It's just remarkable to me how conservative Christians spout about the clarity of the Bible regarding sexual matters, when they clearly aren't interested in what the Bible has to say. They're interested in upholding up centuries of tradition about sexual matters.

The story of Onan is particularly crazy in that regard. Reading it as a prohibition of masturbation is absurd. Onan wasn't even masturbating. He was having sex with his dead brother's wife and then practicing coitus interruptus because he was defying a law or custom that said he was supposed to get her pregnant.

Nobody is really sure why this custom existed. It might have been to protect widows. It might have been to protect the property interests of the dead husband's family.

Whatever the reason, it's not of pressing interest to Jewish scholars, because Judaism doesn't hold up the ancient past as a model for modern life.

But one thing Jewish scholars know, and serious Christian scholars know as well, is that the story of Onan had nothing to say about masturbation or sexual pleasure. Nothing at all.

Yet Evangelical Christians just keep on keeping on with their absurd interpretation, which is weird given they're the crowd that insists you shouldn't interpret the Bible.

You sure don't catch them running around impregnating their dead brother's wives, though. Well, at least they don't teach that God wants you to.