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 CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR
Judah and Tamar, Genesis 38:1 - 38:30.

THE FACTS!

Judah transforms into an Adullamite whose name is Hirah.

Judah sees the daughter of a Canaanite. Either the daughter or the Canaanite is named Shuah.

Judah rapes her. Unless The Bible has a better term for "seeing someone, taking them, and then going into them." Perhaps a loving, committed relationship?

Shuah conceives and bares a son and Judah names the son Er.

Shuah (or Shuah's daughter. But I'll stick with the belief her name is Shuah since who cares what her dumb father was called?) conceives and bares another son and she calls him Onan.

Shuah conceives again and bares another son while in Chezib. She names this son Shelah.

Judah marries Er off to a girl named Tamar.

Er was wicked so the Lord slew him.

Judah tells Onan to go impregnate his brother's wife.

Onan decides that impregnating his brother's wife seems like a bad idea but having sex with her would be fun. So he does it with her but pulls out and ejaculates on the ground for his brother.

The Lord is disgusted by this and kills Onan too.

Judah tells Tamar, "You know what? I've had such luck with you as a wife to my sons, why don't you hang around the house and marry Shelah when he's old enough?" Tamar agrees and moves in.

Judah's wife dies and it is revealed that her name was never revealed and Shuah really was her father's name. So go back and reread the previous sentences correctly.

Judah and his friend Hirah go up to shear sheep in Timnath.

Tamar changes out of her widow's clothes and dresses up like a hussy with a veil because Shelah was grown but she hadn't been married to him for some strange reason. Perhaps a reason having to do with his being named Shelah.

Judah meets Tamar on the road and thinks she is a prostitute so he naturally propositions her. "I'll give you a goat for the Around the Fertile Crescent Special," he probably tells her.

Judah didn't have the goat on him so he purchases his lay by lay-away. He gives Tamar a signet ring and some bracelets and his staff and promises to send the goat later.

Judah gives her his staff. Then he gives her his staff! How often do you think that joke has been made in Seminary?

Tamar gets pregnant because Judah didn't want to incur God's wrath by spilling his seed on the ground!

Tamar dresses back up as a widow.

Hirah delivers the kid to retrieve the pledge items but can't find the prostitute anywhere. Is this a surprise, somehow?

So Hirah asks around. "Hey, where'd that whore go?"

Everyone says, "No whore works this clearing."

Hirah tells Judah, "Dude, you got scammed!"

Judah tells Hirah, "But she has to take the goat! This is going to be a huge embarrassment for me!"

Three months later, someone tells Judah that Tamar has gotten pregnant by acting like a whore. Judah, who seemed to love whores three months ago, now declares that Tamar should be burnt.

Tamar says, "Surprise! Guess who the daddy is?" and shows Judah the ring and the bracelets and the staff.

Judah says, "She has been more righteous than I because I promised her to Shelah but didn't give her to him and she only tricked me into having sex with her by acting like a fancy prostitute on the way to Timnah."

Tamar has twins inside of her.

Like a horror story, one of the twins sticks his hand out of her womanhood. The midwife ties a scarlet thread about its wrist and says, "This one was first born!"

Then the hand retracts and the other brother is born. The midwife says, "OMG! WTF? LOL!" The child is named Pharez which means Breach.

Then the other brother with the thread decides to come out all the way and he is named Zerah.

STUDY QUESTIONS!
Question God and Religion!

What made Judah turn into an Adullamite named Hirah? Was that his alias when traveling abroad to rape people? But even if Hirah the Adullamite is just a friend of Judah's, why would The Bible use the phrase 'Judah...turned in to a certain Adullamite'? I guess that means he turned his donkey and cart into Hirah's drive-way as he came to visit for tea and crumpets. It makes sense seeing as how 'tuned in' meant to get high on acid in the sixties.

How can anybody point to The Bible as the unerring word of God when you can't even discern whether the woman Judah did it to was named Shuah or that was the name of her father? If even such a simple fact is ambiguous, what about the big facts? Like Jesus being the son of Zeus?

If more people were honest when naming their progeny conceived from a one-night stand, do you think there would be more children named 'Er' or 'Mistake' or 'Whoops' or 'Oh Crap What Have I Done?'?

So is Onan Judah's son? Judah named Er but Shuah names Onan. And The Bible doesn't actually say Shuah did it with anyone. When Judah tells Onan to do it to Tamar, The Bible doesn't call Onan Judah's second born son. Judah just calls Onan and Er brothers. Even if Judah is the father of all of these kids (which is probable), why does he only name Er and not the others? Was it traditional for the man to name the first born and the woman to name the rest of the kids that don't matter?

If you had to make a guess, where would you think Chezib was? Since she named her son Shelah, I'd guess Chezib was in Australia and her new infant son was very effeminate.

How wicked to you have to be for the Lord to personally come down from Heaven and slay you? What could Er have possibly done that was so bad? Or was he just born sickly and died young and everyone in town gossiped about why he was struck down in his youth and decided he was a terrible person and God could not stand the sight of him anymore?

