Basically for Jews

[John D. Brey]

Still missing the details you mentioned. It doesn't literally say the covenant wasn't about circumcision, nor that there is some dissolved covenant with Adam. Not even a whiff of it.

Is the "wasn't" a typo? If not I'm confused.



John

 

[dybmh]

Is the "wasn't" a typo? If not I'm confused.

No. I am responding to this.

God doesn't say he's establishing a "new" covenant with Abraham based on circumcision

You said Rabbi Hirsch literally says, "God doesn't say he's establishing a "new" covenant with Abraham based on circumcision"

That's why I said that what you brought "doesn't literally say the covenant wasn't about circumcision"

This is what has happened the last time you claimed Rabbi Hirsch literally deviates from Orthodox Judaism and instead has adopted your own personal interpretation. It's not literal or even implied, but you can claim and post it because, Rabbi Hirsch's commentary isn't available online and/or no one cares to push you to support your ideas

 

[John D. Brey]

You said Rabbi Hirsch literally says, "God doesn't say he's establishing a "new" covenant with Abraham based on circumcision"

Your statement above cuts out the primary part of the statement you're responding to in a confusing way. By not adding what follows, you make it appear that my statement implies God is not establishing a covenant with Abraham based on circumcision. But what I, and Rabbi Hirsch, are pointing out, is that yes, God most certainly is establishing a covenant with Abraham based on circumcision. But it's not necessarily a new covenant in the sense of something that comes out of nowhere (for the first time), but rather, as Rabbi Hirsch implies, it appears to be a reinstatement of a previously existing covenant (that was formerly annulled) such that it's merely being renewed with Abraham in such a manner that taking a knife to a certain part of his body significantly signifies the nature of the original covenant.

That's why I said that what you brought "doesn't literally say the covenant wasn't about circumcision"

My claim isn't in any way that the covenant isn't about circumcision. Quite the opposite. I'm merely saying that the covenant of circumcision renews the covenant with ha-adam that was rescinded, or annulled, when ha-adam allowed his body to be made uncircumcised (Genesis 2:21) by allowing the creation of the flesh Abraham ritually removes as the sign of the reinstatement of the original covenant. The covenant is annulled because ha-adam has added what Abraham removes as the sign of the renewal of the covenant. The covenant is reinstated when Abraham takes a knife to the diminutive flesh ha-adam allows to be added to the original body created by God. Strange-flesh is added to ha-adam's body as though God forgot something that had to be added after the fact of the initial creation of his body in a circumcised state (absent the flesh he adds, and Abraham removes). It's because strange-flesh is created on ha-adam's body making it "uncircumcised" (Genesis 2:21) that the covenant is annulled. And it's because Abraham symbolically removes that strange-flesh (brit milah) that it's through him the covenant is renewed.

This is what has happened the last time you claimed Rabbi Hirsch literally deviates from Orthodox Judaism and instead has adopted your own personal interpretation. It's not literal or even implied, but you can claim and post it because, Rabbi Hirsch's commentary isn't available online and/or no one cares to push you to support your ideas

There might be a fundamental difference between what Rabbi Hirsch says, and means, versus my theology, but Rabbi Hirsch's exegesis really does support my theology when he really does state that the Hebrew of Genesis 17 might not mean what everyone takes it to mean, i.e., it might not be a new covenant God establishes with Abraham (through circumcision), but the reinstatement of an existing covenant whose reinstatement is nicely signified by circumcision:

The combination of ברית and נתן almost never occurs elsewhere . . . As a rule, the formula is הקים ברית כרת ברית, not נתן ברית. It is possible then, that ואתנה בריתי does not mean "I will establish with you a new covenant," but, rather, "I will transfer to you an existing covenant."​

​

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

The combination of ברית and נתן almost never occurs elsewhere . . . As a rule, the formula is הקים ברית כרת ברית, not נתן ברית. It is possible then, that ואתנה בריתי does not mean "I will establish with you a new covenant," but, rather, "I will transfer to you an existing covenant."​

​

Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch.​

Fwiw, Rabbi Hirsch notices the rather glaring fact that it appears that God is saying he will "give" נתן his covenant so that it will now be between him and Abraham rather than him and ha-dam. Abraham becomes a new ha-dam. And Abraham's offspring are now the offspring that were intended for ha-adam before he desecrated the body God designed perfect so that it didn't need the diminutive fleshly addendum.

