Wanderer I think it is supported by the text Genesis 38 v9:" whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he spilt his semen on the ground". I read "whenever" to mean "on every occasion", not just the once.
You are, of course, quite correct, and I'm not sure why I argued as I did . Although I note that King James refers to "when" rather than "whenever," it's pretty obvious that your construction is the only credible interpretation. I would, however, continue to insist that in terms of contemporary values Onan's "sin" lay in spilling his seed, though we might want to describe it as more reprehensible in other ways. More fundamentally we might wish to deplore the context in which Tamar had to do what she did.
I agree the culture of the time would have placed the highest value on reproduction to provide for the generation before. But both the Onan and Tamar stories seem to imply that a (free) woman has a right to reproduce and male relatives are obliged to provide the means. We could interpret the situation of Lot and his daughters as an extreme example of this (although not to be copied).
I am not sure if this leaves us with a lesson for today, unless it’s to provide free IVF.
I agree the culture of the time would have placed the highest value on reproduction to provide for the generation before. But both the Onan and Tamar stories seem to imply that a (free) woman has a right to reproduce and male relatives are obliged to provide the means. We could interpret the situation of Lot and his daughters as an extreme example of this (although not to be copied).
I am not sure if this leaves us with a lesson for today, unless it’s to provide free IVF.
I'm also interested in the theme of duplicity or deception in Genesis and Exodus and how incest fits with this: we have Abraham married to his half-sister and passing Sarah off as his sister not his wife to protect both of them; Nahor marrying his niece; Jacob and Tamar as discussed earlier; Lot's daughter both having sex with their drunken father. Incest is conducted in disguise or as part of a deception or pretence, a type scene echoing how Ham uncovered his father's nakedness while the father was asleep,.
The role of drunkenness is a key factor with Lot and his daughters: he did not know what was happening and so did not consent to this double violation. He was tricked into sex, the power relations were reversed with the daughters resorting to duplicity in their desperation to ensure they could have children, that the family line would not end. We've talked about the extenuating circumstances of the daughters being preoccupied with bearing children since they were the last humans alive. That they had taken refuge in a cave would indicate to me that the flight from a [destroyed] city and 'civilization' back to a cave in the mountains would be like the return to prehistory, an extreme and lawless time and place where taboos were suspended. Yet the long-term consequences of the incest would appear in the genealogies of the Moabites and Ammonites -- the incestuous procreation is revealed in the name 'Moab' meaning 'seed of a father'. While neither Lot nor his daughters were explicitly blamed or punished in the Genesis account of the incest, naming is destiny and an 'incest memory' would lead to generations of disfavour for these descendants. Incest may be permissable in extremis as ritualised deception, but the working out of violation still continues in history.
So what we have learnt from the example of Onan is to donate sperm. A fine message for any sermon. And more widely, to willingly place our bodies at the service of others, rather than to unwilling place other bodies at the service of our own.
(a) there's some pretty bad examples in the bible of behaviour we should try to avoid (remembering as I do. a well-regarded leader who cut through my obsessiveness on stuff like this: which may reflect on me more than the story)
(b) God likes people all the time, even when they behave badly
(yes, it gives me a warm feeling)
(c) do people ever need redemption, reform, correction, forgiveness etc.
(okay, I admit it: that's preachy)
Could be. The simplest explanation is that it's there to denigrate the Moabites and Ammonites. To LC's point, the lineage of David and Jesus has its unsavory moments, but it's allowed a full development. From an Ancient perspective, the Moabites and Ammonites are here summed up as the result of over-sexed woman fucking their drunk father. Perhaps it's to be instructive about a family's spiritual health, but that's a reach for me.
“over sexed women” jars a bit. The passage says that the daughters wanted children, which for some reason they did not feel that they could obtain any other way. In the ancient world for a woman not to have children would and leave her at economic risk. Even more so for these women in that situation.
