Gibeon had made peace with Israel (2Samuel 21)

2Samuel chapter 21 is where we finally get to the famine which was somehow caused by Saul's actions. As I discussed to some extent in chapter twelve, I don't really have a good explanation for why people are being punished for Saul's sin long after he's dead, nor why the proper response was to kill some of his descendants. I'll freely admit this seems unjust and cruel, but maybe I'll check out some commentaries and leave more thoughts in the comments. (Oh, and the SAB is right that there is no record of Saul killing Gibeonites; I guess they don't list it as a "contradiction" because there's no verse that says this to contrast with. I suppose that's more of an "omission".) I also just noticed that it's a bit odd that the Gibeonites say, "...neither for us shalt thou kill any man in Israel..." and then request killing some men in Israel.

I answered whether all of Saul's family died with him in chapter two. I answered how many sons Michal had in chapter six, but the supposed contradiction raises another question: who was the father of these five sons, since David was Michal's husband? Did David sacrifice his own sons, or did Michal somehow have five sons in the brief time she was married to Phalti? Either answer is strange... I answered who killed Saul in 1Samuel chapter 31, with further commentary in 2Samuel chapter 1. The answer was, "It's complicated..."

Does God approve of human sacrifice? The simple answer is no, but there definitely is a lot to be clarified. Yes, God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, but he never intended him to go through with it. Yes, it talks in Exodus and Leviticus about devoting firstborn sons to God, but that was never understood to mean child sacrifice, and in fact, the verse in Leviticus is in the same chapter as an explanation of how you redeem a human being that you have vowed to the Lord. I admittedly don't know what is going on in Numbers 31, but it actually doesn't specify that the women were killed, only that they were "the LORD's tribute", which could mean just about anything. (Perhaps they were destined to marry Levites?) I addressed Jephthah's supposed sacrifice of his daughter when I covered Judges eleven, where I pointed out that there's no indication God approved, and it's possible that the "sacrifice" was that she would be an eternal virgin. The killing that Josiah did was about punishing idolatry rather than giving a human sacrifice to God. Yes, Jesus was in a very real sense a human sacrifice, but in a special way that is an exception to the general rule.

The chapter ends with some giant killing, and the SAB asks, Who killed Goliath? and Whom did Elhanan kill? Now, both contradictions are fixed by the words in italics, which makes a good time to stop and talk about italics in the KJV. The KJV throughout its text has words in italics, and I think it's a great thing that other versions should have (and a few do); they indicate words that the translators put in for clarity that aren't technically in the original manuscripts. The words "the brother of" aren't in the Hebrew, and aren't even in the Greek of the Septuagint. They are nonetheless added to most translations because of the text at 1Chronicles 20:5 to avoid these two contradictions. It's reasonable to assume a scribal error here because of this. I find it interesting that the KJV is full of italics, but as far as I know the SAB only points them out here because setting them aside allows for two contradictions to be added to the text. Anyway, there's some interesting stuff here about giants; when it says someone is a "son of the giant", they probably mean Goliath. The man with the extra fingers and toes is odd, but this is not an unheard of mutation.

As the scripture hath said (John 7:53—8:11)

John 7:53—8:11 is an interesting little vignette for a number of reasons. One of them is that more recent scholarship than the King James Version suggests that it simply doesn't belong here. It's interesting to me that while common sense tells you the farther away from an original manuscript in time you go the less you can be sure of accuracy, in actuality, the reverse turns out to be true. The more time that passes, the more archeological evidence you collect, the more study of existing manuscripts, etc., and you actually get a better understanding. The ancient manuscripts that have been collected of the New Testament show that this passage was almost certainly not part of the original book of John, as some don't have it, some have it in other places in the book, and some even have it in a few places in Luke's Gospel. It doesn't belong.