To some degree, circumcision restored Abraham and his descendants to the status of Adam before his sin.​

​

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Handbook of Jewish Thought, p. 47.​

Rabbi Hirsch is serious enough, and savvy enough, to know that the general reading of the text that interprets נתן as "make," or "establish," rather than "give," is reading their probable error into the text and ignoring the fact that the word isn't "make," or "establish," but "give." To be "given" implies that the covenant already exists; or else, and Rabbi Hirsch intuits this, that it may have existed once upon a time before it was rescinded or annulled prior to God reinstating it with Abraham.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Fwiw, Rabbi Hirsch notices the rather glaring fact that it appears that God is saying he will "give" נתן his covenant so that it will now be between him and Abraham rather than him and ha-dam. Abraham becomes a new ha-dam. And Abraham's offspring are now the offspring that were intended for ha-adam before he desecrated the body God designed perfect so that it didn't need the diminutive fleshly addendum.

To some degree, circumcision restored Abraham and his descendants to the status of Adam before his sin.​

​

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Handbook of Jewish Thought, p. 47.​

Rabbi Hirsch is serious enough, and savvy enough, to know that the general reading of the text that interprets נתן as "make," or "establish," rather than "give," is reading their probable error into the text and ignoring the fact that the word isn't "make," or "establish," but "give." To be "given" implies that the covenant already exists; or else, and Rabbi Hirsch intuits this, that it may have existed once upon a time before it was rescinded or annulled prior to God reinstating it with Abraham.

A serious student of the Word of God would be likely to infer that some serious exegetical/interpretive shenanigans are taking place concerning perhaps the most seminal chapter in the Tanakh (Genesis 17) since a simple search for the consonants נתן (nun-tav-nun-sofit) throughout the Tanakh will see that of the more than two-thousand times the consonants are used in the Tanakh, almost every single one of them refers to some preexisting thing having been "given," "delivered," or "put" somewhere, such that seeing the sudden and peculiar interpretation of these Hebrew consonants (נתן) to mean "made," in Genesis chapter 17, and only there, leaves one scratching their head as to why, when over two-thousand times the Hebrew consonants נתן are interpreted to mean the "giving" or "transferring" of something to someone or place, the same consonants are suddenly interpreted ---in the most important of places ----to mean the "manufacture" of something new, rather than the transfer of something existing.

Just as strange is the fact of this undeniably odd and off-putting interpretive peculiarity (נתן suddenly being interpreted to mean "made" rather than "given") being so little remarked on by any of the great Jewish exegetes and experts in interpretive hermeneutics? Why is something so glaring, and clearly so important, left to one with the courage of Rabbi Hirsch in order for it to be questioned and brought into the light of careful examination? What are all the other exegetes afraid of accidentally uncovering in Genesis 17 should it be acknowledged that the covenant of circumcision is being reinstated not created?



John

 

[YoursTrue]

HOWEVER, I cannot help but wonder why you ask.

Just out of curiosity, have you ever considered doing a search on something like "who is a Jew?"

By the way, there are different answers from the various sects of Judaism. Now you got me wondering -- if a male decides to become a Jew and he is let's say for sake of discussion he is over 21 -- does he need to get circumcized to be considered a Jew?

 

[Brickjectivity]

But others welcome -- HOWEVER, it has been said that belonging to the Jewish religion is by MATERNAL lineage, do I have this right? To be born considered as a Jew somehow ethnically or otherwise, it's the mother's affiliation or birthright or whatever that counts, unless of course a synagogue determines that doesn't really matter, do I have this correct?

I think it can also be interpolated by laws about divorce and inheritances (in the scriptures, though I am not giving references in this post). It may be hard to follow what I am writing without the references, but I'm keeping this compact. If woman is divorced her children go with her, although their financial inheritances still belong to them. The financial inheritance cannot be taken away, because that would be wrong and cruel and could be used as leverage against the wife. Usually this is all specified ahead of time in prenuptial agreements; however the principle is there even without specific agreements. Its philosophical starting with a common sense approach to practical problems. If the idea is to win hearts then you've got to have a system that makes sense. The tangential implication which results from this divorce and inheritance situation: who is Jewish is someone that has a Jewish mother. The children go with the mother. The mother, then, is the connection to who will teach the children. Therefore it makes sense (in this marital situation) that she is the connection to Judaism. The question, then, is not about whether to emphasize male or female descent but to emphasize cultural ethnic descent. He, if he divorces, loses the children. She keeps them. I am not saying this is 'Why' the mother determines they are Jewish, but I am saying it could be interpolated from this that its the way things have been done for a long, long time and might explain why. It seems like an explanation to me.

