Circumcision's Purpose

[Scott Lloyd]

Well, I would then refer you to Scott Lloyd's citation. It comes a few hundred years after it was declared unnecessary by Peter but it is a revelatory statement from the then presiding authority on the earth.

-SlackTime

Incidentally, we have an interesting mini-discourse on the subject of circumcision in the Doctrine and Covenants by way of commentary on 1 Corinthians 7:14.

The New Testament passage quoted as verse 1 in D&C 74 is this:

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were your children unclean, but now are they holy.

The rest of Section 74 gives this explanatory commentary:

Now, in the days of the apostles the law of circumcision was had among all the Jews who believed not the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And it came to pass that there arose a great contention among the people concerning the law of circumcision, for the unbelieving husband was desirous that his children should be circumcised and become subject to the law of Moses, which law was fulfilled.

And it came to pass that the children being brought up in subjection to the law of Moses, gave heed to the traditions of their fathers and believed not the gospel of Christ, wherein they became unholy.

Wherefore, for this cause the apostle wrote unto the church, giving unto them a commandment, not of the Lord, but of himself, that a believer should not be united to an unbeliever except the law of Moses should be done away among them.

That their children might remain without circumcision; and that the tradition might be done away, which saith that little children are unholy; for it was had among the Jews;

But little children are holy, being sanctified through the atonement of Jesus Christ; and this is what the scriptures mean.

[Scott Lloyd]

And with all that, I'm still grateful my folks circumcized me and I'm glad I did the same for my sons. I still stand by my personal experience of the problems I've experienced.

I noticed something else; When I mentioned the problems Scott said;

Followed by

I know someone failed to give me the instruction manual that normally comes with a new infant, but I can believe that there are many a new mother and father that might forcibly retract the foreskin trying to make sure the child is kept clean, assuming my own experience with my wife is any kind of an example. So while up til now I've only had personal anecdotal experience you've just convinced me that a well-meaning, over-cleaning, fanatic parent has a chance of damaging something on a non-circumcized child that they can't or won't likely do to a circumcized one.

-SlackTime

Though I'm guessing that you and I are about the same age, SlackTime, I married much later in life than you, and my boys are still all under the age of 11. So I'm guessing from personal experience that the quality of pediatric care and instruction to new parents in this day and age has perhaps improved from what it was when your children were little.

Things change. Generally speaking, not specifically on the subject of circumcision, I noticed some differences in attitudes and advice from medical providers just in the few intervening years between the birth of my firstborn and lastborn.

[SlackTime]

Though I'm guessing that you and I are about the same age, SlackTime, I married much later in life than you, and my boys are still all under the age of 11. So I'm guessing from personal experience that the quality of pediatric care and instruction to new parents in this day and age has perhaps improved from what it was when your children were little.

Things change. Generally speaking, not specifically on the subject of circumcision, I noticed some differences in attitudes and advice from medical providers just in the few intervening years between the birth of my firstborn and lastborn.

Oh, I certainly hope so. But still I have to point out that since all my sons were circumcised, my experience has been with my grandsons, none of whom is older than 6, and the parents of those grandsons should have had the blessing of far more modern pre-natal care and instruction than we received when we were having our kids. They did get the more modern recommendation not to circumcise, and when they asked me I said that "it probably doesn't matter, this is a decision you should make with the help of your doctor, there is no religious need for circumcision". But these are the same kids where I have seen infections, whether those infections were caused by the parent, during forcible retraction, or not. If it was caused by the parent then they must not have got the right instruction about how to care for the child.

-SlackTime

[Scott Lloyd]

Oh, I certainly hope so. But still I have to point out that since all my sons were circumcised, my experience has been with my grandsons, none of whom is older than 6, and the parents of those grandsons should have had the blessing of far more modern pre-natal care and instruction than we received when we were having our kids. They did get the more modern recommendation not to circumcise, and when they asked me I said that "it probably doesn't matter, this is a decision you should make with the help of your doctor, there is no religious need for circumcision". But these are the same kids where I have seen infections, whether those infections were caused by the parent, during forcible retraction, or not. If it was caused by the parent then they must not have got the right instruction about how to care for the child.

-SlackTime

Point well taken.

Societal attitudes on this subject are still very much in a state of flux. It is an emotionally charged issue, and it may be that some medical providers are more reticent than they should be to discuss it and give instruction about it to new parents.

I think in another generation or two or three, our descendants will look back on our day and wonder how we ever could have considered doing such a thing to our newborn boys.

But I could be wrong. It has happened before.

[USU78]

I think in another generation or two or three, our descendants will look back on our day and wonder how we ever could have considered doing such a thing to our newborn boys.

There's something implicit in this statement that disturbs me. It appears to presume that whatever is new is automatically better, especially when the "new" is a collective opinion on something. Why should I be interested in accepting such presumption uncritically, most especially when there is a religious or quasireligious practice at issue? Just because 9 out of 10 dentists think so, why should I care?