That being said, there's something about this story that seems so appropriately Jesus-like. Jesus stands up against hypocritical morality. Jesus sides with an outcast. Jesus forgives a sinner. If it's fake, it's a remarkably authentic fake, and I, along with many other Christians, really like this story. Anyway, since it's in the KJV, we deal with it.

There's a number of noteworthy things about this story. The men who bring this woman supposedly caught in adultery seem to be missing something; adultery is usually committed with a partner, yes? Where is the man? Also, it's a great mystery what Jesus is writing on the ground, but many have suspected that whatever he wrote, it played a part in what unfolded. Perhaps he wrote the names of the men and their own sins? One more thing, and I admit I'm not 100% sure about this, but I think in the Talmud it actually says that when someone is to be stoned to death, the people throwing the stones must be free of sin, so Jesus is using their own rule against them. Oh and I thought of another: Jesus never says adultery isn't a capital crime, he simply refuses to carry out the sentence.

The SAB asks how should adultery be punished? Well, it's pretty clear there in Leviticus, isn't it? As I just said in the last paragraph, Jesus never denied the Law. However, the Law was for the Jews, and doesn't apply to anyone else. I'm surprised that the SAB only puts these two verses there as there are a lot of instances in the Bible of adultery both being punished and not being punished. When I eventually get back to finish the Old Testament, I've got a heck of a story for 2Samuel 11.

Does God approve of capital punishment? Without even looking at the given verses, I know the answer is yes. There are a lot of things in the Mosaic Law that are capital crimes. The fact that there are people who committed these crimes without being put to death (and as I said above about adultery, I'm sure there are more than two instances in the Bible) doesn't negate the fact that these penalties exist. Once again, these are laws specifically for Jews.

Now, back to verse 12, which should be immediately following chapter seven without interruption.

Who shall ascend into heaven? (Mark 16)

Mark 16 is going to be largely a repeat of all the questions from Matthew 28 (please check that one out as it explains a lot), but I know all of the resurrection accounts have their own quirks that need to be dealt with, so let's see what Mark brings up as new.

"Were the men or angels sitting or standing?" Yeah, this is a contradiction, but a pretty minor point. If I had to give my opinion, I'd go by the consensus of Mark and John's Gospels I guess. I was going to say because they were eye witnesses, but they weren't eye witnesses to this event, were they?

As the SAB points out, Mark's Gospel is largely believed by scholars to have ended at verse 8, making verses 9-20 a later edited better ending. This is probably true, as I understand some very good scholarship points to this being the case. The SAB goes on to address the last verses, however, so I do as well. And anyway, it reads like an add-on as it doesn't seem to stick with the more or less chronological story so far, but adds some notes about the day as a whole.

"Did the eleven disciples believe the two men?" I think this is a manufactured contradiction, as the verse in Luke doesn't say the two men were believed (and I do believe that this passage is talking about the two men from Luke, which I'm sure we'll hear more about when I cover that Gospel.) So they said Jesus had appeared to "Simon", but are we talking about Simon Peter, the apostle, or some other Simon? (You may have noticed that "Simon" "John" and "Mary" are very popular names in the N.T.)

There are a lot of other questions that I've answered in various places towards the end of this chapter, but the last one I see here being new is "When did Jesus ascend into heaven?" I suppose this may be a contradiction, but there are a few things to be said about the whole thing. As I already said, the last few verses of Mark aren't about establishing any kind of chronology of events, so they can be dismissed for this question. With that out of the way, only the passage in Luke 24 remains to be addressed, as the other verses, although listed separately, really do agree. (I mean, forty days is many days, isn't it?) So what is there to be said about the Luke passage? I would say this: There's no reason why Jesus couldn't have ascended into Heaven multiple times, after all, he came back down from Heaven to witness to a number of people long after Pentecost, most notably the Apostle Paul.