 

[YoursTrue]

I think it can also be interpolated by laws about divorce and inheritances (in the scriptures, though I am not giving references in this post). It may be hard to follow what I am writing without the references, but I'm keeping this compact. If woman is divorced her children go with her, although their financial inheritances still belong to them. The financial inheritance cannot be taken away, because that would be wrong and cruel and could be used as leverage against the wife. Usually this is all specified ahead of time in prenuptial agreements; however the principle is there even without specific agreements. Its philosophical starting with a common sense approach to practical problems. If the idea is to win hearts then you've got to have a system that makes sense. The tangential implication which results from this divorce and inheritance situation: who is Jewish is someone that has a Jewish mother. The children go with the mother. The mother, then, is the connection to who will teach the children. Therefore it makes sense (in this marital situation) that she is the connection to Judaism. The question, then, is not about whether to emphasize male or female descent but to emphasize cultural ethnic descent. He, if he divorces, loses the children. She keeps them. I am not saying this is 'Why' the mother determines they are Jewish, but I am saying it could be interpolated from this that its the way things have been done for a long, long time and might explain why. It seems like an explanation to me.

Because it's a bit complicated, and because different synagogues and sects have different versions, I'm going to leave it there for the moment.

 

[YoursTrue]

Thanks I'll reread it.

My gut response is that this becomes a dangerous concept of it is applied literally without common sense.

Any commandment can be ignored as long as the individual firmly believes their heart is circumcised.

If they are known by their fruits, then the Jewish person whose heart is circumcised will naturally and automatically circumcise their flesh and the flesh of all their male children per the law of the Almighty. This is true for all the law.

For the non-Jewish person they would follow the law as spoken by Jesus and brought in Acts 15.

The circumcised heart produces adherence to the law, it doesn't seek loopholes. Do you disagree?

There are restrictions even for those calling themselves Christian and their heart may tell them it's wrong but there are those that work their way out of it as if God approves or doesn't care. I won't go into detail but yes, it applies to Judaism also.

 

[Ebionite]

Just as strange is the fact of this undeniably odd and off-putting interpretive peculiarity (נתן suddenly being interpreted to mean "made" rather than "given") being so little remarked on by any of the great Jewish exegetes and experts in interpretive hermeneutics? Why is something so glaring, and clearly so important, left to one with the courage of Rabbi Hirsch in order for it to be questioned and brought into the light of careful examination? What are all the other exegetes afraid of accidentally uncovering in Genesis 17 should it be acknowledged that the covenant of circumcision is being reinstated not created?

It diminishes the perceived status the status of the descendants of Isaac because it implies that the covenant can be lost and is not everlasting.

And I took my staff, [even] Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.
And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it [was] the word of YHWH.
And I said unto them, If ye think good, give [me] my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty [pieces] of silver.
Zechariah 11:10-12

Relevant signs are Leo and Gemini:

[There is] a voice of the howling of the shepherds; for their glory is spoiled: a voice of the roaring of young lions; for the pride of Jordan is spoiled.
Zechariah 11:3

And when her days to be delivered were fulfilled, behold, [there were] twins in her womb.
And the first came out red, all over like an hairy garment; and they called his name Esau.
And after that came his brother out, and his hand took hold on Esau's heel; and his name was called Jacob: and Isaac [was] threescore years old when she bare them.
Genesis 25:24-26

Pisces and Virgo relate to the Christian era because of the sign of Jonah and the doctrine of the virgin birth. Leo is the complement sign of the age of Aquarius. Aires relates to the era of Judaism because of the ram that was sacrificed instead of Isaac.

 

[dybmh]

By the way, there are different answers from the various sects of Judaism. Now you got me wondering -- if a male decides to become a Jew and he is let's say for sake of discussion he is over 21 -- does he need to get circumcized to be considered a Jew?

I think so, and I think the person would choose to do it as part of choosing to convert. Otherwise they are not choosing to convert to Judaism, they are choosing some other religion which is based on Judaism, inspired by Judaism, etc...

