This letter is to short - Can you help?

H3LL

Illuminator
H3LL
Joined
Jul 21, 2004
Messages
4,963
I caught this in Randi's commentary of January 17th, 2003 and remember seeing a longer version many moons ago, and not so gentle..

I have not been able to find it, so a link would be nice, but that is not the reason for this thread.

As many atheists and agnostics are much better experts on the bible than most fundies, I would like to ask you to add to it in a similar manner.

Thanks in advance for your help.

The letter from the commentary:


My teacher has told me all the answers that I need are in the Bible, and I believe that. Determined to be a good Christian, I'm up at Bible college right now, but I'm going home on Friday and I need some advice.

Now, my dad and I are thinking about selling my sister off into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. She's in college, pretty smart, very attractive, she has good manners and she's very friendly. What price do you think we could get for her on the open market?

After we get that finished, I have another problem. My father keeps insisting on going to the office to do some work every Sunday after church gets out. Exodus 35:2 says that he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill my father myself? I don't really want to do that, I love him a lot. So, should I call in someone else?

Here's another problem: My hometown football team has made it to the playoff game, but I'm worried about them. Leviticus 11:7 says that touching the skin of a dead pig makes one unclean. Can they still play in the playoff game? Should we get rid of footballs and use something else?

Also, does the entire town really have to get together to stone my Uncle Herald for planting different crops side by side? He's farmed his whole life and knows this is good for the land. Thing is, there are over 2,500 people in my town and it's going to be hard to get them all together to stone my uncle to death.

Last thing, I noticed my mom has a sweatshirt that is 50% cotton and 50% polyester. Do we really need to burn her to death with a small family gathering for wearing garments made of two different threads? It wouldn't be Christmas without mom.

I hope you can answer these questions for me before I have to go home on Friday. Thanks for the help!!!
Click to expand...

I have a .zip file of JKV to check the passages. If it is from a different version, please let me know.

We should end up with quite a conundrum for some people.
 
I've noticed that many people in the bible had more than one wife and I have found no explicit rule against this practice in the Bible. My next door neighbor is very hot and I've decided to marry her. Can you tell me the best way to break the good news to my current wife?
 
Uh oh! Bad news. Looks like I will not be marrying my comely neighbor after all. My brother just died so I guess I'll have to marry his wife instead. I don't really want to since she is kind of homely and doesn't like me, but I wounldn't want God to pull an Onan on me. Dang!
 
espritch said:
I wounldn't want God to pull an Onan on me. Dang!
Click to expand...

I'm not really up on the biblical stuff, but I was under the impression that it was Onan who pulled an Onan, and that's why God was angry.
 
According to the custom of the time, a childless widow was to marry her husband's brother. Onan apparently didn't want to have a child by his brother's wife, so he spilled his seed on the ground and God killed him for it. It was God killing him for his failure to tow the line that I was refering to as pulling an Onan.
 
espritch said:
According to the custom of the time, a childless widow was to marry her husband's brother. Onan apparently didn't want to have a child by his brother's wife, so he spilled his seed on the ground and God killed him for it. It was God killing him for his failure to tow the line that I was refering to as pulling an Onan.
Click to expand...

And then God killed espritch for failing to spell "toe the line" properly.
 
espritch said:
According to the custom of the time, a childless widow was to marry her husband's brother. Onan apparently didn't want to have a child by his brother's wife, so he spilled his seed on the ground and God killed him for it. It was God killing him for his failure to tow the line that I was refering to as pulling an Onan.
Click to expand...

I know. The monkey is a bad monkey, and cannot resist masturbation or anal sex jokes.

Please note, everybody, that I haven't said one word about the thread title "Did Jesus Get a Bum Rap." I've been waiting for someone else to bring it up.
 
According to Isaac Asimov, what Onan did was not masturbation, but coitus interruptus- ie he pulled out at the last moment.
(Not being Catholic, he was unaware of the Rythm Method, and being only slightly dark skinned, probably didn't have much sense of rythm anyway).
 
Soapy Sam said:
According to Isaac Asimov, what Onan did was not masturbation, but coitus interruptus- ie he pulled out at the last moment.
Click to expand...

