She was a temple prostitute

I'm embarrassed to say I cannot add 4 to 37, and so I somehow thought I needed to read through chapter 42 today. No wonder it was so long. But that's okay, it means I'll end Genesis evenly. Wow, almost done with book one!

"Joseph was handsome and good-looking!" --Gen. 39:6

Old Testament
Book 1: Genesis
Joseph in Egypt
Chapter 37: Joseph sold into slavery
Chapter 38: Judah tries to continue his line
Chapter 39: Joseph laid low by a femme fatale
Chapter 40: Joseph interprets the butler's and the baker's dreams
Chapter 41: Joseph interprets the Pharaoh's dreams
Chapter 42: Joseph's dreams come true

Well, Genesis just keeps getting better and better. Joseph's story is really good, and it doesn't even involve sex and incest--just a little. It's long and complicated, but it's a single cohesive unit.

However, thrust into the middle of Joseph's story is another of my favorite stories, so Joseph is going to have to wait for a future topic. I told you I love the story of Lot and his daughters, I love the story of Jacob and his four women. The story of Judah and Tamar might be the best of them all. An interesting note about this story. It is chapter 38, it's been inserted right into the middle of the story of Joseph. It's completely out of place, and in fact, in Judah's story--chapter 38--he leaves his brothers and travels south, has an entire family that grows to adulthood and gets married, and ultimately they (sort of) have their own children, in chapter 39 he's back with his brothers! The story is completely out of place. The note says that later on King David rises to prominence, and plays a big role in this old testament story. Problem is, he's from the tribe of Judah! But in Genesis he had a very small role. So they just inserted a story about Judah into the middle of Joseph's story. But here's why that is so important. The timeline once again belies the human nature of the bible. When Genesis was written, Judah was unimportant. Only after David became important did they go back and add this story about Judah. If God had written it, wouldn't he already have known about David? Alternatively, if God had decided Joseph was the line--and that is clear--the entire story of Jacob, and Joseph's birth is leading in that direction. Jacob tricks Isaac to get his blessing in order to secure God's promise, then after a long struggle Rachel finally conceives and gives birth, again to carry on the line and God's promise. If Joseph is the one with the line, then why would God make David important? Why not have David be born of Joseph's line, or have someone else become king than David? It just doesn't work, huh?

But that doesn't matter, I think there are many more problems with this. Joseph is going to marry an Egyptian girl--he's not even related to her! And if I remember right, Moses is an orphan, but we'll have to wait a couple days for that story.

Anyway, the Judah story is fantastic. You tell me how to reconcile the morality and rules of this story with what we today believe are God's morality and rules.

Judah has three children: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er married Tamar. But Er was wicked in God's sight, and he killed Er (Gen. 38:7). Just keep that in mind, because God set the entire following sequence of events in motion. Why did he kill Er in particular? Aren't people wicked all over the place? And by the way, what exactly was God's promise after the flood--I mean what was the intention of it? Of course the actual promise was that he would never again kill everybody. But what exactly does he mean by that? What exactly was he apologizing for? Was it killing everybody that was the problem? If he had left 100 here, 100 there, then he'd have been okay with that? Is that what God meant? Mass murder, genocide are okay with God, but only not 100% complete mass murder?

Or is it that after he killed everyone he realized that it was wrong to kill people because they were wicked, and he would never do it again? Well, that is obviously the only defensible moral position, isn't it? Any other apology God could have made would be completely meaningless--he thinks it's okay to kill 1000s, just not everyone? What exactly is the moral rule there? Yet he clearly did mean exactly that--not 12 chapters later he destroys two entire cities! And here again he kills Er. If someone could articulate the morality that God espouses I would love to hear it. If it's okay to kill Er, why would he regret the floods?

Anyway, Er never had kids with Tamar. So Judah tells his next son Onan to go have sex with Tamar! But he didn't want to get Tamar pregnant, so whenever he slept with his brother's wife (yes, that's the language of the text--Gen. 38:9--this is something he did often)--whenever he slept with his brother's wife, he pulled out and ejaculated onto the ground instead! That was wicked in the Lord's sight.

We have to pause there. It's pretty obviously wicked, right? Uh, I think so? He's spilling his seed, that's wrong, every sperm is sacred, right? But wait, he's sleeping with his brother's grieving wife! And grieving because God killed her husband, no less. Is that what is wicked? Maybe pulling out is the right thing to do if you're going to have sex with your brother's wife?

Well, we're both wrong. According to the note in my book at least, "the offense was in the unwillingness of Onan to insure posterity for the deceased" (Gen. 38:10n). Sleeping with your brother's wife? God had no problem with that. Coming all over your brother's wife? God had no problem with that. But REFUSING TO MAKE YOUR BROTHER'S WIFE PREGNANT?! That was something that God could not allow to stand. I will be using this story to teach my children how not to get pregnant. "See, daughter? It's right there in the bible. Have him come on your face, or your boobs, or the carpet, just not inside you. There's a good girl." "See, son? If you really love the girl you will pull out and come on her mother's living room floor, not in her. Now run along." "Mr. Anderson, the bible told me that was the right thing to do! . . . How's Mrs. Anderson?"

I've said this a hundred times already, but this passage must be reconciled with the fundamentalist Christian's understanding of God and the bible. What is God's morality that he gave to us? It obviously isn't marriage! It isn't monogamy. NONE of the things that we imagine are universal truths of the bible--not only are they not in there, but the bible clearly has vastly different ideas about it than Christians pretend.

These stories are always repetitive--can you guess what God did about it? That's right, he killed Onan too!