 

[dybmh]

There are restrictions even for those calling themselves Christian and their heart may tell them it's wrong but there are those that work their way out of it as if God approves or doesn't care. I won't go into detail but yes, it applies to Judaism also.

OK. I just finished reading Romans 2 from a reputable translation. There is an obvious conflict.

​

13: For the hearers of law are not the ones righteous before God, but the doers of law will be declared righteous​

​

A Jewish person cannot be a doer of the law without the circumcision of the flesh. And a non-Jewish person cannot be a doer of the law by pretending that circumcision of the flesh is not required. And there's an obvious loophole attempted:

25: Circumcision is, in fact, of benefit only if you practice law; but if you are a transgressor of law, your circumcision has become uncircumcision. 26: If, therefore, an uncircumcised person keeps the righteous requirements of the Law, his uncircumcision will be counted as circumcision, will it not?​

First, it's not a fact that circumcision is only a benefit if you practice the law. Second, no, an uncircumcised non-Jewish person cannot consider their uncircumcision a circumcision, because the non-Jewish person was never given instructions from the Almighty regarding their foreskin one way or the other. The author of these words is making themself into a god and speaking on behalf of the Almighty without any authority to do so. It's an unanswered question. That's not law coming from the Almighty. When has the Almighty ever given a law in the form of a question? It's an attempt for seeking a loophole.

Think of it this way? If I ask my youngest child to clean their room before they spend time on their tablet, it doesn't matter whether my older child cleans their room or not. If they come to me and say look at my room Dad, can I go on my tablet now, I'd say, "You're old enough to choose when you go on your tablet, you're in college now. That rule was for our younger sibling, not for you."

 

[dybmh]

I'm merely saying that the covenant of circumcision renews the covenant with ha-adam that was rescinded, or annulled, when ha-adam allowed his body to be made uncircumcised (Genesis 2:21)

See below what Rabbi Hirsch says:

"I will transfer to you an existing covenant." Rabbi Samson R. Hirsch.

You are saying: "rescinded, annuled" and claimng this is what the Rabbi literally wrote.

The Rabbi actually wrote: "transfer an existing covenant".

An annulled covenant is not an existing covenant.

And this ignores all the other stuff you've added. Here's what you said:

Samson R. Hirsch, who's a phenomenal Jewish exegete, states that in the literal Hebrew of Genesis 17, God doesn't say he's establishing a "new" covenant with Abraham based on circumcision, but that he (God) is "re-establishing" an existing covenant. The existing covenant is the one that was dissolved when Adam sinned and was kicked out of the garden.

None of that is literally what Rabbi Hirsch wrote. It is your own personal interpretation. Anyone reading this thread can see that. No covenant was dissolved.

 

[John D. Brey]

Now you got me wondering -- if a male decides to become a Jew and he is let's say for sake of discussion he is over 21 -- does he need to get circumcized to be considered a Jew?

. . . Pmfji, but yes, if a non-Jewish male decides to become a Jew he has to be circumcised. Furthermore, if he was medically circumcised at birth, making ritual circumcision at conversion impossible, he still has to have blood drawn from the organ that's at the center of the covenant he's converting to (hatafat dam brit). This taking of a knife to the life-establishing tree in the middle of the male garden is backed up, the centrality of the idea is, by the fact that that ritually speaking, the tree is being coppiced, cut down to a stump (Isaiah 11:1), as though it will no longer (since ritually speaking it's been bled to death, hatafat dam brit) contribute in the normal way to the patriarchal identity of a child born after the conversion.

Vouchsafing the idea that circumcision cuts off, or out, ritually at least, the father, patriarchy (so far as "Jewish" identity is concerned) is the fact that Jewish identity is passed on exclusively through the mother. After the male-organ has been bled (to death) the male-line is inconsequential so far as Jewish identity is concerned.

Ironically, if a Gentile woman converts to Judaism (and she doesn't have to be circumcised since she doesn't possess the problematic flesh that's bled to death) her offspring, the female convert's offspring, will be Jewish without their having to convert. Her conversion makes all of her offspring on the maternal side Jewish forever. All of her daughters will be Jewish forever through her maternal line. Her great, great, granddaughter through her daughter, and her daughter's daughter, will be Jewish even if her daughter, and her daughter's daughter are atheists who never open a Bible or step a foot into a synagogue.