It seemed good to me also (Mark 1)

Well, I disputed with myself for quite a while whether or not I should simply continue with the Gospels. On the one hand, it seems sort of logical, and on the other hand...well, there are a few reasons why not. My main reason had been repetitiveness. Years ago, a friend of mine who was not a Christian told me that she was going to read through the New Testament, straight from beginning to end. I actually advised her that this might not be the best idea, and that once you read Matthew, the act of jumping into Mark will have you saying, "Didn't I just read all this?" I think it's easier for a Christian who has some enthusiasm for the subject material, but for the casual reader, the first three books of the New Testament can get boring especially for this very reason.

In my case, as I would have to work my ways through the issues brought up by the SAB, it's probably bound to be boring to be covering the same issues all over again, and thus I would have a similar experience. There's going to be a lot or repetition, I think.

I'll admit that when it comes to Mark 1, there is the additional issue of what to do with the very first note the SAB presents, which is an unusual one. Generally, the SAB uses the King James version, and as such, sticks to it with admirable devotion. Here on the very second verse, however, the SAB points out an issue not with the KJV, but with the ancient documents on which the KJV may have been based. I'm not an expert in the ancient documents myself, but I am somewhat familiar with the expert being consulted here: Bart Ehrman. Ehrman is the sort of author that anyone who finds the SAB an enjoyable read would enjoy. Apparently once a devoted Christian (if I'm remembering his story correctly) he decided to embark on a course of study that would allow him to examine the original manuscripts upon which the New Testament is based. Rather than finding enlightenment as many do, he was shocked to find that these manuscripts were not telling the unified and clear story that he expected them to tell, and thereafter set forth on a career of publishing books that examined what he considered to be important errors, not in any particular translation, but in the manuscripts on which the translations are based.

Anyway, I've read at least one of his books, and while I found it interesting, I disagreed with the majority of his conclusions, although not all of them. I don't know if an author like Ehrman is proving anything quite so clearly as he supposes he is. Literary interpretation from any age can be a shaky subject, and I tend to think of Ehrman as being probably as convincing as I am, despite having some advanced degrees and far better knowledge of ancient languages. If you're at all of a curious or skeptical mind, he's probably worth reading, but I don't think I have anything to say regarding his footnote here.

So, to the repetitiveness: As I said in Matthew 3, I don't think that slight differences in wording really should bother people.

"What did Jesus do after his baptism?" I would say that as Mark says, he went to the wilderness for 40 days. The passage being used in the Gospel of John is not talking about the day after Jesus' baptism, but the day after John talked about Jesus' baptism; the time frame is far from clear there.

I answered at length in Matthew 4 concerning the timing of the calling of the disciples, mainly saying that I believe the story in John is a separate story than the calling here.

"Where was the home of Peter and Andrew?" This looks like a problem until you look at a map and see that Bethsaida is just the next town over from Capernaum, it looks like about two miles away by my map, making it easy to have left a synagogue in one town and go straight away to a home in the other.

"Are those who believe Jesus is the Christ of God?" You know, I may have to hand it to the SAB that this is a genuine contradiction; I don't know anything I could say here at all except that maybe John means human beings only? Who knows, so I'll leave it on an up for the SAB.

Perfect love casteth out fear (1Sam 12)

Chapter 12 is pretty much a one-issue chapter. Samuel gives an address to the people of Israel, and while he is not dying just yet, this has the flavor of a farewell address.

He gives a brief summary of Israel's history from the Exodus to the present, in the middle of which, as a sign of his supernatural authority, he calls down a thunderstorm. The people are afraid.

"Should we fear God?" the SAB asks, and it's not the first time. Nor is this the first time I have replied to the concept. While I think the answer I gave back in Joshua stands up pretty well, I think there might be more that could be said about it.

Fear of God is a strange and important thing. I don't know that I've outlined it here, but I have a great deal of fear of my father. The kind of fear I have of him at this time in my life is different than the fear I had of him as a child that I explained in my last writing on this subject, but I think it still applies in a way. (Then again, maybe this is more of a personal aside than real commentary on the Bible; excuse me while I indulge in some catharsis.)

