Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: tp0x+@andrew.cmu.edu (Thomas Carl Price) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Tithing; masturbation; politicking Message-ID: Date: 12 Aug 90 06:04:54 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Lines: 20 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu re: Onan The law at that time (also in the Mosaic law) was that a man was required to conceive an heir for his dead brother with his dead brother's widow. Any man performing this obligation was also obligated to go to the trouble and expense of raising and maintaining the heir and the widow, who would at the heir's majority recieve all that was once the dead man's: in this way the household and family division of the dead man would be continued. Onan's sin was unquestionably not sexual in nature. He had acquired the property of his brother temporarily and wished to keep it for himself. The crowning insult of his wickedness was that he wished to use his widowed sister- in-law for his own gratification: his practice of coitus interruptus was a birth-control mechanism intended to prevent the conception of an heir for whom he would be responsible. I'm not coming down pro or con on masturbation or what have you, but the association of Onan with sexual sin is a Victorian fallacy. Tom