Now take the Gentile male convert who bleeds his male-organ to death to enter the Jewish covenant. If he marries a Gentile woman who doesn't convert, none of his offspring will ever be Jewish unless they convert themselves. He can in no way transfer his Jewishness to any of his offspring through his male organ (since he bled it to death to become Jewish).

Sticking the spear into the crux of these remarkable truths concerning the ritual revoking of patriarchal primogeniture, we can point out that if the Gentile woman convert marries a non-Jewish husband, who's uncircumcised, i.e., his male-organ still has the foreskin on it (and it's never been bled), the offspring of this Gentile woman convert to Judaism (and this foreskin retaining Gentile father) will still, nevertheless, be 100 % Jewish, all of them, therein proving that conversion to Judaism is fundamentally about bleeding patriarchal primogeniture out of the determination of who is or isn't a Jew. No matter how strong, large, powerful, the Gentile convert's husband is, no matter how powerful his paternal line, seed (or seed deliverer), it still can't break through the prophylactic blood of circumcision related to Jewish identity. The protection afforded by the blood of circumcision is the ultimate spermicide so far as killing any patriarchal identity mark or marker that would rise up in the face of the Jewish identity of any of her offspring.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

And I took my staff, [even] Beauty, and cut it asunder, that I might break my covenant which I had made with all the people.
And it was broken in that day: and so the poor of the flock that waited upon me knew that it [was] the word of YHWH.
And I said unto them, If ye think good, give [me] my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty [pieces] of silver.
Zechariah 11:10-12

What an amazing oracle. Zechariah chapter 11 deserves it's own thread. There's so much zipped up in the symbolism just waiting to be unzipped it's incredible.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Just as strange is the fact of this undeniably odd and off-putting interpretive peculiarity (נתן suddenly being interpreted to mean "made" rather than "given") being so little remarked on by any of the great Jewish exegetes and experts in interpretive hermeneutics? Why is something so glaring, and clearly so important, left to one with the courage of Rabbi Hirsch in order for it to be questioned and brought into the light of careful examination? What are all the other exegetes afraid of accidentally uncovering in Genesis 17 should it be acknowledged that the covenant of circumcision is being reinstated not created?

It diminishes the perceived status the status of the descendants of Isaac because it implies that the covenant can be lost and is not everlasting.

The two concepts aren't mutually exclusive. The original covenant between God and humanity (God and ha-adam) is everlasting. And yet it's rescinded, annulled, when the human (ha-adam) sins. It's annulled but not destroyed. The same is true concerning all the multifarious elements of the covenant, and all the branches of the original covenant, be it the Noahic branch, the Abrahamic branch, or the Davidic branch. They׳re all branches of the original Branch נצר, which/who, in Hebrew, is the father of what the Talmud refers to as the "Nazarim" נצרות. All of the branches נצרים of the covenant can all be rescinded and or annulled. But all of them, being grown from the Nazarene (the Branch growing asexually from the root), are everlasting. They'll all be reenacted (or reattached/grafted on if broken off); which is to say they'll all be redeemed, technically reborn, when the the Branch of the Kingdom (the Nazarene נצר) comes (so to say).



John

 

[dybmh]

. . . Pmfji, but yes, if a non-Jewish male decides to become a Jew he has to be circumcised. Furthermore, if he was medically circumcised at birth, making ritual circumcision at conversion impossible, he still has to have blood drawn from the organ that's at the center of the covenant he's converting to (hatafat dam brit). This taking of a knife to the life-establishing tree in the middle of the male garden is backed up, the centrality of the idea is, by the fact that that ritually speaking, the tree is being coppiced, cut down to a stump (Isaiah 11:1), as though it will no longer (since ritually speaking it's been bled to death, hatafat dam brit) contribute in the normal way to the patriarchal identity of a child born after the conversion.

Vouchsafing the idea that circumcision cuts off, or out, ritually at least, the father, patriarchy (so far as "Jewish" identity is concerned) is the fact that Jewish identity is passed on exclusively through the mother. After the male-organ has been bled (to death) the male-line is inconsequential so far as Jewish identity is concerned.

Ironically, if a Gentile woman converts to Judaism (and she doesn't have to be circumcised since she doesn't possess the problematic flesh that's bled to death) her offspring, the female convert's offspring, will be Jewish without their having to convert. Her conversion makes all of her offspring on the maternal side Jewish forever. All of her daughters will be Jewish forever through her maternal line. Her great, great, granddaughter through her daughter, and her daughter's daughter, will be Jewish even if her daughter, and her daughter's daughter are atheists who never open a Bible or step a foot into a synagogue.

