During my medical residency I performed quite a few circumcisions, when parents requested it. The boys didn’t seem so happy about it. If I knew then what I know now I would not have performed those procedures. On the other hand, I could have put together a rather impressive necklace or bracelet as a result. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
In Genesis the patriarch Abraham was told by God that as a sign of their covenant Abraham was to have all the males in his camp circumcised, which means to cut off the foreskin[1] of the penis (Genesis 17:9-14). What an odd way to mark their covenant! First, it ignores women, as if they are not partakers of the covenant, but that is consistent with the male-centered narrative throughout the Bible. Second, how was one man to know if another was a fellow member of the covenant clan? I imagine two men passing along a trail, and they each lift up their robes to show off their penises. “Hey, man! You’re one of us!” Sounds kind of kinky to me. It is not a very practical way of marking men as belonging to the covenant.
For whatever reason many religions seem preoccupied with sex and our sexual organs, even though as animals sex is one of our most basic drives, being necessary for reproduction and propagation of the species. Of course, even if circumcised you can have sex and procreate but the foreskin enhances sexual pleasure. It is as if religion is saying it is OK to have sex for reproduction, but we don’t want you to enjoy it too much! As if enjoyment is a bad thing. Maybe Jewish women should be glad they were not included in this covenant rite, but not all women are so lucky. Some religious sects practice female circumcision, which it more accurately termed female genital mutilation (FGM), where the external genitalia are altered or removed. Again, the aim seems to be to reduce sexual pleasure in women. Don’t want them enjoying it and getting too promiscuous! So let’s clip those parts off and let them have sex for reproduction but not for pleasure. Frankly, people who practice FGM seem to have it backwards. You would think husbands would want their wives to look forward to sex and therefore offer more sex to their husbands. As it is FGM can often cause intercourse to be painful; what wife would look forward to more pain? FGM is a case of cutting off the nose to spite the face, except it is not the nose that is cut in this case. Such procedures often lead to lifetime health problems, too.[2] Sometimes it takes religion to make good people endorse horrible ideas.
Some people defend circumcision as a God-given benefit to male health. It is true that circumcision seems to reduce STD and HIV transmission, but then so do condoms, which many conservative religious people oppose for some reason. It reduces the risk of penile cancer, which is uncommon to start with, but then preemptive bilateral mastectomies would likewise reduce the risk of breast cancer, which is much more common, but I don’t see anybody calling for that. There are other problems that can arise from the foreskin like infection or phimosis (contraction of the foreskin), but those can be treated with circumcision if and when such problems arise.
On the other hand there are many potential complications of circumcision. Many of them are now rare, but think back 3,000 years, before they had any decent medical knowledge or therapeutics. The most obvious side effect is pain. Topical pain medication does not completely relieve the pain and it wears off. Anesthetic injections themselves hurt and if you don’t hit the right spot they can still experience pain. Infection had to be a significant risk long before germ theory was discovered. Maybe through experience they learned that they had to use clean knives or flints[3] and flush the wound with clean water until healed, but I wonder how many infants died during the learning process. Mutilation including partial amputation of the penis can occur. Incidental mutilation can lead to a variety of urinary and other functional problems. These include hemorrhage, adhesions and skin bridges, inclusion cysts, meatitis (inflammation at the opening), meatal stenosis (narrowing of the opening), urinary retention, phimosis, chordee (curvature), hypospadias and epispadias (displacement of the urethral meatus), fistula (tract between the urethra and the skin), necrosis (death of tissue), amputation of the glans (the rounded tip of the penis), and of course some of these complications can lead to death. Now, most of these are uncommon today with our modern medicine, but they still happen, and I would have to assume they were more common in primitive times. What were they thinking, putting infants at risk for a cosmetic religious procedure?!
