A recent article about circumcision caught my eye.
Iceland's proposed ban on circumcision"The bill aims to outlaw circumcision when not for medical reasons and was introduced by nine lawmakers from four political parties. It claims that any parent allowing the “irreversible” procedure disregards a boy's right to self-determination. Those found guilty could face up to six years in prison."
As you can imagine this has created quite an uproar in both the Jewish and Muslim communities where this practice is considered a sacred part of their religion.
Something I've always found interesting about circumcision is it isn't Jewish in origin. Archaeologists have found circumcised Egyptian remains dated to 4000 BCE and I suspect the origins are much earlier than that. There are even clear examples of the practice found on Egyptian hieroglyphs from around 2400 BCE. To the right is a picture showing a priest about to perform the ceremony while holding a flint cutting tool with the printed words - 'Hold him and don't let him faint'.
Even the Egyptian god Ra was circumcised in one incarnation. The practice remained a mainstay in Egyptian culture until Roman times though it had one key difference from what we see in the Bible. The Egyptian ceremony happened during a boy's teenage years and the process marked that the child had become a man. Can you imagine if Jewish tradition did this as part of Bar Mitzvah? I suspect far fewer modern Jewish boys would willingly choose to become Jewish men.
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The link between Egypt to Israel/Judah seems clear as there is no record of this practice in the Levant before its mention in the Bible. From the record, some historians feel it is likely a small Egyptian religious sect fled into the Sinai around 1200 BCE to escape persecution which set off the story we know in the Bible. Etymologists studies support this belief as they say the following poem (called the 'Song of the Sea') is the oldest writing found in that book:
‘Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.' - Exodus 15:21
I am not an expert how exactly they go about proving this but the reasoning is the Hebrew language spoken here uses an archaic word pattern that isn't seen when the priests wrote other parts of the book. For example, imagine if a current writer used a direct quote from Shakespeare in their work. A future linguist would know the 'thee's and thou's came from an earlier source due to the phrasing.
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| Bronze Age flint knives excavated in Israel (picture from Bible-History.com) |
At that time the Lord said to Joshua, “Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again.” So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the Israelites at Gibeath Haaraloth. - Joshua 5:2-3
The thing is at the time of God's pronouncement, bronze had been available for about 1800 years and is a much better cutting tool than flint. Why would this be the case? Is it a stretch to think the leaders of this new religion saw flint knives as a necessary part of the ceremony since flint stone had always been a part of the procedure since its origin in pre-Bronze Age Egypt?
It makes sense to me.
Over time, the story of the exodus was passed down through the generations, told over campfires over hundreds of years, and inevitably making small changes to the story in the process. Eventually, Jewish priests decided to consolidate their beliefs in written form. They combined the fractured legends into a single religious book then backfilled it with the other familiar allegorical stories you find in Genesis. This includes the Abrahamic story which included a change to circumcision which made it a requirement for all Jewish males on their 8th day after their birth.
The reason for this change is obvious as 1st-century Jewish philosopher Philo stated in his writings about the subject. However, you don't need to be a genius to know grown men prefer to avoid circumcision. Doing it to a child means there is no choice. Paul of Tarsus certainly believed this since he removed circumcision as a requirement so he could gain more converts to Christianity. One further change over time was to remove the requirement of using flint stones. Thankfully, in modern times, practitioners use steel clamps, steel scalpels, and pain suppressants.
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I don't think it is a stretch to state tht the worst harms in the Bible are caused when believers cling too hard to ancient practices without truly understanding their meaning. For millennia we've cut off the tips of young boy's penises because prehistoric Egyptian rites were included in a Jewish religious text. This practice has also made its way into Islam (however the Quran doesn't state it directly).
The bottom line for me is while it can be argued that circumcision does have some benefits, is it too much to ask that the surgery should be done only when agreed to by the patient or if a doctor's opinion states it is a medical emergency? I understand there's a need for religious liberty but shouldn't that stop when affecting the bodies of others?
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