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The Pagan Root of Judeo-Christianity.

John D. Brey

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Phallic worship (făl´Ĭk), worship of the reproductive powers of nature as symbolized by the male generative organ. Phallic symbols have been found by archaeological expeditions all over the world, and they are usually interpreted as an expression of the human desire for regeneration. Phallic worship in ancient Greece centered around Priapus (the son of Aphrodite) and the Orphic and Dionysiac cults. In Rome, the most important form of phallic worship was that of the cult of Cybele and Attis; prominent during the empire, this cult was notorious for its festive excesses and its yearly "Day of Blood," during which the frenzied participants wounded themselves with knives; self-inflicted castration, a prerequisite for admittance into the priest caste of this phallic cult, took place during the festival. In India, the deity Shiva was often represented by and worshiped as a phallic symbol called the lingam. Phallic worship has also been practiced among the Egyptians in the worship of Osiris; among the Japanese, who incorporated it into Shinto; and among the Native Americans, such as the Mandan, who had a phallic buffalo dance.

Encyclopedia.com​

The most primitive religious thinking always centers around the phallus as the default symbol of the natural world's life-giver. All the primitive pagan religions centered their theology around the phallus. In some form or another all the deities and symbols of the ancient pagans find their genesis in the generative power of the phallus.

It's important to remember this when it's pointed out that Jewish anthropologists and rabbis acknowledge that the removal of the foreskin in the formative ritual of modern Judaism transforms the uncircumcised penis (which has no religious connotation) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." The Jewish ritual makes the phallus appear "ithyphallic." -----By removing the foreskin in its quintessential religious ritual, Judaism reveals the corona and frenular-delta which are otherwise utterly invisible in un-circumcision (since even in the sex act the skin is only pulled back when the phallus enters its domain where it can't be seen). Brit milah makes the revelation of the corona and the frenular-delta into a permanent state thereby transforming an uncircumcised penis (the natural organ as it appears at birth) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." In this sense, modern Judaism, by gathering around a natural (uncircumcised) penis, as it's transformed into a phallus (appearing permanently ithyphallic), situates modern Judaism as the last viable offspring of the phallic cults.

On the other hand, the oft heard suggestion that Jesus Christ is just one more manifestation of the pagan idea of divine incarnation is just as uneducated, and misguided, as is the unwillingness to recognize modern Judaism's pagan roots and pedigree. Throughout the Gospels and the Apostolic Writings, Jesus is portrayed not as having been sired by a man-god as in the case of the pagans, but rather, Jesus is fancied born of a virgin who never knew a man nor a man-god. Jesus is the product of the "seed of the woman" as that product would exist if the ovum began to divide without the help of a man or even God. In botany this very natural process produces a facsimile of the original seed which in Jesus' case is the original flesh of Adam around which Eve's body was formed. . . . This is to say that Jesus is a real man through and through and not a man-god sired jus primae noctis by a demi-god.

So we see it's actually modern Judaism and not Christianity that can't cut free from it's pagan roots. Christianity is in fact Judaism freed from its phallic culture and cultic practices like brit milah. . . The greatest hatred registered throughout the New Testament is describe when Paul tells his converts that they don't have to practice brit milah to be Jews in the new covenant. To this day, the modern Jew seethes when he thinks of Paul freeing Judaism from its formative phallic ritual (brit milah).


John

 
Last edited:
Flankerl

Flankerl

Well-Known Member
Guys imagine you have to act like a sorta Jew for three entire years.
There comes a point where you just have to come out of the closet and preach about Jesus.

Good for you OP, good for you!
 
Phantasman

Phantasman

Well-Known Member
John D. Brey said:
Phallic worship (făl´Ĭk), worship of the reproductive powers of nature as symbolized by the male generative organ. Phallic symbols have been found by archaeological expeditions all over the world, and they are usually interpreted as an expression of the human desire for regeneration. Phallic worship in ancient Greece centered around Priapus (the son of Aphrodite) and the Orphic and Dionysiac cults. In Rome, the most important form of phallic worship was that of the cult of Cybele and Attis; prominent during the empire, this cult was notorious for its festive excesses and its yearly "Day of Blood," during which the frenzied participants wounded themselves with knives; self-inflicted castration, a prerequisite for admittance into the priest caste of this phallic cult, took place during the festival. In India, the deity Shiva was often represented by and worshiped as a phallic symbol called the lingam. Phallic worship has also been practiced among the Egyptians in the worship of Osiris; among the Japanese, who incorporated it into Shinto; and among the Native Americans, such as the Mandan, who had a phallic buffalo dance.