The aspect I find troubling is the narrative on Lots part in this. The implication is that he was so drunk that he did not recognise his daughters while having sex with them. That leaves the difficulty in that if he was so incapacitated, then he would be unable to ‘perform’ as it were.
They were stuck in a cave. Who on earth did he think the women were.
Though they don't feature often in my conversations, the singulars are definitely 'succubus' and 'incubus'. I've seen them both written down before now. Thank you though, @Gee D for posing the question, as until you did, it had never occurred to me to consider why they aren't 'succuba' and 'incubus', which would have made the plural of 'succubus' 'succubae'.
I think the thing about succubi is that they aren't really women at all, they're just demons who take the form of a woman to ensnare men. (I got interested in them when a friend married an apparently delightful young woman who left him as soon as it was convenient for her and then tried to extort money from him - we called her the Succubus.)
It was (and maybe still is) used as an explanation for "night emissions" in some parts of the Jewish world. She was often called Lillith after Adam's mythical first wife)
It was funny when I was in junior high (12-14) to see how my Sunday School teachers try to explain what was happening in these stories. One teacher, though, was quite explicit. "It is talking about sex, people." I can remember as if it had happened yesterday rather than 55+ years ago.
Comments
You are, of course, quite correct, and I'm not sure why I argued as I did . Although I note that King James refers to "when" rather than "whenever," it's pretty obvious that your construction is the only credible interpretation. I would, however, continue to insist that in terms of contemporary values Onan's "sin" lay in spilling his seed, though we might want to describe it as more reprehensible in other ways. More fundamentally we might wish to deplore the context in which Tamar had to do what she did.
I am not sure if this leaves us with a lesson for today, unless it’s to provide free IVF.
Or sperm donation.
The role of drunkenness is a key factor with Lot and his daughters: he did not know what was happening and so did not consent to this double violation. He was tricked into sex, the power relations were reversed with the daughters resorting to duplicity in their desperation to ensure they could have children, that the family line would not end. We've talked about the extenuating circumstances of the daughters being preoccupied with bearing children since they were the last humans alive. That they had taken refuge in a cave would indicate to me that the flight from a [destroyed] city and 'civilization' back to a cave in the mountains would be like the return to prehistory, an extreme and lawless time and place where taboos were suspended. Yet the long-term consequences of the incest would appear in the genealogies of the Moabites and Ammonites -- the incestuous procreation is revealed in the name 'Moab' meaning 'seed of a father'. While neither Lot nor his daughters were explicitly blamed or punished in the Genesis account of the incest, naming is destiny and an 'incest memory' would lead to generations of disfavour for these descendants. Incest may be permissable in extremis as ritualised deception, but the working out of violation still continues in history.
So what we have learnt from the example of Onan is to donate sperm. A fine message for any sermon. And more widely, to willingly place our bodies at the service of others, rather than to unwilling place other bodies at the service of our own.
(a) there's some pretty bad examples in the bible of behaviour we should try to avoid (remembering as I do. a well-regarded leader who cut through my obsessiveness on stuff like this: which may reflect on me more than the story)
(b) God likes people all the time, even when they behave badly
(yes, it gives me a warm feeling)
(c) do people ever need redemption, reform, correction, forgiveness etc.
(okay, I admit it: that's preachy)
You may have learned that. I never taught it.
“over sexed women” jars a bit. The passage says that the daughters wanted children, which for some reason they did not feel that they could obtain any other way. In the ancient world for a woman not to have children would and leave her at economic risk. Even more so for these women in that situation.
The aspect I find troubling is the narrative on Lots part in this. The implication is that he was so drunk that he did not recognise his daughters while having sex with them. That leaves the difficulty in that if he was so incapacitated, then he would be unable to ‘perform’ as it were.
They were stuck in a cave. Who on earth did he think the women were.
A case of who tells the story, puts the spin.
I can't recall ever seeing this in the singular, or indeed the feminine.
Are there succubi in those cultures?
Sounds like a question for Susie Dent.