Circumcision Controversy in Early Christianity - Jewish Background

Jewish Background

Main article: Circumcision in the Bible See also: Conversion to Judaism

There are numerous references in the Hebrew Bible to the obligation for circumcision among Jews. For example, Leviticus 12:3 says:

On the eighth day a boy is to be circumcised.

And the uncircumcised are to be cut off from the Jewish people - Genesis 17:14:

Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.

According to the Jewish Encyclopedia article on circumcision of proselytes:

“ The issue between the Zealot and Liberal parties regarding the circumcision of proselytes remained an open one in tannaitic times ; R. Joshua asserting that the bath, or baptismal rite, rendered a person a full proselyte without circumcision, as Israel, when receiving the Law, required no initiation other than the purificative bath; while R. Eliezer makes circumcision a condition for the admission of a proselyte, and declares the baptismal rite to be of no consequence (Yeb. 46a). A similar controversy between the Shammaites and the Hillelites is given (Shab. 137a) regarding a proselyte born circumcised: the former demanding the spilling of a drop of blood of the covenant; the latter declaring it to be unnecessary. The rigorous Shammaite view, voiced in the Book of Jubilees (l.c.), prevailed in the time of King John Hyrcanus, who forced the Abrahamic rite upon the Idumeans, and in that of King Aristobulus, who made the Itureans undergo circumcision (Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, xiii. 9, § 1; 11, § 3). According to Esther 8:17, Septuagint, the Persians who, from fear of the Jews after Haman's defeat, "became Jews," were circumcised. ”

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