Encyclopedia.com​

The most primitive religious thinking always centers around the phallus as the default symbol of the natural world's life-giver. All the primitive pagan religions centered their theology around the phallus. In some form or another all the deities and symbols of the ancient pagans find their genesis in the generative power of the phallus.

It's important to remember this when it's pointed out that Jewish anthropologists and rabbis acknowledge that the removal of the foreskin in the formative ritual of modern Judaism transforms the uncircumcised penis (which has no religious connotation) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." The Jewish ritual makes the phallus appear "ithyphallic." -----By removing the foreskin in its quintessential religious ritual, Judaism reveals the corona and frenular-delta which are otherwise utterly invisible in un-circumcision (since even in the sex act the skin is only pulled back when the phallus enters its domain where it can't be seen). Brit milah makes the revelation of the corona and the frenular-delta into a permanent state thereby transforming an uncircumcised penis (the natural organ as it appears at birth) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." In this sense, modern Judaism, by gathering around a natural (uncircumcised) penis, as it's transformed into a phallus (appearing permanently ithyphallic), situates modern Judaism as the last viable offspring of the phallic cults.

On the other hand, the oft heard suggest that Jesus Christ is just one more manifestation of the pagan idea of divine incarnation is just as uneducated, and misguided, as is the unwillingness to recognize modern Judaism's pagan roots and pedigree. Throughout the Gospels and the Apostolic Writings, Jesus is portrayed not as having been sired by a man-god as in the case of the pagans, but rather, Jesus is fancied born of a virgin who never knew a man nor a man-god. Jesus is the product of the "seed of the woman" as that product would exist if the ovum began to divide without the help of a man or even God. In botany this very natural process produces a facsimile of the original seed which in Jesus' case is the original flesh of Adam around which Eve's body was formed. . . . This is to say that Jesus is a real man through and through and not a man-god sired jus primae noctis by a demi-god.

So we see it's actually modern Judaism and not Christianity that can't cut free from it's pagan roots. Christianity is in fact Judaism freed from its phallic culture and cultic practices like brit milah. . . The greatest hatred registered throughout the New Testament is describe when Paul tells his converts that they don't have to practice brit milah to be Jews in the new covenant. To this day, the modern Jew seethes when he thinks of Paul freeing Judaism from its formative phallic ritual (brit milah).


John

Click to expand...
This is all flesh. Paul spoke the words for the saints to see the spirit over the flesh. Phallic has nothing to do with spirit. Or the God of spirit.

(53) His disciples said to him, "Is circumcision beneficial or not?"
He said to them, "If it were beneficial, their father would beget them already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become completely profitable."- Gospel of Thomas
 
T

tayla

My dog's name is Tayla
John D. Brey said:
the oft heard suggest that Jesus Christ is just one more manifestation of the pagan idea of divine incarnation is just as uneducated, and misguided, as is the unwillingness to recognize modern Judaism's pagan roots and pedigree.
Click to expand...
Richard Carrier discusses this at length. He has some great videos on YouTube.
 
roger1440

roger1440

I do stuff
John D. Brey said:
Phallic worship (făl´Ĭk), worship of the reproductive powers of nature as symbolized by the male generative organ. Phallic symbols have been found by archaeological expeditions all over the world, and they are usually interpreted as an expression of the human desire for regeneration. Phallic worship in ancient Greece centered around Priapus (the son of Aphrodite) and the Orphic and Dionysiac cults. In Rome, the most important form of phallic worship was that of the cult of Cybele and Attis; prominent during the empire, this cult was notorious for its festive excesses and its yearly "Day of Blood," during which the frenzied participants wounded themselves with knives; self-inflicted castration, a prerequisite for admittance into the priest caste of this phallic cult, took place during the festival. In India, the deity Shiva was often represented by and worshiped as a phallic symbol called the lingam. Phallic worship has also been practiced among the Egyptians in the worship of Osiris; among the Japanese, who incorporated it into Shinto; and among the Native Americans, such as the Mandan, who had a phallic buffalo dance.