My father and I had a falling out when I was just twelve years old, and as a result, I haven't spoken to him in well over 20 years. The fault for what happened was entirely on his side (although not necessarily entirely him, I know he was being influenced by others in an unhealthy manner at that time in his life), but I don't think I hold a grudge against him for it; I never got the impression that he quite understood that I was just a child. (Once, when I was six years old, he asked me if I'd given much thought to college.)

The point of all this is that after all these years, despite the fact that he is no longer really a part of my life, I have fear of him. Since my father is Jewish, he's always had a disliking for Christianity; it's common among Jews, and honestly often with good reason. Apparently late in his life he has become an orthodox Jew, so I'm guessing his views on the matter have not liberalized. Generally, I don't care that anyone knows I'm a Christian, but when we get down to specifics, I'm not keen on letting my father know, and it's one of the barriers (among many) for me in getting back in touch with him. Even with him being largely not a part of my life for roughly two-thirds of it, and even though my Christianity is one of the more important things to me personally, I still have a fear of disappointing my father, a fear of rejection. Now it may be that it's unhealthy for me not to confront this fear, but I'm pretty well convinced that it's healthy for me to have this fear. It shows me that despite all the hurt and "water under the bridge", my father still means something to me. He should, because he was there in my early childhood and I loved him dearly. On some level, I still do.

What does all this have to do with fear of God, though? If the God of Israel exists, if He's really there, then God should matter. He should matter deeply. Why shouldn't we fear Him? I fear God on a much deeper and more fundamental level than I fear my earthly father, because he was there for me in my early childhood, in my late childhood, and all through my adulthood as well. He was there for my parents and grandparents. He was there for my people (though I am not technically a Jew, I still identify with them) throughout history. He has always been there, He created us and saved us through His Son, and I love him very dearly. I do think it's natural and appropriate to fear God, not that we feel God is going to hurt us, but that we are going to hurt God because He cares for us so much. Just as we can hurt our parents by hurting ourselves, so we can hurt God in the same way. To me, that's incredibly scary.

In 1John 4:18, John writes "There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love." I don't know if John is saying something about a specific type of fear (Greek is more precise than English and Hebrew in some aspects, it would be worth checking) that is cast out by love, or if he is talking about a point in time where the love we have is "made perfect" in that our relationship moves beyond fear because we have learned to love well enough that we no longer tend to fall so badly. Either is a possibility and both seem like very good places to be.

And he said, Bring me up Samuel. (1&2Samuel, introduction)

The books of 1st and 2nd Samuel, in the original Hebrew Bible, were a single book. Actually, context seems to imply that that 1Samuel right through 2Kings was more or less a solid piece of historical narrative. What we're looking at here is the history of the Jewish monarchy, with 1Samuel being events leading up to the coronation of David, and 2Samuel being the story of David as King. I've often wondered why it's not called the book of David, since he figures prominently throughout both books of Samuel, while Samuel is not even named in 2Samuel.

As usual, the SAB has some things to say in the overview of the book that I agree with heartily, although of course it will come out that I disagree with the interpretation when I address specifics. Hemorrhoids and foreskins? It's a wacky book alright, and even the person who believes in God but doesn't know the Bible really well is going to find more than a few surprises in here, many not pleasant.

Why is it that it seems God appoints kings not to keep the peace so much as wage war? As noted, Saul eventually is deposed as king essentially for his refusal to commit genocide. And against the Amalekites, which is an issue I've already had to address, but will probably need to delve into in more detail. On the other hand, God is quite pleased with David, who, as the SAB puts it rather well, "is always happy to kill for God." Really, a lot of this meshes in with the issues of the purpose of the conquest of Canaan, which was left unfinished in Joshua's day, but pretty much completed by David. It also has to do with larger issues of the nature of God and the Judeo-Christian worldview which I have opined on in general in a previous post. What God's looking for in a king is not what we look for in a king, as the Bible itself says. And I don't think we should be looking for the same thing in a king that God looks for, because we're not Israel, and not a monarchy, but that's my two cents.

This is a strange book in various ways for the fact that it introduces politics into the Bible as never before, and also in that it's one of the first books to really be clearly and openly a book edited from multiple sources. It makes for a different feel, that's for sure, but at least we're largely back to a straightforward linear story, at least for a while.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge (Joshua 4)

Well, I was going to combine chapters four and five, since chapter four only has one note on it, but then I realized that to do it justice, I ought to devote a whole post to that single note. It's one of the odd things about the Bible and people who believe in it to those who are on the outside of that group, a group referred to by some as "God-fearing people".

I thought I had actually already addressed the issue, and actually, it seems I did, back in Exodus right after the presentation of the Ten Commandments. It was there that Moses said that odd phrase (which the SAB did not give a comment concerning, but I did):

Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

It's this strange admonition on the part of Moses--that seems almost internally contradictory--that really in some ways summarizes the idea of having "fear of the LORD". The whole idea of needing to be afraid of God is that it is a fear that should inspire you to make right moral choices.

Here at the end of Joshua 4, this moment at which God brings up the topic is right after He has performed a fantastic miracle for the people of Israel as a final warning both for the Israelites and the people of Canaan with whom the Israelites will soon be coming into contact. In my opinion, this is just the period on the end of a warning that God has been speaking to the people of the Middle East for about forty years. The warning is essentially: God's judgment is heading this way, don't you dare fail to take it seriously.

This all goes way back to even before the Exodus, actually. Back when God first promised the land to Abraham and his descendants in Genesis 15, He told Abraham that there was an appointed time for the Hebrew people to return from Egypt "...for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full." The people of Canaan were given over 500 years to shape up or ship out, so to speak, and they refused to change their ways because they didn't "fear the LORD". But I'm veering into a subject for a few posts from now, let me get back on track...

"Should we fear God?" the SAB asks, calling it contradiction. I say there is no contradiction. The answer is a resounding "Yes!" None of the verses given in the "No" column of that page explicitly says that we should not fear God. I suppose the intention is to suggest that the concept is implied in 1 John 4:18, and maybe a case could be made for it, but I tend to think that the real issue is that John does not make clear the object of fear in that verse. (I could be wrong; Greek is a subtle, nuanced language, and I've been wrong about such things before.) I think it is as Moses said, that having fear of the LORD casts out fear of anything else.

Still, the non-believer often looks on the idea of "fear of God" as a distasteful thing. In a sense, I agree; at least with the concept as they no doubt are understanding it. There's an ugly side of religion, even (and perhaps especially) Christianity, wherein people are motivated to belief in God chiefly due to the fact that they've been convinced that not believing in Him will lead to a hearty smiting, if you will. "Why do you follow Jesus?" we ask an imaginary believer, who responds, "Well, I don't want to end up swimming in a lake of fire with little red demons poking me in the ass with pitchforks!" That kind of belief, while it might indeed save a person, is not pretty. It is my belief that the best kind of faith is a faith built on a foundation of love. Perhaps the best illustration I can think of is that for me, to not be a Christian would be something like spitting in the face of my mother. While even she, in her own imperfect way, gave so much of her life for me and my sister, God in His absolutely perfect way, gave His entire life for me. The only fear in that love is the fear that I would take lightly the gift of His blood shed on the cross. For most Jews, the feeling is essentially the same, without the cross part.

Yet there is fear, as I have said, the Bible admonishes repeatedly that we should fear God, that fearing God is good for us, that it leads to wisdom, righteousness and salvation. What of that? As I said in my post about Moses, at least one modern version of the Bible renders a translation of "reverential fear". This is the real key to understanding the concept, whether the translation is technically correct or not. It is part and parcel of proper fear of God that, unlike something such as fear of spiders that makes one recoil and pull away, this fear is such that makes one draw closer. True, genuine and fully understanding fear of God realizes who and what God is, knows that running away is not an option, sees that God is a being of love and compassion (even at the root of fearsome things that He does such as send His people to wipe out a handful of nations from the land of Canaan), and grows closer to God in reverence, awe and respect.

In C. S. Lewis' novel The Horse and His Boy, part of the Chronicles of Narnia, there is a scene where a talking horse named Hwin meets God, who in that fictional world is personified by a great and ferocious Lion named Aslan. At first, she is scared, but then, while her fear does not go away, it changes subtly and she approaches Him to say,

"Please, you're so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I'd sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."

As is so often that case, I think Lewis encapsulates it well. The fear of God is indeed fear, but in a way that is not at all ugly.

My own father, interestingly enough, only spanked me once in my entire childhood, and it actually made me respect him all the more. The pain was nothing; I don't even remember it. What I do remember was his look of disappointment because I had done something that was wrong and I knew it. I feared my father, but not because he was going to hurt me. He never spanked me before, nor after, and when he did it, it took me by surprise. I was afraid of him; afraid of being a disappointment. And this fear was not because I thought he would reject me if I disappointed him, but actually because I knew he would not. That's the kind of fear that one needs with God.

Yea, I throughly washed away thy blood from thee (Lev. 15:24 & 20:18)

Well, I was going to let it sit until a future date, but then, in writing the last post, something came up that truly troubled me, and I decided to jump ahead to an issue that I originally meant to leave for much later: sex with a menstruating woman.

Those who have had dealings with me before elsewhere, and perhaps a few times in this blog, will know that I sometimes will say something like "Well, that's a contradiction, but not an important one." You know, like one verse says 700 horses, and another says 7,000? That doesn't bother me, and I know there are problems like that in the Bible in quite a few places. Well, in wrapping up the last post, I came accross a problem that I could not simply shrug off. It's found here.

Seriously, there's a big difference between "unclean seven days" and "cut off from among their people." While the latter phrase is perhaps a bit vague, it's clearly something harsh; probably a person who is "cut off" is exiled from Israel. This isn't like other sins where it says nothing about punishment in one place, and in another lists a big one; those cases are just a matter of omission in the former verse. Saying one punishment here and a different punishment there, where both punishments are very different? That would be a serious problem, and I have to admit, I was stumped and ready to admit defeat on this point.

I wasn't going to gloss it over. At first, I thought I'd admit that it disturbed me and open it up to suggestions from readers. I figured I'd toss in a lame half-hearted attempt at partial reconciliation that didn't even really convince myself. Perhaps both punishments were to be performed? You know, "Leave town...and don't touch anything on your way out!" It doesn't make much sense, though.

Then something occurred to me that doesn't answer the issue, but I still think is thought-provoking: If a man broke this commandment, how would anyone know? Seriously. "Morning, Abiathar, how's things with you?" "Not so good, last night I had sex with my wife while she was menstruating. That's not a problem is it?" Well, it's not likely that you'd tell anyone, and if you didn't tell, who would ask? Still, there must be a purpose for this law anyway, and as such, there needs to be a reconciliation between these verses.

So as I prepared to gather my thoughts and post an admission of defeat, I read the verses again. And it hit me: read carefully "...lie with her at all..." vs. "lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness..."? The second verse uses two phrases that are both euphemisms for sex; why does a sentence need two euphemisms for the same thing?

I realized in this case, it is not the same thing. This is key. The little phrase "at all" is making it clear that we are not talking about a euphemism here. This is a case of a guy literally lying with his wife, and some of her menstrual blood happens to get on him in his sleep! No sex is involved, but he is still unclean. The latter case is a man who intentionally gets menstrual blood on him in an act of sex. It's that intentionality that makes the difference; being unclean and being sinful are not the same thing. In the end, there is no contradiction, only confusion brought about by unfortunate use of euphemisms. I wonder if it's clearer in the Hebrew? I'll have to check next chance I get.

