No I've settled into a "this is what the word says about the topic" attitude.
There is no indication in the Leviticus 15 text that the spilling of some seed outside of the body of the man's wife was deliberate:.....Therefore your example does not prove that the deliberate spilling of the seed outside of the natural place --- his wife's genital tract --- is morally lovely in God's eyes.
And there is no indication that the spilling is not deliberate. Therefore your interpretation does not prove that it is sinful.
But individuals who brush aside the testimony of God's people through the millennia can be suspected of merely trying to justify what they have previously decided is OK.
Up until recently slavery was seen as morally OK also. By God's people as well as by most others. "We've always does it that way" does not make good theology. What does the word say? I've read through the commentaries I have available right here and while a couple condemn onanism none of them give a biblical proof that what he did (beyond disobedience) is wrong. I feel they were so blinded by their culture that they refused to read what the word says
please note that the natural drives and sensations concerning copulation are common to all mankind, and were created good by God: they arise spontaneously, and do not constitute, in themselves, sinful lust.
My point is that Onan had intercourse with Tamar. Why? Because he loved her? I think not. We know he did not want to raise up children to his brother, so since he was going to disobey anyway why did he lay with his brother's widow? Lust.
Additionally, and more importantly, if Onan had obeyed God and had had honest, natural intercourse with Tamar and desposted his seed in her, his motivation would have been principally obedience, not self-gratification or "lust."
I'll give you that one. If he was going to be obedient. (Which brings us right back to his problem, He was disobedient)
"Show me in the Bible.
(Genesis 38:9-10)"[Onan] spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also."
What he did: spilled his semen on the ground
What he did was disobey. He did not produce children for his brother. That is what God saw as wicked. He erased his brother's name from out of Israel.
That's about as clear as you can get. What does it take to get the message across? Neon arrows and X marks the spot?
I ws thinking of asking you the same question :^) He did two things. He spilled his seed, which is not called a sin in the bible. and he disobeyed, Which is called a sin in the bible. Which is more likely that God killed him for, the sin or the non-sin?
Because you evidently think 20th and 21st century people, in a culture profoundly and pervasively contaminated with a "sexual diversity" mindset, know better than the unanimous testimony of Spirit-led and God-loving believers in the 1st century, 2nd century, 3rd century---etc --- all the way up through the mid-20th century.
It has nothng to do with sexual diversity. Or with sex at all. It has everything to do with what the bible actually says. A man who spills his seed (Lev 15:16 does not restrict itself to involuntary emmsions) is unclean but not sinful. (note that accompanying thoughts may still be sinful)
Do your really think they were all in error, but you and your acquaintances, people largely and even unconsciously influenced (whether you wanted to be or not) by a sexually corrupt 20th century culture, are not in error in what you consider to be sexually decent or indecent?
It has nothing to do with sexually decent or indecent. It has to do with what the bible says. (BTW, They all believed slavery was OK too.)
if I have offended you in any way,
No offense whatsoever. Even if we disagree we can still reason together.
I do earnestly hope that you will, just as a godly experiment, put away the 20th-21st centuries temporarily, and go back to the more time-honored and traditional sources of Biblical interpretation.
What is more traditional than reading what it actually says? Earlier cultures are just as susceptible to reading it for what they want it to say as we are. I've found nothing in the bible that contradicts the interpretation of Lev 15:16-18 as given above.
Best wishes to you, and God bless.
And to you and yours
I remain convinced that you are failing to see what is right before your eyes. Many people disobeyed their fathers, disobeyed their customary obligations, and even disobeyed God Himself in the Bible and were not killed on the spot: this extraordinary penalty is clearly for the specific act that Onan did, which is mentioned in the very text: "[Onan] spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight" --- like I said, it is clear to every Biblical commentator up til the Age of Playboy.