Encyclopedia.com​

The most primitive religious thinking always centers around the phallus as the default symbol of the natural world's life-giver. All the primitive pagan religions centered their theology around the phallus. In some form or another all the deities and symbols of the ancient pagans find their genesis in the generative power of the phallus.

It's important to remember this when it's pointed out that Jewish anthropologists and rabbis acknowledge that the removal of the foreskin in the formative ritual of modern Judaism transforms the uncircumcised penis (which has no religious connotation) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." The Jewish ritual makes the phallus appear "ithyphallic." -----By removing the foreskin in its quintessential religious ritual, Judaism reveals the corona and frenular-delta which are otherwise utterly invisible in un-circumcision (since even in the sex act the skin is only pulled back when the phallus enters its domain where it can't be seen). Brit milah makes the revelation of the corona and the frenular-delta into a permanent state thereby transforming an uncircumcised penis (the natural organ as it appears at birth) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." In this sense, modern Judaism, by gathering around a natural (uncircumcised) penis, as it's transformed into a phallus (appearing permanently ithyphallic), situates modern Judaism as the last viable offspring of the phallic cults.

On the other hand, the oft heard suggest that Jesus Christ is just one more manifestation of the pagan idea of divine incarnation is just as uneducated, and misguided, as is the unwillingness to recognize modern Judaism's pagan roots and pedigree. Throughout the Gospels and the Apostolic Writings, Jesus is portrayed not as having been sired by a man-god as in the case of the pagans, but rather, Jesus is fancied born of a virgin who never knew a man nor a man-god. Jesus is the product of the "seed of the woman" as that product would exist if the ovum began to divide without the help of a man or even God. In botany this very natural process produces a facsimile of the original seed which in Jesus' case is the original flesh of Adam around which Eve's body was formed. . . . This is to say that Jesus is a real man through and through and not a man-god sired jus primae noctis by a demi-god.

So we see it's actually modern Judaism and not Christianity that can't cut free from it's pagan roots. Christianity is in fact Judaism freed from its phallic culture and cultic practices like brit milah. . . The greatest hatred registered throughout the New Testament is describe when Paul tells his converts that they don't have to practice brit milah to be Jews in the new covenant. To this day, the modern Jew seethes when he thinks of Paul freeing Judaism from its formative phallic ritual (brit milah).


John

Click to expand...
How are you defining the word "pagan"?
 
John D. Brey

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
Flankerl said:
Guys imagine you have to act like a sorta Jew for three entire years.
There comes a point where you just have to come out of the closet and preach about Jesus.

Good for you OP, good for you!
Click to expand...

. . . If I didn't speak about Jesus the pixels themselves would rise up and do it. He doesn't need me, Paul, or you. He Is as He is. He made all of us and allowed us to be the twits we are.

Btw . . . nothing said in this thread is in opposition to the things I've said about the glory of Judaism. There's no contradiction in seeing the brilliance of brit milah in the same mind that sees how it can rise up into a pagan idol of demonic proportions.


John
 
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Hockeycowboy

Hockeycowboy

Witness for Jehovah
Premium Member
John D. Brey said:
Phallic worship (făl´Ĭk), worship of the reproductive powers of nature as symbolized by the male generative organ. Phallic symbols have been found by archaeological expeditions all over the world, and they are usually interpreted as an expression of the human desire for regeneration. Phallic worship in ancient Greece centered around Priapus (the son of Aphrodite) and the Orphic and Dionysiac cults. In Rome, the most important form of phallic worship was that of the cult of Cybele and Attis; prominent during the empire, this cult was notorious for its festive excesses and its yearly "Day of Blood," during which the frenzied participants wounded themselves with knives; self-inflicted castration, a prerequisite for admittance into the priest caste of this phallic cult, took place during the festival. In India, the deity Shiva was often represented by and worshiped as a phallic symbol called the lingam. Phallic worship has also been practiced among the Egyptians in the worship of Osiris; among the Japanese, who incorporated it into Shinto; and among the Native Americans, such as the Mandan, who had a phallic buffalo dance.

