BREAKFAST BIBLE STUDY

Onan Spilled His Milk

Genesis 38: 6-10 (NIV)

9/14/25

“Hate only causes death and destruction.” – Christian Pecker

When I came to breakfast, my excitement to lead breakfast Bible study became nerves because sometimes in the morning, Grace looked like Mom, especially when she was upset about something.

“I did something wrong?” I asked.

“We were talking about violence,” Grace said. “Violence always upsets me.”

“In the Bible?” I asked. “I don’t like doing the violent stuff, either.”

“Real violence, happening now and getting worse,” Christian said.

“I really don’t like that,” I said. “See, I’d rather have Bibles in schools than guns. People can’t get shot with Bibles. Was there another school shooting?”

“Multiple, not that many Americans are taking notice,” Grace said.

“Children are getting shot almost daily in America. Children are starving around the world thanks to American foreign policy, but internecine political culture-war violence is dominating headlines, and all of it will only get worse,” Christian said.

“I don’t get that,” I said. “I thought politics was about debating and making laws and stuff. It sounds like what you’re saying is all about people hating each other.”

“Politics has become hateful,” Christian said. “Hate only causes death and destruction.”

“We debate and don’t get violent,” I said, “but we don’t have to do breakfast Bible study if you guys are upset. In any case, I forgot to pick a verse like I promised last week. It wasn’t going to be a violent one. The Bible isn’t all violence, but we can skip.”

“You want to skip because you’re unprepared? If so, why do you have your Bible bookmarked?” Christian asked.

I tried to hide my Bible behind my back.

“We don’t have to do breakfast Bible study if you don’t want to,” I said.

“Because?” Christian said.

“I know you don’t like doing it every week,” I said.

“Did you have a bad dream or something?” Grace asked.

“I just…I think I picked one that was really bad, not violent, just bad. It has nothing to do with violence, except God gets mad and kills two brothers. Is that hateful?”

“We don’t know what story you’re talking about,” Christian said.

“See, but I don’t…see, you both look like you’re not ready for breakfast Bible study because you were talking about something important that I don’t understand. This Bible passage isn’t all that important, even if two brothers died. See, that was a long time ago. God kills them, but I think it was all translation errors maybe…see, because God is love. It’s like Christian said about hate, and we know that God is love, God is love.”

“You’re singing now, so…can I guess something sexual is involved in this week’s lesson?” Grace asked.

Instead of being scared, I started to blush.

“And it embarrasses you?” Christian said.

“It may be inappropriate,” I said. “It doesn’t really get preached in church. See, mostly church is about Jesus, not all the old stuff that maybe got mistranslated dirty.”

“We’ve talked about horse semen,” Christian said.

“I remember that one. It’s from Ezekiel,” I said.

“Are you just going to stand there fidgeting?” Grace said. “I want to eat. We’ve been waiting for you for nearly an hour. That’s why we started talking about the ugly politics of our time. In fact, I could use a palate cleanser.”

“All the pallets are out in the barn,” I said. “We just dust them off.”

“Hit me with something dirty from the Bible, Cole. I won’t blush,” Grace said.

I shook my head and looked to Christian for help.

“Cole, I’m a nurse,” Grace said. “Nothing sexual is going to upset me.”

“Can you tell me what this is all about?” Christian said.

I whispered it in Christian’s ear.

“Playing with what?” Christian asked.

I whispered it again.

“Cole, artillery has given me tinnitus,” Christian said. “Articulate your words.”

I whispered one more time.

“You mean masturbation?”

I blushed.

“Just let me read the passage, Cole,” Grace said.

“Christian should read it,” I said. “He’ll make sure you don’t get mad.”

Christian took the Bible from me and scanned the page before reading the lines I pointed out to him: “‘Judah got a wife for Er, his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. But Er, Judah’s firstborn, was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death.’”

“Seems a little harsh,” Grace said.

I covered my ears.

Christian kept reading: “‘Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother.  What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.’”

“Who told you this was about masturbation?” Grace asked.

My head went hot because Grace said a bad word and sounded like Mom when she said that word, which always meant punishments, even though I did not know what that word meant until Grace explained it a few years ago.

“The passage is not about what many Christians claim it’s about,” Christian said.

“It’s not?”

“You googled some Christian website, I bet,” Christian said. “It’s not about that at all.”

“Onan pulled out,” Grace said.

“Of what?” I asked.

“Out of Tamar,” Christian said.

“Her tent?” I asked.

“Her vagina,” Grace said.

“Oh,” I said. “Um…wait…so…um. Oh! Wait. So…oh, wait, I get it now!”

“And the Lord put him to death for such a horrible sin,” Grace said.

“What was the sin again?” I asked.

“Not getting Tamar pregnant,” Christian said.

“So…wait, he wasn’t playing with himself?” I asked.

“I have a logic question,” Grace said. “Maybe it will turn your face back to its normal shade. Who reported this to Moses? Who witnessed Tamar and Onan in their tent?”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Someone knew very intimate details about these people’s sex life and passed that information down through the generations,” Grace said. “Is that what we’re supposed to believe?”

“Maybe God inspired it,” I said.

“God whispered these intimate details in Moses’s ear when he wrote Genesis?” Grace said. 

“I think they knew because she wasn’t getting pregnant,” I said. “He might have been using Tamar for sex or something and not helping her get pregnant with his seed.”