One of the main problems from my perspective is that the infant has no say in the matter. This is an optional procedure with known risks and a definite outcome of reduced sexual pleasure and yet parents are given the right to make this lifelong decision for their infant son (or daughter in the case of FGM). Almost always it is done for religious or cultural reasons (religion is often at the root of the culture, of course). Few parents (in my experience) take the time to consider the potential risks; they just take it for granted that circumcision should be performed, particularly if the father is already circumcised. (So, if the father is bald should we shave the heads of their sons so they look like their dad?) But times are changing, and more parents are choosing not to circumcise, but the rate is still more than 50%.
Did God really start this idea of circumcision, at the time of Abraham? Abraham (according to the Bible; there are no corroborating historical records) was born around 2150 BCE and yet there are images of the Egyptians performing circumcision prior to 2300 BCE. So it obviously did not start at the supposed time of Abraham. Did God simply take this rite and use it as the mark of the covenant with Abraham, even though it wasn’t unique to the Hebrews? If so, why? The Bible is completely silent on the matter. Perhaps it was seen as a great sacrifice to God, to cut off such a sensitive part of one’s anatomy. The Egyptians may have used it as a rite of passage or a sign of elitism, the way other primitive cultures used tattoos, or have boys approaching manhood perform dangerous stunts. But as I said, the Bible offers absolutely no explanation. Just do it! It may be that the ancient Hebrews adopted this practice from the Egyptians, and later incorporated it into the story of Abraham to make it seem like their own divine seal of approval.
Of course, after Jesus came the apostle Paul whose innovation in Christianity was that Gentle (non-Jewish) converts to Christianity did NOT have to undergo the Jewish rite of circumcision. Paul is quite adamant about this, as in Galatians 5:2-12. Paul is so upset about those teaching converts to be circumcised that he concludes that passage by wishing they would “amputate” themselves, that is, emasculate themselves altogether!
The rite of circumcision did lead to some interesting stories in the Bible. Have your read the strange passage where God sought to kill Moses over the issue of circumcision? (Exodus 4:24-26) Yes, kill Moses! Moses married a daughter of a Midianite priest (we’ll discuss Moses more in later posts) and I assume they did not practice circumcision, so it seems Moses did not have his son circumcised. So, after commissioning Moses to go to Egypt to free the Hebrews God suddenly realizes Moses’ son is not circumcised (so it seems), and He seeks to kill Moses. You’d think God would have dealt with this at the outset before sending Moses on this mission. Anyway, Moses’ wife then circumcises the son and then she “threw it at Moses’ feet; and she said, ‘You are indeed a groom of blood to me!’” The text actually says “made it touch at his feet.” “Feet” is sometimes a euphemism for the genitalia in the Bible.[4] It sounds to me like Zipporah took the bloody foreskin and smeared the blood on Moses’ penis to make her point. Either way, she wasn’t happy about it, but God was, so He relents from killing Moses.
In Genesis 34 there is the sordid story of Jacob’s daughter Dinah being raped by a foreigner. The rapist’s father (Hamor) goes to Jacob to ask for his son to be able to marry Dinah and for their people to be able to intermarry. Jacob’s sons step in and insist that Hamor have all his men be circumcised if they are to intermarry. Hamor and his son are eager to comply, thinking they will now have access to Jacob’s wealth. But, oops:
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Now it came about on the third day, when they were in pain, that two of Jacob’s sons—Simeon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers—each took his sword and came upon the city undetected, and killed every male. They killed Hamor and his son Shechem with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah from Shechem’s house, and left. Jacob’s sons came upon those killed and looted the city, because they had defiled their sister. They took their flocks, their herds, and their donkeys, and that which was in the city and that which was in the field; and they captured and looted all their wealth and all their little ones and their wives, even everything that was in the houses.
Genesis 34:25-29
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After the men are circumcised they are laid up with so much pain that Jacob’s sons can easily kill them and loot Hamor’s wealth, including the women and children. Ha ha, what a funny story! That’ll teach ‘em!