Encyclopedia.com​

The most primitive religious thinking always centers around the phallus as the default symbol of the natural world's life-giver. All the primitive pagan religions centered their theology around the phallus. In some form or another all the deities and symbols of the ancient pagans find their genesis in the generative power of the phallus.

It's important to remember this when it's pointed out that Jewish anthropologists and rabbis acknowledge that the removal of the foreskin in the formative ritual of modern Judaism transforms the uncircumcised penis (which has no religious connotation) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." The Jewish ritual makes the phallus appear "ithyphallic." -----By removing the foreskin in its quintessential religious ritual, Judaism reveals the corona and frenular-delta which are otherwise utterly invisible in un-circumcision (since even in the sex act the skin is only pulled back when the phallus enters its domain where it can't be seen). Brit milah makes the revelation of the corona and the frenular-delta into a permanent state thereby transforming an uncircumcised penis (the natural organ as it appears at birth) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." In this sense, modern Judaism, by gathering around a natural (uncircumcised) penis, as it's transformed into a phallus (appearing permanently ithyphallic), situates modern Judaism as the last viable offspring of the phallic cults.

On the other hand, the oft heard suggestion that Jesus Christ is just one more manifestation of the pagan idea of divine incarnation is just as uneducated, and misguided, as is the unwillingness to recognize modern Judaism's pagan roots and pedigree. Throughout the Gospels and the Apostolic Writings, Jesus is portrayed not as having been sired by a man-god as in the case of the pagans, but rather, Jesus is fancied born of a virgin who never knew a man nor a man-god. Jesus is the product of the "seed of the woman" as that product would exist if the ovum began to divide without the help of a man or even God. In botany this very natural process produces a facsimile of the original seed which in Jesus' case is the original flesh of Adam around which Eve's body was formed. . . . This is to say that Jesus is a real man through and through and not a man-god sired jus primae noctis by a demi-god.

So we see it's actually modern Judaism and not Christianity that can't cut free from it's pagan roots. Christianity is in fact Judaism freed from its phallic culture and cultic practices like brit milah. . . The greatest hatred registered throughout the New Testament is describe when Paul tells his converts that they don't have to practice brit milah to be Jews in the new covenant. To this day, the modern Jew seethes when he thinks of Paul freeing Judaism from its formative phallic ritual (brit milah).


John

Click to expand...
The origin of steeples, on tops of churches, is based on phallic worship....but no one knows.
 
John D. Brey

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
roger1440 said:
So the roots of "Judeo-Christianity" lies in "bastardization of the ideas found in Judeo/Christianity"? That is absurd.
Click to expand...

As any good cultural anthropologist knows (and I have Eric Silverman in mind) the deepest strata of the human collective-subconscious is most nakedly revealed in the rituals and symbols of the least modernized tribes and peoples of the world (sometimes termed "pagan"). For instance, if you want to understand the meaning of penis-cutting, or ornamentation (ritual circumcision), you've to go to the etymology of that ritualistic practice. That etymology exists most obviously and unadorned where it hasn't been distorted by modernization and having been transformed into, and used almost exclusively for, ethnicity publicizing pablum (modern brit milah).

Penile subincision is a perfect example. It lays bare the tormented soul of the collective-subconscious of the entire human race:

Evil was not part of man, but an outside force he could easily avoid. This was represented by the Serpent in the Garden, which was not part of man's makeup, but something outside of him. Man could debate with this evil or ignore it, like any other outside force. Evil urges and compulsions were not part of him, as they are now, so that now he cannot escape them, no matter where he goes.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Waters of Eden.

It is a well known fact that in almost every culture the serpent represents some sort of phallic symbol. To a large degree then, the serpent represents sexual temptation. Our sages teach us that the main temptation the serpent used to lure Eve was that of sex.

Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan, Tzitzith: A Thread of Light.​

Because of the Jewish epistemological prejudice not to connect the dots on their rituals and theology you see things like the statements above whenever you study Jewish thought. Rabbi Kaplan spreads these two ideas out over two different books not wanting to connect the two statements in the manner I'm wont to make the easy connections. ------Evil, represented by the serpent, which in almost every culture represents the phallus, was not part of man's original make up, but something outside of him. ------This last sentence is a fair paraphrase of Rabbi Kaplan's two statements, and that fair paraphrase of the good Rabbi's two statements ends up being nearly parallel to what I've been saying for years now: Adam didn't have a phallus; the serpent wasn't part of the original paraphernalia on the human body. Genesis 2:21 is where the phallus is manufactured on Adam's body at precisely the time Eve was manufactured as a parking garage for the new appendage.

Subincision (like circumcision) is widespread[citation needed] in the traditional cultures of Indigenous Australians, and is well documented[citation needed] among the peoples of the central desert of Australia such as the Arrernte and Luritja. The Arrernte word for subincision is arilta, and occurs as a rite of passage ritual for adolescent boys.[1] It was given to the Arrernte by Mangar-kunjer-kunja, a lizard-man spirit being from the Dreamtime. A subincised penis is thought to resemble a vulva, and the bleeding is likened to menstruation.[2]​

Wikipedia tells us a subincised penis is thought to resemble a vulva, and the bleeding is likened to menstruation. 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" (Silverman, 2006, p. 80). ------ I've quoted dozens of knowledgeable Jewish men claiming just this: that circumcision somehow transforms the Jewish man back into a woman. I've stated over and over that the prototype human body was either what we now consider "female" or else in the least un-gendered, unencumbered with the fleshly serpent. Too many times to count I've quoted Rabbi Kaplan saying that circumcision, in some manner he claims not to be able to figure out, makes the circumcisee, like Adam prior to the Fall.

And we have this from the thread seeder:

Throughout the Gospels and the Apostolic Writings, Jesus is portrayed not as having been sired by a man-god as in the case of the pagans, but rather, Jesus is fancied born of a virgin who never knew a man nor a man-god. Jesus is the product of the "seed of the woman" as that product would exist if the ovum began to divide without the help of a man or even God. In botany this very natural process produces a facsimile of the original seed which in Jesus' case is the original flesh of Adam around which Eve's body was formed. . . . Which is to say that Jesus is a real man through and through and not a man-god sired jus primae noctis by a demi-god.​

If cutting the penis symbolizes making it a vulva, or eliminating its masculine dimensions in some way, then human reproduction, human regeneration, is freed from dual gender, and thus sex, and returned to that perfect state that's desecrated when the rise of the phallus leads to Cain and all his offspring, us. Augustine said: "Only when a Jew comes over to Christ, is he no longer Cain." Which is the same for everyone of us since we're all born of both Cain's seed and Adam's originally endowed flesh. The trick is merely to get rid of the duality of Cain and prelapse Adam, get rid of gender, such that both a subincised penise (a penis ritually transformed into a vulva) and a circumcised penis (a penis ritually removed) signify the elimination of the great guilt buried deep in the psyche of the human race where it archives our dark genesis and exodus from Eden.



John

 
Last edited:
12jtartar

12jtartar

Active Member
Premium Member
John D. Brey said:
Phallic worship (făl´Ĭk), worship of the reproductive powers of nature as symbolized by the male generative organ. Phallic symbols have been found by archaeological expeditions all over the world, and they are usually interpreted as an expression of the human desire for regeneration. Phallic worship in ancient Greece centered around Priapus (the son of Aphrodite) and the Orphic and Dionysiac cults. In Rome, the most important form of phallic worship was that of the cult of Cybele and Attis; prominent during the empire, this cult was notorious for its festive excesses and its yearly "Day of Blood," during which the frenzied participants wounded themselves with knives; self-inflicted castration, a prerequisite for admittance into the priest caste of this phallic cult, took place during the festival. In India, the deity Shiva was often represented by and worshiped as a phallic symbol called the lingam. Phallic worship has also been practiced among the Egyptians in the worship of Osiris; among the Japanese, who incorporated it into Shinto; and among the Native Americans, such as the Mandan, who had a phallic buffalo dance.

