A sceptical reading of the Bible –Genesis. Chapter 38
Just as Joseph’s captivity in Egypt commences the authors of Genesis cruelly tease the reader by moving the action to other characters, in particular, Judah and Tamar. .
Judah, brother to Joseph, himself a founder of one of the dozen tribes of Israel, has several children to a wife called Shua. Their first son, Er is seen as evil by God who kills him, though we are not told why. This is unfortunate for Er’s widow, Tamar, so Shua asks her second son, Onan, to go and help Tamar get pregnant. Onan has no wish to do so, and allows his seed to go on the floor, wasted – (a biblical condemnation of coitus interruptus, as God quickly kills him for it.).
Judah now orders Tamar to remain a widow in her father’s house until his son, Shilah, is old enough to wed and bed her. Seeing how God killed two men before her, Tamar agrees to the demands. Many years later though, she discovers that the now fully-grown Shelah has not been offered to her as a husband as promised.
She hides her face to avoid him seeing her in despair and Judah who assumes she must be a masked prostitute spots her. He makes use of her, and she accepts a sheep from him in payment.
When he tries to deliver the sheep promised to her, Judah is unable to find the mysterious whore, but three months later he finds out that Tamar has been prostituting herself , due to her now obvious pregnancy. She is only playing the grieving widow game now. Not yet realizing that she was the prostitute he himself hired, Judah orders her execution by burning. However, she has possession on Judah’s cord, seal and staff, lent to her as collateral proof of the pending sheep delivery. (incompleted because she could not be found). Judah finally realizes that she hasn’t just been whoring with anyone, but with him. He pleads publicly of her innocence to protect his own reputation. He does not make love to Tamar again, but from her pregnancy she bears twins, Perez and Zerah.
The midwife has Judah’s cord to hand and ties it to the wrist of Zerah, but in the breached birth, his brother Perez manages to be born first. Perez is an ancestor in the bloodline of King David.
This story interrupts the flow of narrative in Joseph’s story, and won’t converge with it for some time to come.
God’s behaviour is inexplicable. He kills Er for no stated reason, and kills Onan for coitus interruptus, but Judah’s use of prostitutes and efforts to burn a prostitute go unpunished.
Arthur Chappell
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