5 April 2010 (UTC)
...but performed coitus interruptus each time, spilling his...
each time? That should be revised or explained. The narrative seems to refer only to one instance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.111.33.136 ( talk) 06:18, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
References
attorney, but had a named chair as a law professor at Harvard Law School. This gives him special insight and authority in matters of law, both modern and ancient. As coming from an Orthodox Jewish background, he surely has read the Hebrew Bible and some Oral Torah and had enough time to reflect upon it after he decided he is a secular Jew. tgeorgescu ( talk) 07:12, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
I think it is clear for any thinking person that the act described by the Bible is actually coitus interruptus, not masturbation. The reference from Coogan was required by WP:VER, but he is very far from being the only one who thinks so, in fact he expresses the consensus. There's not much to doubt about that, so it is not a matter of what "some modern scholars" believe, but a matter of reading and comprehending your own Bible translation. This is a factual claim, not an opinion; Coogan states it as a fact, not as an interpretation. The Bible does not use the word masturbation or any other synonym of it or any expression which could mean it, in fact there is not a single Bible verse mentioning masturbation or describing the act of masturbating. It is only a matter of using the proper English words for what the text says. If some have used their own imagination to guess that the Bible referred to masturbation, this is simply what their imagination has added to the clear text. I saw old porn films wherein actors were cumming before the camera without masturbating, so it is physically possible to commit coitus interruptus without masturbating. In fact, thinking that Onan's story refers to masturbation is a gross error of misinterpreting a written text. No matter what theologians had to say on this issue in the past, they were not using the text of the Bible but they were speaking as theologians, not as interpreters of the written text. Tgeorgescu ( talk) 19:24, 5 December 2011 (UTC)
I just realised that I may have blasphemed in my last post. I'm in the process of cutting off my forefingers (I'm a two finger typist) so I apologise if I make fewer entries here going forward. PuppyOnTheRadio talk 00:57, 21 February 2012 (UTC)
There are multiple >'s and <'s used in the quote from this fellow, but there is no indicator as to what they're supposed to mean. Are they missing words? In that case they should be marked using square brackets []. Are they emphasised words? In which case italics should be used. I'm almost 100% certain that those characters did not exist when Epiphanius wrote that, so I highly doubt that they're in the original text. So why are they used? 1.157.95.133 ( talk) 05:03, 24 August 2021 (UTC)