Now take the Gentile male convert who bleeds his male-organ to death to enter the Jewish covenant. If he marries a Gentile woman who doesn't convert, none of his offspring will ever be Jewish unless they convert themselves. He can in no way transfer his Jewishness to any of his offspring through his male organ (since he bled it to death to become Jewish).

Sticking the spear into the crux of these remarkable truths concerning the ritual revoking of patriarchal primogeniture, we can point out that if the Gentile woman convert marries a non-Jewish husband, who's uncircumcised, i.e., his male-organ still has the foreskin on it (and it's never been bled), the offspring of this Gentile woman convert to Judaism (and this foreskin retaining Gentile father) will still, nevertheless, be 100 % Jewish, all of them, therein proving that conversion to Judaism is fundamentally about bleeding patriarchal primogeniture out of the determination of who is or isn't a Jew. No matter how strong, large, powerful, the Gentile convert's husband is, no matter how powerful his paternal line, seed (or seed deliverer), it still can't break through the prophylactic blood of circumcision related to Jewish identity.



John

You defeated your own argument. The female does not need to have blood drawn. Which means that conversion has nothing to do with blood. There is nothing prophylactic about blood. If it were then the female convert would need to bleed. And she doesn't.

 

[YoursTrue]

. . . Pmfji, but yes, if a non-Jewish male decides to become a Jew he has to be circumcised. Furthermore, if he was medically circumcised at birth, making ritual circumcision at conversion impossible, he still has to have blood drawn from the organ that's at the center of the covenant he's converting to (hatafat dam brit). This taking of a knife to the life-establishing tree in the middle of the male garden is backed up, the centrality of the idea is, by the fact that that ritually speaking, the tree is being coppiced, cut down to a stump (Isaiah 11:1), as though it will no longer (since ritually speaking it's been bled to death, hatafat dam brit) contribute in the normal way to the patriarchal identity of a child born after the conversion.

Vouchsafing the idea that circumcision cuts off, or out, ritually at least, the father, patriarchy (so far as "Jewish" identity is concerned) is the fact that Jewish identity is passed on exclusively through the mother. After the male-organ has been bled (to death) the male-line is inconsequential so far as Jewish identity is concerned.

Ironically, if a Gentile woman converts to Judaism (and she doesn't have to be circumcised since she doesn't possess the problematic flesh that's bled to death) her offspring, the female convert's offspring, will be Jewish without their having to convert. Her conversion makes all of her offspring on the maternal side Jewish forever. All of her daughters will be Jewish forever through her maternal line. Her great, great, granddaughter through her daughter, and her daughter's daughter, will be Jewish even if her daughter, and her daughter's daughter are atheists who never open a Bible or step a foot into a synagogue.

Now take the Gentile male convert who bleeds his male-organ to death to enter the Jewish covenant. If he marries a Gentile woman who doesn't convert, none of his offspring will ever be Jewish unless they convert themselves. He can in no way transfer his Jewishness to any of his offspring through his male organ (since he bled it to death to become Jewish).

Sticking the spear into the crux of these remarkable truths concerning the ritual revoking of patriarchal primogeniture, we can point out that if the Gentile woman convert marries a non-Jewish husband, who's uncircumcised, i.e., his male-organ still has the foreskin on it (and it's never been bled), the offspring of this Gentile woman convert to Judaism (and this foreskin retaining Gentile father) will still, nevertheless, be 100 % Jewish, all of them, therein proving that conversion to Judaism is fundamentally about bleeding patriarchal primogeniture out of the determination of who is or isn't a Jew. No matter how strong, large, powerful, the Gentile convert's husband is, no matter how powerful his paternal line, seed (or seed deliverer), it still can't break through the prophylactic blood of circumcision related to Jewish identity. The protection afforded by the blood of circumcision is the ultimate spermicide so far as killing any patriarchal identity mark or marker that would rise up in the face of the Jewish identity of any of her offspring.



John

My reaction: wow. Plus it's a bit complicated. I prefer following Jesus. Thank you though.

 

[John D. Brey]

You defeated your own argument. The female does not need to have blood drawn. Which means that conversion has nothing to do with blood. There is nothing prophylactic about blood. If it were then the female convert would need to bleed. And she doesn't.