In 1st Samuel 18 King Saul is jealous of his young protégé David and sets a trap for him. His daughter Michal wants to marry David, so Saul tells him that he “does not desire any dowry except a hundred foreskins of the Philistines, to take vengeance on the king’s enemies.” (Note that Saul expects a dowry, as fathers would sell their daughters to men as discussed in post #12.) David is a warrior who apparently likes a challenge, so he goes out and kills two hundred Philistines; after all, what Philistine is voluntarily going to let you take his foreskin? So David delivers the two hundred foreskins to Saul and gets to marry Michal. Ha ha, another knee-slapper: two hundred men killed in order to buy your bride!
This story actually may hold an important clue to the origin of circumcision. In his 1891 book History of Circumcision Dr. Peter Remondino[5] suggests that circumcision was originally a method of trophy collecting by victorious warriors in ancient times. Cutting off the penis showed that you had defeated a man in battle (obviously it was not a woman!). However, this would often kill the opponent, either through hemorrhage or other complication. As warfare became more sophisticated the aim was to use defeated men as slaves or force them to pay tribute, so you wanted them alive. Cutting off the foreskin instead of the whole penis allowed one to take a trophy, a humiliating one, without killing the defeated man. This actually results in a ring of fleshy tissue; you could string them together on a necklace and show off your warrior prowess! I’ll bet that necklace of foreskins really impressed the ladies.
Similarly, having your foreskin cut off marked you as a defeated person or a slave. Perhaps over time this practice was applied to oneself as a slave or captive of God: you cut off your foreskin and present it to God, in essence. A type of sacrifice, surrendering part of your sensitive male anatomy to God and acknowledging him as your master.
Most modern scholars realize that the stories of the patriarchs were either written later or at least edited later so that the great patriarchs like Abraham and Moses would create an epic tale of the origins of their nation and to give voice to the law that had developed in Israel after their various captivities, to maintain their national identity. Thus the story of David might represent an actual memory of how circumcision was used on one’s defeated enemies before it became a religious rite, with the Abraham story being developed later to give it the stamp of God’s approval, and not just leave it as a tribal war custom. Remember, circumcision was not unique to the Israelites, so having God assign this rite to Abraham gives it an air of antiquity and authority specific to the Jews, helping strengthen their national identity.
Regardless of its origins, we now know that circumcision is an unnecessary painful medical procedure inflicted on helpless voiceless children which carries potential risks, including the expected result of reduction of sexual pleasure. And with girls the practice of FGM has nothing but risks with no benefits. Some will argue that FGM might support and sustain a particular culture and its traditions, but cultures have been changing and evolving throughout history and FGM is something that needs to evolve out of any culture in today’s world. No culture is justified in inflicting cruelty on children, especially when it has lifelong deleterious effects. With modern safe medical care once a boy reaches an age of understanding he can make his own choice about circumcision; there is no need to force it on him as an infant. Fortunately, the New Testament and particularly the writings of Paul have made it clear that circumcision is no longer a religious requirement, at least for Christians. Let’s hope this idea spreads to other religions and cultures that cling to genital mutilation as a way of pleasing their gods or conforming to outdated cultural norms.
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Thinking exercises:
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1. If you had to sacrifice part of your body to God, what part would you choose?
2. What is the best way to commemorate defeating someone in battle: scalp them, totally emasculate them or just circumcise them? How about lopping off an ear? That could be strung on a necklace or bracelet. Do you have a better idea?
3. Do you think when Jesus was circumcised that the foreskin kept healing back? How frustrating would that have been for the priest?
4. Why are religions so preoccupied with sex and sexual organs? Better yet, why do they think their gods are so preoccupied with genitalia?
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[1] A fleshy hood covering the end of the penis.
[2] Including chronic genital or urinary infections, painful urination, painful menstruation, various obstetric complications, increased risk of HIV transmission, and mental health issues.
[3] Flint is a stone that can be chipped to produce a very fine cutting edge.
[4] See post #13, but to summarize: 2nd Kings 18:27, Judges 3:24, 1st Samuel 24:3, Deuteronomy 28:57, Isaiah 7:20, Ezekiel 16:25.
[5] This book is available online through Project Gutenberg.