Onan

Biblical account

After Onan's brother Er dies, his father Judah told him to fulfill his duty to his brother by entering into a levirate marriage with his brother's widow Tamar to give her offspring. Religion professor Tikva Frymer-Kensky has pointed out the economic repercussions of a levirate marriage: any son born to Tamar would be deemed the heir of the deceased Er, and able to claim the firstborn's double share of inheritance. However, if Er were childless, Onan would have inherited as the oldest surviving son.

When Onan had sex with Tamar, he withdrew before his orgasm and "spilled his seed [or semen] on the ground", since any child born would not legally be considered his heir. The next statement in the Bible says that Onan did evil and that God slew him.

Interpretation

The implication from the narrative is that Onan's act as described is what gave rise to divine displeasure, but even if that is the case it is not clear whether his objectionable behaviour was the refusal to complete the levirate obligation of providing sperm for his brother's widow to continue his brother's name (and clan rights) or "shedding seed in vain", or even having sex with Tamar (who would normally be prohibited to him as a sister-in-law) outside the context of an overriding levirate obligation.

Early Jewish views

The view that the "wasted seed" refers to masturbation was upheld by many early rabbis. One opinion expressed in the Talmud argues that this was where the death penalty's imposition originated. However, the Levitical regulations concerning ejaculation, whether as a result of sexual intercourse or not, merely prescribe a ritual washing, and remaining ritually impure until the next day began on the following evening.

Classical Christian views

Early Christian writers have sometimes focused on the spilling seed, and the sexual act being used for non-procreational purposes. This interpretation was held by several early Christian apologists. Jerome, for example, argued:

But I wonder why he the heretic Jovinianus set Judah and Tamar before us for an example, unless perchance even harlots give him pleasure; or Onan, who was slain because he grudged his brother his seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children?

Clement of Alexandria, while not making explicit reference to Onan, similarly reflects an early Christian view of the abhorrence of spilling seed:

Because of its divine institution for the propagation of man, the seed is not to be vainly ejaculated, nor is it to be damaged, nor is it to be wasted.

Roman Catholic views

The papal encyclical Casti connubii (1930) invokes this Biblical text in support of the teaching of the Catholic Church against contracepted sex.

Early Protestant views

Making reference to Onan's offense to identify masturbation sinful, in his Commentary on Genesis, John Calvin teaches that "the voluntary spilling of semen outside of intercourse between a man and a woman is a monstrous thing. Deliberately to withdraw from coitus in order that semen may fall on the ground is double monstrous." Methodism founder John Wesley, according to Bryan C. Hodge, "believed that any waste of the semen in an unproductive sexual act, whether that should be in the form of masturbation or coitus interruptus, as in the case of Onan, destroyed the souls of the individuals who practice it". He writes his Thoughts on the Sin of Onan (1767), which was reproduced as A Word to Whom it May Concern on 1779, as an attempt to censor a work by Samuel-Auguste Tissot. In that writing, Wesley warns about "the dangers of self pollution", the bad physical and mental effects of masturbation, writes many such cases along with the treatment recommendations.

Disputes

According to some Bible critics who contextually read this passage, the description of Onan is an origin myth concerning fluctuations in the constituency of the tribe of Judah, with the death of Onan reflecting the dying out of a clan; Er and Onan are hence viewed as each being representative of a clan, with Onan possibly representing an Edomite clan named Onam, mentioned by an Edomite genealogy in Genesis.

Also, it has been suggested that God's anger was directed not at the sexual act, but at Onan's disobedience by refusing to impregnate his brother's widow. By "closely analyzing the languange used to describe Onan's offense", other scholars challenge that interpretation. They argue that Onan was punished both because of a perverted sexual act, i.e. "to waste his seed on the ground", and his rejection to provide heir for his dead brother. It is said that those who followed Onan's act break "the social bond with their 'criminal hands', wasting the precious fluid that had been designed to perpetuate the human race".

The text emphasizes the social and legal situation, with Judah explaining what Onan must do and why. A plain reading of the text is that Onan was killed because he refused to follow instructions. Scholars have argued that the secondary purpose of the narrative about Onan and Tamar, of which the description of Onan is a part, was to either assert the institution of levirate marriage, or present an aetiological myth for its origin; Onan's role in the narrative is, thus, as the brother abusing his obligations by agreeing to sexual intercourse with his dead brother's wife, but refusing to allow her to become pregnant as a result. Emerton regards the evidence for this to be inconclusive, although classical rabbinical writers argued that this narrative describes the origin of levirate marriage.

John M. Riddle argues that "Epiphanius (fourth century) construed the sin of Onan as coitus interruptus". John T. Noonan Jr. says that "St. Epiphanius gave a plain interpretation of the text as a condemnation of contraception, and he did so only in the context of his anti-Gnostic polemic".

Some modern scholars maintained that the story does not refer to masturbation, but to coitus interruptus. Some Bible scholars even maintain the Bible does not claim that masturbation would be sinful. Although at the first glimpse the story of Onan does not explicitly speak about masturbation, according to Peter Lewis Allen, theologians found "a common element" in both coitus interruptus and masturbation, as well anal intercourse and other forms of nonmarital and nonvaginal sexual acts, which are considered as wrong acts.