http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onan


I'm getting ready for bed so I went to my favorite website, wikipedia.com
I have pasted the contents below, but is much better to view it at the website. I hate the way things look when I just paste it.

Wikipedia states...

Onan
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For the Major League Baseball pitcher, see Onan Masaoka.
For Onan generators for RV, marine, home, commercial mobile, portable and APU applications see Cummins.

Onan (אוֹנָן "Strong", Standard Hebrew Onan, Tiberian Hebrew ʾÃ?nān) is a person described in the book of Genesis in the Bible.
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Narrative

Onan was the second son of Judah. After his older brother Er died, Onan was required by the tradition of levirate marriage to marry Er's widow Tamar. According to Genesis 38:7-9, when he had sexual intercourse with Tamar he "spilt his seed upon the ground" because the resulting child would be considered his late brother's, not his. In response to this transgression, God killed Onan. The transgression was disobeying God.
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Interpretations

The earliest interpretations were straightforward. What Onan had done was dishonor his dead brother and shirk his obligations. Exactly how he frustrated the purpose of levirate marriage was irrelevant. The text emphasizes the social or legal setting, with Judah describing what Onan has to do and why. The plain reading is that Onan's sin was refusal to provide his dead brother with an heir.

Medieval Catholic authors understood the activities of God in this story as a condemnation of contraception. This interpretation was held by important figures in the early Church, such as St. Jerome who makes explicit reference to Onan's sexual act:

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 seed. Does he imagine that we approve of any sexual intercourse except for the procreation of children? (Against Jovinian 1:19, A.D. 393)

Clement of Alexandria, though he does not make explicit reference to Onanism, certainly 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. (The Instructor of Children 2:10:91:2 A.D. 191)

To have coitus other than to procreate children is to do injury to nature. (The Instructor of Children 2:10:95:3)

However, some modern Biblical scholars assert that Onan's primary sin was to violate the rules of levirate marriage. Possibly, the main purpose of these verses was to denote the punishment for violating the rules of levirate marriage, which was a divine law, rather than for practicing either coitus interruptus or masturbation. Most also understand the passage to refer to coitus interruptus.

More evidence against interpretation of Onan's sin as masturbation is contained in Leviticus 15, which discusses the ritual impurity resulting from heterosexual intercourse (verse 18) separately from that resulting from ejaculation (verses 16-17), implying that masturbation is not a capital offense.

The Book of Deuteronomy was written by Moses, (Deuteronomy 25:5-10 describes a way for the brother to decline this responsibility) who wrote long after the time of Onan. Onan was the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the Son of Isaac, The Son of Abraham. The time that has been estimated in which this occurence took place was the year 1729 B.C., Whereas the giving of the Law concerning the Brothers Duty, was given in 1451 B.C., 278 years seperate those events.
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Popular culture

Dorothy Parker quipped that her parakeet was named Onan because he spilled his seed.

David Foster Wallace in Infinite Jest depicts a future North American society governed by the Organization of North American Nations or O.N.A.N. Those opposed to the foreign policy of said government are known as anti-O.N.A.N.ists.

Momus, on his album Stars Forever, had a song titled "Onan the Barbarian".

The Catholic Church's teachings concerning birth control were the inspiration for the song, "Every Sperm is Sacred" in the movie, Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.

Mel Brooks describes a character named Onan in his recording (with Carl Reiner) of the 2013 Year Old Man. "Onan was falling one day and grabbed on to himself and fell in love."

In the computer game Enter The Matrix, after Ghost spars with Trinity, Trinity asks about getting Ghost a girlfriend, to which he responds that he responds to a higher power, namely "Onanism."
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Category: Torah people