[karl61]

There's something implicit in this statement that disturbs me. It appears to presume that whatever is new is automatically better, especially when the "new" is a collective opinion on something. Why should I be interested in accepting such presumption uncritically, most especially when there is a religious or quasireligious practice at issue? Just because 9 out of 10 dentists think so, why should I care?

Do you think that due to the total time man (homo sapians) have been on earth that circumcizion is actually a new practice and not the tradition.

[Uncle Dale]

a religious or quasireligious practice at issue...

"Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son,

and cast it at his feet, and said, 'Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.'"

"his feet" (that is Moses' "feet") -------> a quasi-somethingoranother here at issue

Uncle "do a word-study on the circumcisional circumlocution of 'feet' in this context -- yup, them 'feet'" Dale

[USU78]

Do you think that due to the total time man (homo sapians) have been on earth that circumcizion is actually a new practice and not the tradition.

Excellent question, and I have no idea. From the perspective of record-keeping homo sapiens sapiens, it's pretty dang old. From the perspective of preliterate homo sapiens sapiens, who the heck knows? Could well be.

[USU78]

"Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son,

and cast it at his feet, and said, 'Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.'"

"his feet" (that is Moses' "feet") -------> a quasi-somethingoranother here at issue

Uncle "do a word-study on the circumcisional circumlocution of 'feet' in this context -- yup, them 'feet'" Dale

At a night encampment on the way, the LORD encountered him and sought to kill him. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched his legs with it, saying, "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!" And when He let him alone, she added, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision."

It looks to this here kid that the charm being worked here implies that there is a protective power in the blood and/or flesh of the sacrificed foreskin which could be used both to protect the boy [and Moses? the pronouns are so confusing here] from G-d's displeasure, and may have another, more arcane but disturbingly Temple-esque ritualistic use, where the feet/legs/loins are annointed by the sacrificial blood to ensure survival of the Tribe.

Interesting stuff, Unk, to be sure.

[Scott Lloyd]

There's something implicit in this statement that disturbs me. It appears to presume that whatever is new is automatically better, especially when the "new" is a collective opinion on something. Why should I be interested in accepting such presumption uncritically, most especially when there is a religious or quasireligious practice at issue? Just because 9 out of 10 dentists think so, why should I care?

I'm not advocating that at all.

But we have in this instance a quasi-religious practice that from an LDS perspective was ended (or, in scriptural language, fulfilled) millennia ago. From a religious standpoint, then, I am free to embrace or reject it at will with no ecclesiastical ramifications either way. So I evaluate the literature, the scientific evidence pro and con, the statements of reputable individuals and organizations, etc. and, thinking critically, I choose to reject it for myself and mine. Further, I predict, based on what I have observed about social evolution, that it will eventually be rejected by society as a whole, since there is really no compelling factor -- none that I can see, at least -- to recommend it.

But again, I might be wrong in my prediction.

[karl61]

I'm still waiting for sethbag to jump in here with his bronze age mythology thoughts .

[Uncle Dale]

It looks to this here kid that the charm being worked here implies that there is a protective power in the blood and/or flesh of the sacrificed foreskin which could be used both to protect the boy [and Moses? the pronouns are so confusing here] from G-d's displeasure, and may have another, more arcane but disturbingly Temple-esque ritualistic use, where the feet/legs/loins are annointed by the sacrificial blood to ensure survival of the Tribe.

Interesting stuff, Unk, to be sure.

What we have here is a failure to mis-communicate... I think.

1. Prior to the 20th century Reform Judaism's female rabbi innovations, why hath Zipporah a knife?

(What a lesson for Relief Society meeting next week, eh?)

2. Who exactly is being circumcised? (in the original archaic fragment, not the surrounding narrative)??

3. Why is Moses, long after his marriage to the lady, being called a "bridegroom?"

4. Was Moses' "partial" Egyptian circumcision "enough" to allow him to marry a Midianite YHWHess?

5. "Loins" is still too much a circumlocution here -- the bloody part of Moses, after Zipporah does

her priestly (?) work, is -- well, you know what.

6. Would that we had the original story, before the redactors got hold of it!

Uncle "And why did not Jethro do the cutting? -- why the priest's daughter?" Dale

.

[rufus]

Why does this topic keep reappearing? The practice is not required by the LDS faith. My personal opinion of the subject is that the procedure cost a couple of hundred dollars, and when the parents were footing the bill it was recommended. What doctor is going to turn down another fee? But when insurance companies balked at paying for a dangerous and unneeded procedure, doctors took another look at it.

Considering the massive financial settlements the Catholic church recently made with so called "victims of sexual abuse" and the deep pockets of religious institutions, it is only a matter of time until someone recalls a repressed memory of being sexually and physically abused by a rabbi with a knife.