It seems obvious from the way it's worded (at least the way it was worded in my New American Catholic Bible that I skimmed for the sexy bits as a child) that the Onan thing was exactly what you state above....then how did it "onanism" become synonymous with masturbation? Is it the same way Sodom and Gomorrah got associated with homosexuality?
 
And then God killed espritch for failing to spell "toe the line" properly.
Click to expand...

Well you certainly have a leg up on me. I guess I put my foot in it that time. I feel like such a heel.
 
TragicMonkey said:
It seems obvious from the way it's worded (at least the way it was worded in my New American Catholic Bible that I skimmed for the sexy bits as a child) that the Onan thing was exactly what you state above....then how did it "onanism" become synonymous with masturbation? Is it the same way Sodom and Gomorrah got associated with homosexuality?
Click to expand...

Likely. Basically, they decided they needed some way to condemn masturbation. Since the bible really never addresses the issue, they grabbed the closest they could find.

Remember the way it goes: pick a topic to condemn, and then go find biblical support to condemn it.

[I do remember that the German word for masturbation is Onanie)
 
espritch said:
Well you certainly have a leg up on me. I guess I put my foot in it that time. I feel like such a heel.
Click to expand...

Tsk! Some people have no sole. Next time you see them, stick your tongue out at them or lace their drink. Mind you, that's no way to get instep with their way of thinking. Stilleto morrow come and take the upper hand.

I'll shoe out of here and get my coat....
 
pgwenthold said:
Likely. Basically, they decided they needed some way to condemn masturbation. Since the bible really never addresses the issue, they grabbed the closest they could find.

Remember the way it goes: pick a topic to condemn, and then go find biblical support to condemn it.
Click to expand...
Curiously, I have an annotated Catholic Bible that uses this same passage to condemn birth control, since Onan's intent was to deny his brother's wife offspring.
 
Zombified said:
Curiously, I have an annotated Catholic Bible that uses this same passage to condemn birth control, since Onan's intent was to deny his brother's wife offspring.
Click to expand...

It seems to me this is the best interpretation of it, since masturbation dosen't seem to come into it at all.

Good story, Bible. Remember everyone, when doing your dead brothers wife go for gold! Anything less is punishible by death.
 
The scripture reads thusly, from Genesis 8 (KJV from bible.crosswalk.com):
6 And Judah took a wife for Er his firstborn, whose name was Tamar. 7 And Er, Judah's firstborn, was wicked in the sight of the LORD; and the LORD slew him. 8 And Judah said unto Onan, Go in unto thy brother's wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother. 9 And Onan knew that the seed should not be his; and it came to pass, when he went in unto his brother's wife, that he spilled it on the ground, lest that he should give seed to his brother. 10 And the thing which he did displeased the LORD: wherefore he slew him also.
Click to expand...
This sounds to me more interruption than masturbation, and it also clearly refers to the Old Testament law of providing one's deceased brother with offspring, as specified in Deuteronomy 25:
5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband's brother unto her. 6 And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel.
Click to expand...
It seems the ancient Hebrews would have really considered a child of that union to be Er's son in every literal sense, curiously enough.

Actually, the punishment for failing to do your brotherly duty specified in Deut. is merely to have her hit you with her shoe in the temple in front of the elders (and, of course, to have your name cursed for being a miserable failure to your family).

I had always interpreted the passage from Genesis in terms of Onan's violating the spirit of the law of Deuteronomy. Interpreting it in terms of birth control seemed a bit forced, and masturbation hardly makes any sense at all. But you know, I'm one of those modern types, so what do I know?
 
Tsk! Some people have no sole. Next time you see them, stick your tongue out at them or lace their drink. Mind you, that's no way to get instep with their way of thinking. Stilleto morrow come and take the upper hand.

I'll shoe out of here and get my coat....
Click to expand...

Well, the important thing was that TeaBag420 put his foot down. He took a stand to stomp out bad spelling on the forum.

Lesson learned. I shall try harder in the future so as not to get off on the wrong foot.
 
The punishment for raping an unbetrothed woman shall be all of 50 shekels (Deut 22:28-29), or about $11.30 at the current exchange for the new Israeli shekel. However the passage does refer to shekels of silver, so if we take the shekel as a measure of weight instead (approximately 11.5g), we find that the fine rises to as much as $154 per offence.

ETA: 'an unbetrothed woman'
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom