Onan
Onan ( Hebrew אוֹנָן, ancient Greek Αὐνάν , (procreative) power) is a biblical figure whose story is told in Genesis (chapter 38). It emerged from the marriage of the patriarch Judah to a Canaanite woman . After the death of his older brother , he had to Onan his widow Tamar married. The cause of the death of Er is not further explained in the Old Testament. This was in keeping with the Jewish custom of the Levirate . The brother-in-law marriage obliged brothers to create offspring for the deceased relative if the latter had no sons ( 5 Mos 25,5-6 LUT ). About Onan it says:
- 8 Judah said to Onan, "Go to your brother's wife and marry her, that you may raise your brother's seed." 9 But when Onan knew that the seed should not be his own if it went into his brother's wife, he dropped it on the earth and ruined it, so that he would not give seed to his brother. 10 Then what he did was evil for the Lord, and he killed him also.
Onan was not punished because of coitus interruptus or masturbation ("onanism"), but because he did not want to continue his brother's bloodline. According to the Old Testament, he dropped his seed on the earth. His sister-in-law Tamar, however, was a clever woman and, pretending to be a prostitute - albeit at risk of death - by her father-in-law Judah , and thus became the ancestress of Jesus .
Aftermath
The concept of masturbation for masturbation goes back to this passage in the Bible. According to another interpretation , Onan had slept with his wife, but pulled the limb out of the vagina before the effusion ( coitus interruptus ).
literature
- Matthias Surall: Onan. In: Marion Keuchen, Helga Kuhlmann , Harald Schroeter-Wittke (eds.): The best supporting roles. 50 portraits of biblical marginal figures. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, Leipzig 2006, ISBN 3-374-02369-X , pp. 88–92.
- Mariottini Claude: Onan. In: Anchor bible dictionary 5, 20-21.
Web links
- Judith Gärtner: Onan. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.