Protestant scripture scholar Charles Provan demonstrates in "The Bible and Birth Control" that Onan was not killed for disobeying his father, Judah, or because he did not honor his brother's memory, or for anything other than spilling his seed. Provan points out that Judah's authority over his son ended when Onan got married. Provan also recalls that the punishment prescribed for failure to "raise up seed for a dead brother" is not death, but merely to have the widow publicly remove her brother-in-law's sandal and spit in his face (Dt. 25:5-10).
Additionally, Provan leads us to ask why Onan — and not Cain, Jonah and countless others — merited such harsh punishment for his disobedience? Provan's conclusion, based upon a close analysis of Leviticus 20, is that God forbids all forms of intentionally sterile intercourse.
Saying that the unanimous Christian witness against deviant sex acts is like some imagined unanimous support of slavery makes no sense at all. Revealing His will to a society which already had long embraced slavery as an institution, God takens a number of opportunities to reveal his displeasure against slavery. (To take just one of many, many instances: by the time we get to Paul's letter to Philemon, he, saying "Receive your runaway slave Onesimus back, --- but not as a slave, as a brother.")
In short, there was no unanimous Biblical support of slavery, and certainly through the Christian ages you can't find any Christian Biblical argument in favor of slavery --- until you get to the American South.
Just like you can't find any Biblical argument in favor of deviant forms of intercourse --- until you get to the post-1950's American playboy culture.
In fact, your argumnt in favor of deviant sexual intercourse follows the same lines as the "Gay Christians'") argument in favor of gay sexual relations. Which I find discouraging in the extreme, since a "personal-interpretation" method like yours has really nothing convincing to say against the Gay Christian ideology. They, too, can answer every Scriptural rebuke with "Well, I doen't think there's any rebuke of homosexuality that applies to my own practice in particular --- that's not the way I read it."
I remain convinced that you are failing to see what is right before your eyes. Many people disobeyed their fathers, disobeyed their customary obligations, and even disobeyed God Himself in the Bible and were not killed on the spot: this extraordinary penalty is clearly for the specific act that Onan did, which is mentioned in the very text: "[Onan] spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight" --- like I said, it is clear to every Biblical commentator up til the Age of Playboy.
Protestant scripture scholar Charles Provan demonstrates in "The Bible and Birth Control" that Onan was not killed for disobeying his father, Judah, or because he did not honor his brother's memory, or for anything other than spilling his seed. Provan points out that Judah's authority over his son ended when Onan got married. Provan also recalls that the punishment prescribed for failure to "raise up seed for a dead brother" is not death, but merely to have the widow publicly remove her brother-in-law's sandal and spit in his face (Dt. 25:5-10).
Additionally, Provan leads us to ask why Onan — and not Cain, Jonah and countless others — merited such harsh punishment for his disobedience? Provan's conclusion, based upon a close analysis of Leviticus 20, is that God forbids all forms of intentionally sterile intercourse.
Saying that the unanimous Christian witness against deviant sex acts is like some imagined unanimous support of slavery makes no sense at all. Revealing His will to a society which already had long embraced slavery as an institution, God takens a number of opportunities to reveal his displeasure against slavery. (To take just one of many, many instances: by the time we get to Paul's letter to Philemon, he, saying "Receive your runaway slave Onesimus back, --- but not as a slave, as a brother.")
In short, there was no unanimous Biblical support of slavery, and certainly through the Christian ages you can't find any Christian Biblical argument in favor of slavery --- until you get to the American South.
Just like you can't find any Biblical argument in favor of deviant forms of intercourse --- until you get to the post-1950's American playboy culture.
In fact, your argumnt in favor of deviant sexual intercourse follows the same lines as the "Gay Christians'") argument in favor of gay sexual relations. Which I find discouraging in the extreme, since a "personal-interpretation" method like yours has really nothing convincing to say against the Gay Christian ideology. They, too, can answer every Scriptural rebuke with "Well, I doen't think there's any rebuke of homosexuality that applies to my own practice in particular --- that's not the way I read it."