Rufus

[Selah]

Okay everybody I am going to give my two cents.

God instated circumcision in the OT as a matter of making a covenant with Israel. As an earlier poster said, It was "cutting covenant." And it is a literal thing. God said that something should be cut so that blood would be shed. God ALWAYS required a blood sacrifice of some sort. The reason for the eighth day is that it would be the healthiest for the baby. In more recent times it has been discovered that the human's immune system is at it's absolute peak ever in life on the eighth day of life. So to do it then would mean that the body would have a better chance of fighting off an infection if done on that day.

Later, God said that he wanted a perfect lamb to be sacrificed as offereing in the Temple. Again, more blood shed as a result of an animal being cut somewhere. Then later still, God said that there would be a final sacrifice once and for all. Enter Jesus, the final sacrifice. He was was cut, skin broken by the whipping. His skin was cut again when He had the nails driven into His flesh in three places. Yet another reason the atonement could not have in any fashion taken place in the Garden of Gethsemane. This is where He accepted His fate as well as took upon Him all the sins of the world but that was NOT the atonement. But I digress.

Anyway, yes, there is a connection between circumcision and Christ. There is a phrase that Christians have coined although it is not found any part of the Bible, is the phrase, "Scarlett Thread." We use this term to indicate that all throuout, the Bible, God has used blood as a means of cutting covenant. Yes folks, as far back as Adam and Eve. Blood has always been the means of atoning for sin. When A&E made themselves clothes out of fig leaves, God said forget it. Thgere were two reasons that God then took an animal to kill and make clothes out of. One was God wanted to cloth them with clothes that He made not A&E. The other reason was that since they sinned, there needed to be blood shed in order to make atonement for it. So He killed the animal. The sin was atoned for and A&E had new clothes.

[Uncle Dale]

Then later still, God said that there would be a final sacrifice once and for all....

So, one day it was God's good pleasure to hear hymns sung by the temple choir -- to have doves

given as sin offerings -- to have his people circumcised, obey the Torah, and celebrate Passover ---

....and the next day, all of that was forbidden; done away with; a lifestyle without merit or purpose?

Pray tell, what day of what year was that great and terrible change suddenly effected?

Uncle "and why did Jesus' disciples continue to worship at the Temple after his crucifixion?" Dale

[Selah]

Uncle "and why did Jesus' disciples continue to worship at the Temple after his crucifixion?" Dale

[Uncle Dale]

Uncle "and why did Jesus' disciples continue to worship at the Temple after his crucifixion?" Dale

For the same reason that we go to church in the modern day I guess. The temple was still a place to pray and worship. And I know (But will need to look for it) that the Bible does uses the phrase "once and for all" in regard to Jesus' sacrofice. And if you don;t believe that that it was once and for all can you tell me at what point you have shed a person's or an animal's blood as a means of making atonement for your sin. And if the LDS are not sacrificing ands in the Temple, then why aren't they? Although certainly not the only function of the temple it was the most important function. If the modern LDS temple is supposed to be based on SOLOMON'S temple, then why not have it serve in the same capacity as Solomon's temple?

And yet James the Just, the brother of Jesus and leader of the Jesus followers at Jerusalem sends

Saul of Taursus to the Temple in the tradition of a Jewish pennance --- and very early Christian

writers preseve a memory that James himself functioned as the High Priest in that same Temple

shortly before the Romans destroyed it.

One day God hears the prayers of a Jewish mother, pleading for the preservation of her family, and

the next day the veil of the Temple is rent, and never again does the God of Israel listen to her?

One day the Torah teaches the covenant people to care for widows and orphans, under God's law;

and the following day the veil is rent and the widows and orphans are "fair game" for oppression

under the new, non-Torah dispensation?

Have you ever attended a synagogue service, and heard Isaiah's words read from the great scroll?

Is the Spirit of the Almighty any less present in such a place, than in a Christian chapel?

Uncle Dale

[USU78]

What we have here is a failure to mis-communicate... I think.

1. Prior to the 20th century Reform Judaism's female rabbi innovations, why hath Zipporah a knife?

(What a lesson for Relief Society meeting next week, eh?)

2. Who exactly is being circumcised? (in the original archaic fragment, not the surrounding narrative)??

3. Why is Moses, long after his marriage to the lady, being called a "bridegroom?"

4. Was Moses' "partial" Egyptian circumcision "enough" to allow him to marry a Midianite YHWHess?

5. "Loins" is still too much a circumlocution here -- the bloody part of Moses, after Zipporah does

her priestly (?) work, is -- well, you know what.

6. Would that we had the original story, before the redactors got hold of it!

Uncle "And why did not Jethro do the cutting? -- why the priest's daughter?" Dale

.