So, the remaining issue (no pun intended)? Why is menstrual blood unclean? I don't know. There's no particular reason I can think of. Perhaps it's just another Mosaic Law oddity?

They laughed us to scorn (external links)

Once again, here is a post about other people's blogs, and the links that love them. I don't recall whether I ever pointed out that I added a link to Steve Wells' blog, Dwindling In Unbelief. It's pretty good; mostly more of the same stuff he puts on the SAB, but in a looser form. In the comments of his blog, I came across a couple of other blogs that I thought a person who liked my blog might also like. Or you might not, but I liked them.

Actually, the first one that caught my eye was By The Book Comics. Being a person whose two main passions are comic strips and theology, I find that even though you'll guess that I don't share DocMike's views on theology, I immensely enjoyed his format and humor. Sometimes the best way to get a point across to people is to make it funny, and so despite the fact that he doesn't go to the depth of discussing the issues that Wells does...a picture says a thousand words, as they say. Consider each strip a 3,000 word essay on "What Bugged Me About The Bible This Summer". A funny one at that, although not for the easily offended, surely.

The other blog I came across was one called simply Bible Discussions. It's written by a Jason, who identifies hiself as a "Christadelphian". Oddly enough, I've never heard of this denomination before this week, or maybe not so odd, as Wikipedia claims that there are about 50,000 of them worldwide. As a Christadelphian, Jason has some very different ideas as to the nature of some deeper theological issues. However, in reading his comments and a few posts on his blog, I'm struck by similarities in his writing style to mine. It's interesting to see that a person coming from a different point-of-view concerning the Bible could hold some beliefs and views so similar to my own. Anyway, I thought his blog was good, and I for one intend to read it more.

Well, with the addition of these links on my sidebar, I think I am going to take a few others down. Many of the links I have so far are to blogs of a theological nature, but I'm thinking I'd like to link specifically to blogs about the Bible. Those other links will be moved to my other blog. If you know of any other blogs on the Bible that you think are very good, let me know, and I may want to add them.

Now these are the generations of Pharez (Gen 38)

To quote the SAB regarding chapter 38, "This lovely Bible story is seldom read in Sunday School, but it is the basis of many Christian doctrines, including the condemnation of both masturbation and birth control." On-the-mark assessment of this story as a whole, which is a very odd one that only has some of its issues explained through appeal to a better understanding of cultural customs of the time.

Now the first thing that the SAB has issue with in this story is verses 2-4. I really have no idea why. (Steve Wells makes his case in the comments below.) Those verses, along with verse 5, are a simple straightforward setup of the story in which all we see happening is Judah meets a woman and seems to fall in love with her and start a family. What's wrong with that? They have three children, and the eldest of the three marries a woman named Tamar. Up until now, there's not really anything noteworthy of this story.

This eldest son, whose name was Er, does something bad that causes his own death: the Lord kills him. (This may be a figure of speech, but probably not.) Since we don't know what he did to deserve death, I'm not sure we can judge God at all for striking him down. I mean, if you simply don't believe that evil should be punished, or more particularly that you don't believe in capital punishment, then that's more of a personal issue that's part of a larger debate than this passage.

Then comes the weird part, at least to people of more modern sensibilities. Onan, the second brother, is told to go and get his sister-in-law Tamar pregnant. This practice is explained more thoroughly in another part of the Bible later on, but essentially if a woman's husband dies and they have no son, then a near relative is required to impregnate the widow so that the male line is not ended. Telling Onan to do this was something that was supposedly fairly commonplace in that culture and time.