I guess when Onan ejaculates onto the ground instead of inside Tamar, it answers what kind of action would make God angry enough to come down and kill a person. Do you notice how Onan was a good cafeteria Jew in the way he was picking and choosing what he thought was right and wrong by his own desires instead of following his father's wishes (which are therefore God's wishes, right?)? If having a child with his dead brother's wife was such a horrible idea to Onan, perhaps he should have declined the entire sex thing instead of just pulling out? He probably deserved to die since he broke the contract with his dad. He was only supposed to have sex to get a kid.

Do you think Catholics today read too much into this story about a few individuals? This story doesn't prove that God was angry about somebody having sex without the intent of conceiving. God was angry because Onan disobeyed his father and took advantage of the situation to have sex with his dead brother's wife.

People who believe in God sometimes wonder why God doesn't take part in our daily lives anymore. After reading this Chapter, don't you think men should stop wondering that and think about how often they'd have been killed by God before they reached the age of fifteen?

Doesn't God get angry about really weird and arbitrary stuff? And this was before anybody had a rulebook like The Bible to deal with God! Not that I'm claming The Bible is a very good or clear book of instructions. But at least if you're dealing with a God that will kill you for about a billion offenses, it'd be nice to have some kind of idea what might piss him off. Poor Er and Onan never even had a chance! Well, maybe Onan did. He should have known already that breaking contracts with God's Chosen People was a bad idea, especially when that Chosen Person is your father. But who knows what Er did? Did he wipe his butt with the wrong hand? Did he stare at the sun too long? Did he think a random abstract thought and then was suddenly face to face with an Angry Sword Weilding God?

Do you think Hirah the Adullamite is really like Tyler Durden? I think it's Judah's alter ego that does all of the stuff that Judah is afraid to do. Like rape women and shear sheep.

How much were goats worth back in Biblical Times? Tamar was accepting a ring and some bracelets and a staff as a pledge that Judah would later send the goat. Don't you think the ring and the bracelets would be enough to pay for doing it? I guess Judah wasn't prepared to have sexual relations with prostitutes on his trip so he only had personal items which he wanted back. But a goat is worth all that jewelry? If I were a prostitute, I would have kept the loot and told him to keep his stupid goat!

How was Judah expecting to get the goat to the prostitute? It's not like she has a working address or a Post Office Box? Did the whores in the area stake out territory? Was it typical to send payment later and address it to 'that whore working the clearing on the way to Timnah during Sheep Shearing Season'?

Was Judah worried about being found out that he was having sex with whores or was the shame merely in the fact that he wasn't owning up to his contract? How could it be his fault if the whore moved before she received her goat payment? I guess he was pretty worried that God would slay him for not honouring a contract, even if it was with just a whore.

How does Judah justify letting Tamar off the hook? If she is supposed to be burnt for acting the harlot and becoming pregnant while a widow, how then is it okay when he finds out he was the father? Is it worse to burn a whore that has your seed in it? What if another man burnt her for him? Or is it the responsibility of the father or father-in-law to burn his daughter when she's gone into prostitution? Did he eventually give her the goat?

Do you think Judah understood that she must have been going crazy waiting to do it with Shelah who wasn't even interested in her? Or was he just happy that he was going to have some more children? And grand-children too!

Do midwives learn that thread trick in their Midwifery Classes? I can understand that with twins, you want to differentiate them as quickly as possible or else you'll never know which is which. And in a time when being first born is so important, you've got to make sure not to make a mistake or God will slay you.

The whole birth story of Pharez and Zerah just sounds like a philosophical riddle. Which child is actually first born if a portion of one child emerges before the other child is born but the first child doesn't emerge fully until after the second child? Who gets the inheritance? I bet a bunch of gray haired old Rabbis used to sit around contemplating questions like this for weeks. This story was probably meant to settle the matter once and for all!

Shouldn't Zerah's name have a 'P' on the end?

If having sex with a prostitute costs one Goat in Biblical Times, according to inflation, having sex with a modern prostitute would probably cost 1500 Elephants.

People think Autoerotick Asphyxiation kills people because they suffocate but in reality, God slays them.

Shuah's daughter's name, while not actually present anywhere in The Bible, was Shuaghar.

Chupacabra is hated in Mexico because men cannot pay for prostitutes with dead goats.

Stories with far less plot and action and titillation than this Chapter are made into crappy movies in Hollywood every day.

A. Have sex with a prostitute and tell her you'll send the payment later. Write an essay about your experience. Include citations (meaning medical bills).
B. Have sex with a prostitute and pay her with a goat. Was it worth it? Were you sad to see the goat go? Extra credit: Don't use a condom.
C. Why do you believe God killed Onan? Why would God be so critical of Onan's actions while letting other people with greater crimes live?

DRAWING TIME!

Draw a picture speculating what Er was doing when he did that thing that made God slay him.

WHAT DID CHRISTIAN LITERALISTS LEARN?

Prostitution is okay as long as you don't use any birth control methods. Because God hates birth control but he doesn't mind prostitution.