I'm with you, Unk, just cleaning up the language for the sake of the Chubbock River City Ladies' Preliterary Society's Millenary Auxiliary Members. See, Unk, we highlander restorationists have far less trouble with the concept of pre-Temple priestesses functioning appropriately in re-Temple-Temple-type ordinances, including a plainly purification rite. Can't get into specifics here, though.

Why shouldn't Jethro's daughter be functioning as a priestess here? Just 'cause the mohels of today are all guys doesn't mean the Ladies of Beth-El Temple don't basically run the Mikveh. If the Mikveh's okay for the post-temple Jewish women to run, why not other purification rituals in the pre-temple period?

USU "I quite agree the original of this tale was probably a doozy" 78

[Uncle Dale]

...

USU "I quite agree the original of this tale was probably a doozy" 78

The Law of Moses, and those obedient thereunto, were sometimes called "The Circumcision."

But what about ol' Moe himself? When and how did he become physically obedient?

According to legend report, he was taken into the Egyptian upper ranks and grew up among

that people, accepted as one of their own, from infancy onward. Sounds to me like he would not

have been subject to an early Semitic circumcision ---- or, had he been, it is doubtful he would have

become a Prince of the Two Lands.

So, at some point, he mingles his seed with the Midianites and one of their YHWHist priestesses does

the religious rites on Moe's boy. All of that seems clear enough....

But we need to back up a little here, and consider the problematic Exodus text about Zipporah's

bloody bridegroom, methinks.

As I've said earlier, Egyptian circumcision was partial -- no fleshy artifact was "cast off" in that

cutting of tender parts. And yet, in the Exodus fragment we have some specific language to let

the reader know for certain that a foreskin WAS cut off and "cast."

Whose foreskin?

The redactor has covered over Moses' own Semitic circumcision here, I'm fairly sure. For some

reason the oral (litergical? written?) tradition had preserved Zipporah's old pronouncement, and

that could not be eliminated from the conflating of the various sacred texts ---- but it could be

wonderfully obscured.

What we have here, I believe, is nothing less than the answer to our thread's title.

Not that I consider the Exodus Moses (let alone the Deuteronomic Moses) to have been a single,

historical character -- but whatever the case may have been, at some point Israelites entered the

"Mosaic" covenant, and abandoned any past ties to Egyprian practices. In the Zipporah fragment

we may have some hints as to what such a change-over in religious rites entailed.

Uncle "methinks Moe was a very 'sore' bridegroom, as well as a bloody one" Dale

[Selah]

In a word Uncle Dale. No. (Not any less present.) The Holy Spirit is just as present in a synagogue as it is in a chapel. The Jews are God's chosen people and as such, they have salvation because they are born under the Covenant. God said this would always be so and it is. Perhaps you would care to address the rest of my post now? Clearly you have missed some of the points I was making. Thanks.

[Uncle Dale]

In a word Uncle Dale. No. (Not any less present.) The Holy Spirit is just as present in a synagogue as it is in a chapel. The Jews are God's chosen people and as such, they have salvation because they are born under the Covenant. God said this would always be so and it is. Perhaps you would care to address the rest of my post now? Clearly you have missed some of the points I was making. Thanks.

Point me to your primary argument (and to Jesus' own words in support thereof), and we can

chew that lamb's fat together.

UD

[Selah]

About the whole connection of circumcision and the atonement of Christ and everything being about blood etc. The "Scarlett Thread" if you will. Somebody asked if there was a connection between circumcision and the death of Jesus.

[e=mc2]

Da Beloved Unka Dale:

What we have here is a failure to mis-communicate

Quote of the week!

[Uncle Dale]

About the whole connection of circumcision and the atonement of Christ and everything being about blood etc. The "Scarlett Thread" if you will. Somebody asked if there was a connection between circumcision and the death of Jesus.

OK -- if the circumcision is done away with; and if Thomas examined the resurrected body of Jesus,

did that body have a foreskin?

Doubtless one of the Church Fathers (Origen, Justin Martyr, Augustin?) has answered this odd

question already --- but it may provide us with a starting point for further discussion.

UD

[SquarePeg48]

OK -- if the circumcision is done away with; and if Thomas examined the resurrected body of Jesus,

did that body have a foreskin?

Doubtless one of the Church Fathers (Origen, Justin Martyr, Augustin?) has answered this odd

question already --- but it may provide us with a starting point for further discussion.

UD

Alma 41:2 "I say unto thee, my son, that the plan of restoration is requisite with the justice of God; for it is requisite that all things should be restored to their proper order. Behold, it is requisite and just, according to the power and resurrection of Christ, that the soul of man should be restored to its body, and that every part of the body should be restored to itself."

However, note that the resurrected Christ retained the mark of the nails in his hands and feet as evidence of his identity. Perhaps he also retained his circumcision to identify him as a Jew?