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To: Dr. Brian Kopp

Given: Dad’s first son dies and he wants grandchildren so bad that he tries to force son two to do the deed with his sister- in-law. No dice - God Smites him. Sister-in-law wants it so bad that she secretly prostitutes herself to dad. Bingo - twins.

Therefore: contraception is an abomination.

Yeah, that follows (o.O)


92 posted on 04/15/2011 7:31:48 AM PDT by Jack of all Trades (Hold your face to the light, even though for the moment you do not see.)
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To: Jack of all Trades
You reasoning is cute but it would also lead Christians to no longer condemn other non-procreative sex such as homosexuality. Unfortunately, your spin is nothing new. Its been tried and found wanting.

...The text (in the Douay-Rheims version) reads as follows:

        (7) And Her, the firstborn of Juda, was wicked in the sight of the Lord: and was slain by him.

        (8) Juda therefore said to Onan his son: Go in to thy brother's wife and marry her, that thou mayst raise seed to thy brother.

        (9) He, knowing that the children should not be his, when he went in to his brother's wife, spilled his seed upon the ground,6

        lest children should be born in his brother's name.

        (10) And therefore the Lord slew him, because he did a detestable thing.

        Now, it has been fashionable among twentieth-century exegetes to maintain that in these verses the Bible condemns Onan's coitus interruptus only insofar as it in effect violated the so-called levirate marriage custom endorsed by the law of Moses at a time when polygamy was not forbidden.7 According to this ancient oriental practice, a man - whether he was already married or not - was expected to marry his deceased brother's wife if she was still childless at her husband's death; and the first-born son of this union was then regarded as a legal descendant of the dead man. In other words, according to those exegetes who focus their attention exclusively on this custom in their reading of Genesis 38, Onan's sin is presented here as consisting only in his selfish intent to deny offspring to his brother's widow Tamar, and not even partly in the unnatural method he employed in doing so.

        But, as I hope to show, this reading of Genesis has so little to recommend it exegetically that one can only assume that its popularity in recent decades is due mainly to the modern prejudices of theologians and exegetes who see intrinsically sterile types of sexual activity as morally unobjectionable in themselves (or even as necessary at times) - and who therefore have a strong vested interest in minimizing whatever biblical evidence there may be against these practices.

        The classical Jewish commentators - who can scarcely be accused of ignorance regarding Hebrew language, customs, law, and biblical literary genres - certainly saw in this passage of Scripture a condemnation of both unnatural intercourse and masturbation as such.8 A typical traditional Jewish commentary puts it thus: "[Onan] misused the organs God gave him for propagating the race to unnaturally satisfy his own lust, and he was therefore deserving of death."9 And this is undoubtedly in accord with the natural impression which most unprejudiced readers will draw from the text of Genesis 38.

        But is this first impression correct? Is the truth really more subtle? Was Onan perhaps slain merely for refusing to give offspring to his deceased brother's wife, as most contemporary exegetes maintain? In answering these questions one must take cognizance of the following significant fact: the penalty subsequently laid down in the law of Moses for a simple refusal to comply with the levirate marriage precept was only a relatively mild public humiliation in the form of a brief ceremony of indignation. The childless widow, in the presence of the town elders, was authorized to remove her uncooperative brother-in-law's sandal and spit in his face for his refusal to marry her. He was then supposed to receive an uncomplimentary nick-name - "the Unshod."10 But since he nonetheless became sole owner of his deceased brother's house and goods,11 it is evident that his offence was scarcely considered a serious or criminal one - much less one deserving of death. Death, however, is precisely what Onan deserved, according to Genesis. It follows that those who say his only offence was infringement of the levirate marriage custom need to explain why such an offence was punished by the Lord so much more drastically in the case of Onan than than it subsequently was under the Mosaic law. If anything, we would tend to expect the contrary: i.e., that after the law was formalized as part of the Deuteronomic code its violation might be chastised more severely than before, not more mildly. Indeed, while it is clear from the Genesis narrative that the practice of levirate marriage already existed in Onan's time, there is no biblical evidence that he would have been conscious of any divine precept to observe that practice.12 This problem seems to have been simply ignored, rather than confronted, by those exegetes who cannot or will not see in this passage any Scriptural foundation for the orthodox Judæo-Christian doctrine against masturbation and contraception...

94 posted on 04/15/2011 7:49:06 AM PDT by Brian Kopp DPM
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