What does the Bible say about…masturbation?
Nothing! Next question: What does that tell us about Christianity?
If you tune into Christianity over the last two millennia, the religion is often denouncing sexual self-touch. It’s “self-abuse.” It’s “monstrous”!
The denunciations of it are often made, but you might ask: What scene or passage in the Bible suggests the subject? The answer is: none. Strange as it sounds, the Bible says nothing about the subject of one’s hands being in contact with one’s groin.
Christianity has a long history of trying to ban sexual self-touch.
As I read up, there’s details I didn’t expect.
“Augustine, the lynchpin of Roman Catholic theology, once asserted that masturbation poses such a grave moral danger that a man would be better off copulating with his mother than wasting his precious seed alone.”
To follow “Christian teachings” might lead to some unexpected scenes
!I grew up Evangelical, as the key authority, a ‘Christian counselor’ named Jay E. Adams, would warn:
“Masturbation can get such a hold on a child that it can almost drive him out of his mind.”
But the question I had was this: Where is masturbation banned in the Bible?
Because I couldn’t find that part. It’s not like one can turn to any passage that says: “Thou shalt not masturbate.” It just isn’t there. You can search the Law and the Prophets. You can read the words of Jesus and John, and Peter, Paul and Mary.
Nobody in the Bible says one word about masturbation.
Over the years, various passages are cited. The religion long identified a storyline in Genesis 38 as concerning masturbation. Here, a man named Onan is killed by God. The reason why is actually left a bit vague, but Christian teachers often said that he was being punished for self-touching.
The word long used for masturbation was onania.
The story of Genesis 38 leaves a bit unclear why Onan was killed, but he never masturbated. So it seems improbable that he was killed for that.
Christianity pretended to have medical knowledge.
In 1724, an anonymous pamphet published in Boston linked the Old Testament character Onan with masturbation. Touching oneself, it informed, causes illnesses ranging from “palsies, distempers, consumptions, gleets, fluxes, ulcers, fits, madness, childlessness,” etc.
But the religion didn’t actually know any of it. All of these supposed health problems were just being made up.
What masturbation teaches is: Christianity makes things up.
The Bible doesn’t remotely suggest that self-touch could be a crime.
Christians become very intent on banning it. Many passages can be pointed to as “masturbation” passages.
Perhaps it’s condemned by Galatians 5:19 (“the acts of the flesh are obvious”). Or could it be an enslaving practice, so condemned by 1 Corinthians 6:12?
It’s a homosexual practice, of course, so condemned by 1 Corinthians 6:9 and 1 Timothy 1:10. Since ‘love’ is a guiding principle, any focus on oneself, they said, is condemned by Galatians 5:6.
One could more easily argue that masturbation is encouraged.
As Christian interpretations go, there’s clearly grounds to find self-touching “biblical.” Here is Ephesians 5:29–31:
“No man hates himself. He takes care of his own body. That is the way Christ does. He cares for His body which is the church.”
So do what you need to do to take care of your body? 🔶
