S
SnakeMauler
Guest
One thing that’s always confused me is the whole thing about circumcision. You hear it talked about a lot, and then it’s basically just a few sentences where God says a sign of this “covenant” is that all the males will be circumcised (I guess the “covenant” was that Abraham would have a lot of descendants?).
Reading around on Catholic Answers, I think I got that it was an “outward sign of their faith” or something. My question is, why circumcision though? I mean, it just seemed a little random, the act of cutting off a man’s penile foreskin. I guess that Deuteronomy and whatnot gave the Jews practical laws, like washing hands, but my question is, were STD’s and infections from grime under a man’s foreskin such a huge issue at the time that the entire sign of belonging to God had to be cutting of a man’s foreskin?
Seeing that people typically do not go around flashing their penises at other people, you’d think that the sign of belonging to God would be a more outward sign, like a large visible tattoo or something.
But, thinking further, I suspect as though tattoos and whatnot were more of a pagan thing or something and that the whole circumcision thing was meant to set the Jews apart from other people since perhaps not a lot of cultures did it on a regular basis back then, as well as establishing a practice with some health benefits.
I can see why they decided to get rid of it in the New Testament. Christianity was a religion for all people- people of all ages. It’d be pretty awkward… and painful… for someone who wasn’t a little kid to have their penile foreskin cut off. I mean, you hear in the Old Testament about how Abraham had all his slaves circumsized or something, but dang, they must’ve had to have like 50 people hold them down and drink a lot of wine or something to numb the pain. Plus, God thought beforehand and decided that becoming a Christian would just be a baptism by water- something painless, and definitely not something squeamish or unattractive like cutting off part of a man’s privates.
So basically, why circumcision?
-Snakemauler
Reading around on Catholic Answers, I think I got that it was an “outward sign of their faith” or something. My question is, why circumcision though? I mean, it just seemed a little random, the act of cutting off a man’s penile foreskin. I guess that Deuteronomy and whatnot gave the Jews practical laws, like washing hands, but my question is, were STD’s and infections from grime under a man’s foreskin such a huge issue at the time that the entire sign of belonging to God had to be cutting of a man’s foreskin?
Seeing that people typically do not go around flashing their penises at other people, you’d think that the sign of belonging to God would be a more outward sign, like a large visible tattoo or something.
But, thinking further, I suspect as though tattoos and whatnot were more of a pagan thing or something and that the whole circumcision thing was meant to set the Jews apart from other people since perhaps not a lot of cultures did it on a regular basis back then, as well as establishing a practice with some health benefits.
I can see why they decided to get rid of it in the New Testament. Christianity was a religion for all people- people of all ages. It’d be pretty awkward… and painful… for someone who wasn’t a little kid to have their penile foreskin cut off. I mean, you hear in the Old Testament about how Abraham had all his slaves circumsized or something, but dang, they must’ve had to have like 50 people hold them down and drink a lot of wine or something to numb the pain. Plus, God thought beforehand and decided that becoming a Christian would just be a baptism by water- something painless, and definitely not something squeamish or unattractive like cutting off part of a man’s privates.
So basically, why circumcision?
-Snakemauler
