Blogging the Bible
What happens when an ignoramus reads the Good Book?
David Plotz is a Jew who has gone back to the Bible, reading it and commenting as he goes. It's an interesting commentary, and you can follow along.
David Plotz is a Jew who has gone back to the Bible, reading it and commenting as he goes. It's an interesting commentary, and you can follow along.
posted by new.atheist at 1:21 PM
3 Comments:
This is off topic, but I thought you might be interested in this as it is about the article I wrote "It's All About Sex Baby."
I made a couple of comments about the jewish covenant with god being circumcision and I wondered if this was related in some way to "veneration of the seed."
I did a bit of a search about it and eventually found these comments at this site.
http://www.jtsa.edu/community/parashah/archives/5762/lekhlekha.shtml
"I will establish My covenant between Me and you, and I will make you exceedingly numerous... You shall be the father of a multitude of nations...I will make you exceedingly fertile (v. 2, 4, 6)."
"The Torah then delineates Abraham's role in this covenant – the faithful observance of circumcision. The description of the covenant in our parashah suggests a powerful connection between circumcision and fertility."
"God commands Abraham to remove the foreskin of the males in his household in order to more successfully participate in God's covenant of fertility. This ritual represents the human role in God's promise of a fruitful nation."
Interesting, don't ya think?
I've always wondered where the whole circumcision thing came from. I mean, why would anyone decide that god wants them to mutilate the most sensitive part of their body? Who was the first one to try this? Was there a history of circumcision before Jewish culture? (apparently so, see Wikipedia.) At least it's just the guys, the women just have to deal with being unclean so often.
I think there must be some advantage to circumcision. A friend of mine who is a nurse says she's dealt with her share of old-men-wang, and those men who are uncircumcised tend to have a hard time keeping it clean. Perhaps in a desert culture, where clothing was common, a circumcised penis was less likely to get infected?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision
I read somewhere that the first recorded instance of circumcision was in egypt. That is not to say it didn't occur prior to that, just that that is the first recorded evidence we have of it.
(The tomb of Ankn-ma-hor of the 6th Dynasty (circa 2200BC) has a detailed rendering of a ceremonial circumcision.)
The bible says that the all the Israelites who had left Egypt had been circumcised but those who had been born since their departure, had not.
Joshua 5:2-9
All the people that came out had been circumcised, but all the people born in the desert during the journey from Egypt had not.
So, the practice of circumcision may have originated in egypt.
Ancient Egyptian Circumcision
& Modern Day Practices in Males
http://www.circlist.com/rites/egypt.html
It mentions in that link how circumcision was part of a symbol of fertility and that there was a very early God of Circumcision whose job was to maintain the fertility of the Nile banks.
Peoples who believed that males were responsible for the seed and creation of life, would do these kinds of things, I think.
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