What to do? Judah still wants Tamar to get pregnant. There's one son left, but he's only about 12. Well, these biblical people have to draw the line somewhere. I'm sure little Shelah would have more than happy to step up to the plate, but no, that would be wrong. So Judah told Tamar to go stay in her father's house and wait until little Shelah is old enough to impregnate her. (You must be saying to yourself at this point, "come on, he's making this up." I wish I had this much imagination. Genesis chapter 38. Read it yourself. Send it to Penthouse Forum--you'll probably get published. No wonder so many of stories are signed "Name and Address Withheld"--they were written by God! "I always had trouble believing the veracity of the letters you publish in your magazine until God killed my older brother and my father told me to go have sex with his wife." And, "I was only 12 when God killed my older brother for pulling out and coming on her chest when he had sex with my oldest brother's wife, rather than making her pregnant. God had killed my oldest brother a couple years before, and now, my dad said, it would be up to me to have sex with her as soon as I turned 18."

Well, little Shelah did grow up, but Judah broke the poor little boy's heart by forgetting to send for Tamar for him to have sex with! Later Judah did go looking for her. When Tamar heard he was coming, she dressed herself up and sat down at the fork in the road. Judah came by, thought she was a prostitute, and had sex with her. There's a very middle-eastern detail here that I like--Judah thought she was a hooker even though she wore a veil (Gen. 38:15). Hookers show their faces, proper women don't. But Tamar wore a veil, and so Judah couldn't tell who she was. Judah said he'd give her a goat in return for sex (how would that translate into baht?). But here's something else cool--he was going to sleep with her on credit! He didn't have the goat with him, he said he'd send it to her later. She asked for a pledge until that time (consideration in other words). (By the way, in modern times this contract would be unenforceable because you can't contract for illegal activity--but there's also a mistake of fact here, right? She's actually not a hooker. But wait, whatever the state of contract law at the time, this activity wasn't illegal anyway.) She told him she wanted his seal and its cord, and his staff." He agreed and gave them to her, and slept with her, and she got pregnant. Finally. With her husband's father's child.

When Judah got home he sent his friend to give the goat to the woman. He asked around the town for the temple-prostitute by the fork in the road, but they all said that no temple-prostitute lived there.

This passage needs a little explanation, huh? The note helps out. Picture what's going on here. There's a man wandering around the town with a goat, looking for the whore that his friend had slept with so he could give her the goat! Well, it turns out all religions are not created equal, and I have finally found one that I like. The reason Judah's friend asked around for a temple whore was so that the people of the town would know that Judah had not slept with some common whore--he would never do that! That would be wrong, immoral, disgusting. But the Canaanite religion had temple-whores, that the religion respected, whores that were doing God's work! What is all this Catholic B.S. about nuns being chaste and virginal?! If they love God so much, why don't they work for him? God needs to keep up on the payments on his Caddy, and that new 50" plasma TV he just bought. He got to get his chains out of hock. Daddy needs a new grill, baby! Come on, baby, how much you make tonight? Is that all? Shee-it. You gotta work for this brotha. Don't he buy you those nice wigs? Those sexy dresses? You get out there, and don't come back till you made daddy some money.

But this was a poor town, and they didn't have a temple-prostitute. (I'll bet the new reverend that just moved in promised them one in no time.) Judah said, well, fine, let her keep the pledge then, because he didn't want to get a bad name. (Not for sleeping with a whore, but for not paying her.)

Then a few months later he hears that Tamar has been acting like a whore, and is now pregnant with the child of one of her johns. Judah says, well, go get her so that she may be burnt. (Yes, that's what he said. Gen. 38:24. I told you this is a good story.)

Tamar sends Judah's things--the seal and cord and staff--to him and says, "these belong to the guy that got me pregnant. Do you recognize them?" At the beginning of this story it seems like this is another story where the woman is just an object being tossed around. But it turns out here, Tamar is as desperate to get pregnant with a Judaean man as Judah was for her to.

When Judah sees the things, he realizes the woman had been Tamar, and admits that she was in the right because he had never sent Shelah to have sex with her.

But the story's not over yet! Tamar has twins. Here is another scene in the movie where a close-up of the woman's vulva will be necessary--let's see you read what I'm about to tell you without imagining Tamar's pussy in detail. When she gives birth, first one baby sticks his hand out of her vagina. The midwife takes a red ribbon (which she must keep on hand for such occasions) and ties it around the baby's arm. The baby then pulls his arm back into Tamar's womb, and then the other baby comes out first! She names him Perez. Then the baby with the ribbon comes out, and she names him Zerah. May I invite you to take a moment to really think about the logistics of that? Zerah had to have stuck his hand out of her uterus, through the cervix and all the way out her vagina, then pulled it all the way back in, and moved out of the way so Zerah could go through. Uh, wow.

"Dear Penthouse-- I have always doubted the veracity of some of the letters you publish, until I was traveling to Timnath. My wife had just died, and when I saw a prostitute sitting next to the road, I had to have her. All she wanted was a goat, and she let me give her an IOU! Well, God had killed my two older boys a while ago, the first one because he was wicked, and the second one because he pulled out whenever he had sex with the first one's wife. I had promised her that she could have sex with my 12-year-old son as soon as he turned 18, but I forgot about it. Well, it turns out the whore was my daughter-in-law! I'll call her Candy. Candy had a cute face and a perfect body. 36-24-36, with nipples the size of pencil erasers."


--bibletoenail


Future topics:
Joseph's coat of many colors. --Gen. ch. 37
The legality of slavery--Joseph's brothers sell him to Egypt. --Gen. ch. 37
Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Joseph has to be played by Owen Wilson. --Gen. ch. 39
Joseph's dream interpretation. --Gen. ch. 40
Joseph's solution: socialism. --Gen. ch. 41