Get Bible, turn to page 42
Page 42 covers Genesis 37-38 in my edition ...so let's start at chapter 38 ...

1. Judah buggered off and went to live with an Adullamite bloke called Hirah...

2. Judah fancied this Canaanite girl called Shuah ... "and he took her, and went in unto her..." [from which can adduce that Shuah won't let you down, Ed]

3. She had a kid, a boy - he was called Er [as in, "Did you shag that Judah bloke and have a baby boy?" "Er..."]

4. Then Shuah had another baby, this one called Onan ...

5. And she had yet *another* sprog - when she was at Chezib incidentally - and his name was Shelah [three verses, three kids, very productive]

6. Judah sorted out a wife for his firstborn so Er married a girl called Tamar

7. Sadly, Er was a bit of a cunt so "the Lord slew him"

8. So Judah said to Onan "raise up thy seed to thy brother", or in modern English "go shag your sister-in-law, God's just topped your big brother..."

9. Onan was a bit iffy about this so didn't actually *shag* Tamar but seed-wise "spilled it on the ground"

10. And God thought, "I'm not having that" so he slew Onan as well

11. Then Judah said to Tamar, hang on til my youngest, Shelah, is grown up then he can have you - at which point things got really complicated

[12-15. Tamar went home to live with her dad; Judah's hitherto unmentioned daughter died; Judah went off to be among the sheep shearers at Timnath for comfort, taking his mate Hirah the Adullamite with him; Tamar heard that Judah had gone off for a bit, dumped the widow's threads, stuck a veil on, sat around on the road to Timnath for some reason and saw that Shelah had grown up but there was no word about marrying him, although why he was on the road to Timnath is not explained; meanwhile Judah saw this veiled woman by the side of the road and thought "harlot; because she had covered her face". He didn't know it was Tamar.

Still with me?

16. Judah said to the woman, fancy a shag? So she said, "What's in it for me?"

17. He offered her a baby goat. For a shag. Really. But she wanted some kind of pledge that he'd keep his word.

18. So he handed over his signet, his bracelets and his staff. Then they had a shag and she got pregnant.

19. She went off back to her own dad's house and put her widow's gear back on.

20. Judah lived up to his word and sent the baby goat as payment for the shag, but when his mate Hirah the Adullamite tried to deliver the wee thing, he couldn't find that harlot who was on the roadside on the way to Timnath

21. So he wandered round saying, "Where's the harlot?" but all the locals said, "What harlot? No harlots round here mate..."

22. So he went back to his pal Judah and said "No harlot!"

23. Obscure Jacobean English notwithstanding, I think Judah then said, "Oh hell, we tried."

24. Three months later Judah found out Tamar was pregnant ... "Tamar thy daughter in law hath played the harlot; and also behold she is with child by whoredom." So Judah said, "Let's burn her! Yay!"

25. So she went forth, but showed the signet, bracelets and staff to Judah...

26. And Judah said, "Oh fucksocks," admitting that she was more righteous than him and that he hadn't even given her to his son Shelah ... "and he knew her again no more..."

27. Turned out, she was going to have twins.

28. When she gave birth, the first one to look as though it was coming popped its hand out and the midwife tied some red string round the wrist so they knew which one was first...

29. ... but then the sprog pulled its hand *back in* and the other twin actually came out first and he was called Pharez ...

30. Then the one that *might* have been first, the one with the thread round the wrist, came out presently and he was called Zarah.

** *** **

Well, at least God didn't smite Onan for wanking per se ... more for not shagging his recently bereaved sister-in-law when his dad, and by extension, God, told him to. Frankly I'm with Onan on this one. Also, the Bible doesn't really explain why Er was such a cunt, why Judah didn't bother getting his lad Shelah together with Tamar, why you would call boys Shelah and Zarah anyway, there was no moral judgement about Judah rogering some alleged harlot, no comeback for the fact that Judah was a whore-fucker but Tamar was going to be burned at the stake for "whoredom", the narrative has no coherence at all really - I blame the writers - and the plot twist where the baby does and extra-vaginal hokey-cokey for just long enough for a midwife to tie some string round his wrist is hardly credible.

The Bible - a religious touchstone, a moral compass, an ethical guide and literally the word of God ... also the book that says it's okay to shag a hooker as long as you give her a baby goat ...
( writerblock ... embedding disabled by request on, Sun 22 Mar 2009, 17:15, 4 replies)

This
is why I love the Bible. I don't worship it. I personally think it's a load of garbage. But it's just so much fun to read, like watching Jerry Springer just to see the trailer trash bash each other with chairs. I think the guys that wrote these stories must have been chewing the wrong kind of plants. Either that or they had crack back in these days.
(mariam67, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 1:34, closed)

Ah...
so that's where the word comes from. And there I was thinking that "Onanism" was derived from some obscure Greek root...
(LongJohnBaldry, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 11:49, closed)

As the old graffiti goes...
Onan was a wanker
(Scooby Don't, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 13:23, closed)

Would have been much better...
if Onan had a "C" at the start of his name.
(RVD420 has his world coming down on, Mon 23 Mar 2009, 20:11, closed)