The Wogeo say that penis-bleeding and menstruation have similar purposes: both are to remove sexual contamination by the opposite sex, women lose it by the monthly period, men by penis-bleeding.​

​

Cambridge Professor Gilbert Lewis, Day of Shining Red.​

We here dealt with this about five years ago in a thread called Menarche as Men's Archetype (edited into an essay). Professor Lewis says:

Wogeo men and women bleed; then they both must go into retirement, keep prohibitions for a time---both bleed to remove defilement by the other sex . . . bleeding is intended to remove the defilement of sexual intercourse . . ..​

​

Ibid, p. 133.​

The Jewish anthropologist Eric Kline Silverman says:

It seems difficult not to discern a similarity between the purification ceremony and circumcision. Both rites represent male menstruation. . . circumcision created a man who was a better woman.​

​

From Abraham to America: A History of Jewish Circumcision, p. 80-81.​

​

But the pièce de ré·sis·tance comes from Col. R.B. Thieme Jr., in his book, The Integrity of God, p. 58-64. Col. Thieme explains how menstruation, specifically meiosis and polar body, purifies the ovum from ha-adam's sin, so that if the ovum isn't re-contaminated by the seed of the male ---i.e., the seed the blood of circumcision acts as a spermicide to kill in order to guard Jewish identity ----then after menstruation (meiotic cleansing) the female ovum is free to birth a human being who's as immortal as were all organisms that lived prior to the sexual revolution:

Death did not appear simultaneously with life. This is one of the most important and profound statements in all of biology. At the very least it deserves repetitions: Death is not inextricably intertwined with the definition of life. . . Death of the organism through senescence ---programmed death----- makes its appearance in evolution at about the same time that sexual reproduction appears.​

​

Professor of Biology, William R. Clark, Sex and the Origins of Death, p. 54, 63.​

As noted by Professors Silverman, and Lewis, circumcision represents something like male menstruation. It cleanses the male seed by cutting off the sinful element that would recontaminate the female seed that's already cleansed through female menstruation (meiosis and polar body). The female doesn't have to symbolize menstruation ritually since she menstruates naturally at puberty. Which is to point out that the female body is both the default body in the womb (prior to phallic sex) such that without testosterone, which is the contaminant weeded out by male menstruation, the ovum would develop every time into the natural, original, female, body, possessed by ha-adam, the original human, prior to Genesis 2:21, when the desecration of the natural body occurred. It occurred in the garden just as it does in the womb ---when testes and a delivery mechanism for them is added to the original human's body after some of the original flesh is removed to clone Eve as an identical twin/facsimile of the original human's original body.

Btw, after the Wogeo men bleed their penis (hafat dam brit), guess what they do with it? They place it in a koteka, a phallocrypt, a coffin for the dead. Judaism is wiser. After bleeding it to death they wrap it like a mummy. They know it will be reborn to father Jewish offspring having been purified by the ultimate cleansing process.

​

Death is the paradoxical agent of Life: a salvific-messianic-act with human love at the center. . . Not only can physical death help atone for sins committed on earth, but a perfect martyrdom has the singular power to repair spiritual realities in the divine realm. . . Only in this state could the soul be released from its earthly prison ---whether to ascend to its source in heaven, or become a shrine for the holy Spirit.​

​

Professor Michael Fishbane, The Kiss of God: Spiritual and Mystical Death in Judaism, p. 116 & 126-127.​

The burial cloth of the Jewish organ is used as a shrine for the holy spirit in that it often ornaments the wimpel wrapped around the dead letter of the Torah scroll, which, the Torah organ, will itself be resurrected from its own circumcision in order to birth a new covenant not subject to rescinding, annulling, or death of any sort.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

My reaction: wow. Plus it's a bit complicated. I prefer following Jesus. Thank you though.

It might be good to remember that St. Paul also preferred to follow Jesus. 2 Timothy 2:15 is not necessarily exclusive to preferring to follow Jesus. It could even be though of a part and parcel of the journey.

. . . You do realize Jesus was born the actual proto-archetype of all who are protected merely ritually by the prophylactic guardianship of the blood of circumcision. I didn't think anyone could read these things and not know they refer, directly, to the only person ever born from the literal removal of testosterone from his conception and pregnancy.



John