“Maybe he was infertile,” Christian said, “or she was infertile. Have you considered that?”

“She isn’t,” I said. “She gets pregnant by her father-in-law, Judah. Plus, God killed Onan for his sin. See, God was watching them.”

“That pervert!” Grace said.

“And this embarrassing story was passed all the way down to Moses?” Christian said.

“I guess,” I said. “Or whatever priest wrote this story after Moses told it to him before dying on that one mountain.”

“And now, it’s in the Bible,” Grace said, “right there in Genesis for Christian nationalists to teach to the K-12 crowd?”

“Um, I don’t think it’s appropriate for kids,” I said. “I found it and thought it was a good idea to be funny and stuff, but then I got embarrassed when I came to breakfast because Grace looks like Mom when she’s upset, and Mom gave punishments for bad words and stuff. I think it would be embarrassing to teach children. It’s pretty graphic about having sex.”

“But it’s in the Bible,” Grace said. “The inerrant word of God.”

“It’s inappropriate for children,” I said. “It’s too graphic, even if it’s not about playing with yourself. It’s like that Ezekiel passage about horse semen. You don’t want kids talking about this stuff unless it’s sex-ed. Even then, some parents would probably get mad because their kids might be too young. Mom would get mad for sure.”

“And it’s a poor method of birth control,” Grace said.

“Wait, did they even have condoms back then for safer sex?” I asked.

“That would be a great question for a kid to ask a history teacher forced to teach the Bible,” Christian said. “I suppose the history of the condom would be interesting, but some parents would certainly take offense. In this case, the story of Onan likely served as an object lesson. If you don’t fulfill your familial obligations, you die.”

“To answer your question, Cole, they might have had methods of birth control back then,” Grace said. “Sheep’s skin. Something like that.”

“From a real sheep?”

“As opposed to a fake one?” Grace asked.

“Why didn’t Onan want to get Tamar pregnant?” I said. “They were having sex, right?”

“They were,” Christian said. “He was pulling out before climax.”

“Quite the discussion for children,” Grace said.

“But why not get her pregnant?” I asked. “They were supposed to be fruitful to multiply. Was he afraid Tamar wouldn’t want to have sex anymore after having kids?”

“Does it sound like she was ever a willing party?” Grace said. “Or does it sound like she was a piece of property forced to bear a child to survive?”

“Maybe the second one even though I don’t know why,” I said.

“Primogeniture,” Christian said. “Judah’s inheritance would have skipped the second son and gone to the grandchild. It’s right there in the text. Onan knew the child would not be his by law. If Tamar were to have a son, she would have a means to survive.”

“But Onan would be the biological father,” I said.

“Yes, but according to ancient inheritance rules, Tamar’s child would inherit Judah’s wealth as the legal son of Judah’s firstborn son,” Christian said. “Onan would be cut out of a chunk of inheritance.”

“Oh, so it was about money?” I asked.

“Much of the Bible is,” Christian said.  

“That’s why it was important to be firstborn,” Grace said. “That’s why the Bible often focuses on the second child stealing the inheritance of the firstborn, like Jacob does to Esau.”

“Jacob became Israel,” I said. “He’s important.”

“Israel was a small nation,” Christian said. “These stories lend to the national myth. The story of Onan is not about masturbation, despite what we learned in church. It’s about fulfilling a second son’s obligation to his father and dead brother. Onan failed to do that. That’s why the Lord killed Onan.”

“That’s a little harsh,” I said. “How did God kill him?”

“It doesn’t say,” Christian said. “Unexplained deaths were often attributed to the Lord’s wrath…so it could be that, but these are mythic figures meant as object lessons. In all likelihood, these characters never existed, not as depicted at least.”

“Judah and Tamar didn’t exist?” I asked.

“We only have the biblical accounts,” Christian said. “They are not drawn with depth. The moral of the story is that second sons need to fulfill their obligations to their family. That’s why Onan seems more like an object lesson than a real person.”

“Oh,” I said. “I thought this story had something to do with Jesus.”

“Jesus isn’t mentioned,” Grace said.

“But the larger point, I’m guessing, you wanted to make is that the story’s graphic nature would make many Christians squirm,” Grace said. “And the story only gets worse from there.”

“I know how that one goes,” I said. “I asked Pastor Komen about it a long time ago. He said we don’t have ancient curses anymore, like with Canaan and Noah. Can we do that story next week?”

“Which one?” Christian asked.

“Can we do both?” I said. “Can we do Noah versus Canaan and Judah versus Tamar?”

“I’ll look at Canaan and Noah,” Christian said. “I’ve been naked drunk and do have thoughts.”

“I guess that leaves me with Judah and Tamar,” Grace said.

In state legislatures across the country, Christian fundamentalists are passing laws meant to force the teaching of the Christian Bible in public schools. From the posting of textually inaccurate iterations of the Ten Commandments on the walls of classrooms to the incorporation of the “Trump Bible” across multiple pedagogical disciplines, these laws and mandates are sweeping the reddest parts of this nation.

The height of hypocrisy is banning books in the name of “protecting children” while mandating one particular book rife with numerous acts of sexual violence and scenes of graphic violence and genocide.

Book bans are dangerous. The Bible is worth reading and exists online and in public school libraries across the country, but proponents of mandating its formal teaching in public schools need to know what it actually says.

Some themes in my books below might not be appropriate for children.