For whatever reason--and despite many people making suggestions such as Onan not wanting to be responsible for a child that would get his older brother's inheritance for instance, we don't really know specifically--Onan decides not to impregnate Tamar, and instead pulls out and "spills his seed". There's a lot of speculation as to what it was that was so particularly wrong with this action on Onan's part. As the SAB notes (and I quoted above) the common beliefs are that it was a matter of the evils of masturbation and/or this particular form of birth control (thus the coinage of the term "onanism" for either practice) or even birth control in general. I tend to think there are a few deeper issues at stake here. The slightly more obvious one is the whole concept of a man impregnating his brother's widow as being so important that it requires an action (sleeping with your sister-in-law) that no doubt would be quite taboo if the circumstances were any different. If it's this important for Onan to fulfill his duties, then refusing to fulfill them is probably a serious offense. On a more subtle note, Tamar is in the genetic line of King David, and therefore also Christ; God may have special reason beyond our understanding to want to see this woman have a child whose father is in the house of Judah. (In my mind, that's what the whole book of Ruth is about.)

So supposedly after Onan died, Tamar should have been married to Shelah, the third brother; but Judah says that he's too young, and Tamar ought to go back and live with her parents until Shelah is old enough. Apparently, though, Judah's just thinking that if he gives his third son to this woman, he's going to die, too. I can't say I fully blame him, it's the sort of thing a father-in-law probably would start to think about.

Eventually enough time passes that Shelah's old enough to get married, and Judah's wife dies, but nobody ever goes to get Tamar back from her parents. Tamar decides that it's time to take matters into her own hands, in a rather unusual manner. She finds out where Judah is going to be the next time he's out of town, and waits for him, dressed up in disguise like a prostitute. It works; Judah sees her, and propositions her for sex.

Now, what Judah is doing, unaware of who the "harlot" really is, is quite in the wrong. He shouldn't be sleeping with some random woman he meets in the road in return for livestock. The story is however quite full of delightful irony. While he is being tempted into doing what is wrong, Tamar is, in a sense, doing what is right, because either Judah or Shelah is supposed to be getting her pregnant so she can have a son as an inheritance for her husband Er. Note that she asks Judah to pledge to her as a deposit, "Thy signet, and thy bracelets, and thy staff," which were symbolic of Judah's authority and inheritance to eventually give to the first-born son of his first-born son. And of course, since Judah is eventually the tribe of Israel out of which the Davidic dynasty comes from, these items are, in a sense, the royal seal and scepter of Israel. Judah hardly seems to pause, though, and hands them over. He gets the sexual gratification he wants, and she gets the child she wants, along with proof that the father is exactly who it should be. (The other irony is the contrast of this story with the immediately following story of Joseph being tempted with sex, and responding very differently.)

I find it interesting that later, when Judah sends a friend to pay off the debt to the "harlot", it echoes some of the supposition that we've seen earlier that the surrounding nations have no moral scruples. Judah's friend seems to have no intent of being delicate about the matter, and simply asks something along the lines of, "Hey guys, where's the whore that used to hang out over there? I owe her something." The men reply that there is no prostitute in the town. Back home, upon hearing the news, Judah decides not to pursue the matter in case it brings him disgrace.

Shortly after, Judah hears that his daughter-in-law (whom he hardly treated as though she existed) was pregnant "by whoredom." Judah gets all indignant and insists that she should be burnt to death. Before this happens, though, Tamar says, "Oh, by the way, the father of the child gave me these," and shows the stuff that Judah gave her. I always love stories like this, of which there are a handful in the Bible, where one person gets all "righteously" angry about somebody else's sin, and is ready to rip them a new one, as they say, and then someone says, "Oh, by the way, what about your involvement?" Judah puts the whole story together and realizes that the only one who really did anything wrong was he himself. Suddenly all that righteous anger goes away, and everyone goes free.

At the birth, it turns out to be twins, so Tamar gets two sons even though Judah never sleeps with her again. Both these sons rise to some prominence in Israel, Pharez of course becoming the next in the royal line to David.