Encyclopedia.com​

The most primitive religious thinking always centers around the phallus as the default symbol of the natural world's life-giver. All the primitive pagan religions centered their theology around the phallus. In some form or another all the deities and symbols of the ancient pagans find their genesis in the generative power of the phallus.

It's important to remember this when it's pointed out that Jewish anthropologists and rabbis acknowledge that the removal of the foreskin in the formative ritual of modern Judaism transforms the uncircumcised penis (which has no religious connotation) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." The Jewish ritual makes the phallus appear "ithyphallic." -----By removing the foreskin in its quintessential religious ritual, Judaism reveals the corona and frenular-delta which are otherwise utterly invisible in un-circumcision (since even in the sex act the skin is only pulled back when the phallus enters its domain where it can't be seen). Brit milah makes the revelation of the corona and the frenular-delta into a permanent state thereby transforming an uncircumcised penis (the natural organ as it appears at birth) into the religious artifact known as the "phallus." In this sense, modern Judaism, by gathering around a natural (uncircumcised) penis, as it's transformed into a phallus (appearing permanently ithyphallic), situates modern Judaism as the last viable offspring of the phallic cults.

On the other hand, the oft heard suggestion that Jesus Christ is just one more manifestation of the pagan idea of divine incarnation is just as uneducated, and misguided, as is the unwillingness to recognize modern Judaism's pagan roots and pedigree. Throughout the Gospels and the Apostolic Writings, Jesus is portrayed not as having been sired by a man-god as in the case of the pagans, but rather, Jesus is fancied born of a virgin who never knew a man nor a man-god. Jesus is the product of the "seed of the woman" as that product would exist if the ovum began to divide without the help of a man or even God. In botany this very natural process produces a facsimile of the original seed which in Jesus' case is the original flesh of Adam around which Eve's body was formed. . . . This is to say that Jesus is a real man through and through and not a man-god sired jus primae noctis by a demi-god.

So we see it's actually modern Judaism and not Christianity that can't cut free from it's pagan roots. Christianity is in fact Judaism freed from its phallic culture and cultic practices like brit milah. . . The greatest hatred registered throughout the New Testament is describe when Paul tells his converts that they don't have to practice brit milah to be Jews in the new covenant. To this day, the modern Jew seethes when he thinks of Paul freeing Judaism from its formative phallic ritual (brit milah).


John

Click to expand...

John D Brey,
I believe you must be talking about some other religion, because the roots of True Christianity came straight from Jehovah God through Moses and the Nation of Israel and the Mosaic Law Covenant! Their can be no sensible argument about that!!!
 
John D. Brey

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
12jtartar said:
John D Brey,
I believe you must be talking about some other religion, because the roots of True Christianity came straight from Jehovah God through Moses and the Nation of Israel and the Mosaic Law Covenant! Their can be no sensible argument about that!!!
Click to expand...

The nation of Israel cut the flesh of the foreskin. Paul said that's mutilation.



John
 
John D. Brey

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
John D. Brey said:
If cutting the penis symbolizes making it a vulva, or eliminating its masculine dimensions in some way, then human reproduction, human regeneration, is freed from dual gender, and thus sex, and returned to that perfect state that's desecrated when the rise of the phallus leads to Cain and all his offspring, us. Augustine said: "Only when a Jew comes over to Christ, is he no longer Cain." Which is the same for everyone of us since we're all born of both Cain's seed and Adam's originally endowed flesh. The trick is merely to get rid of the duality of Cain and prelapse Adam, get rid of gender, such that both a subincised penise (a penis ritually transformed into a vulva) and a circumcised penis (a penis ritually removed) signify the elimination of the great guilt buried deep in the psyche of the human race where it archives our dark genesis and exodus from Eden.



​
Click to expand...

. . . the Talmud offers a double rationale for the location of circumcision on the penis and nowhere else: one the penis is the part of the (male) body that distinguishes male from female and, two it is the fruitful part of the male body. I contend that the intermittent foregrounding of this symbol of maleness/fruitfulness reinforces a major dynamic of the patriarchal narrative -- namely, the increasing importance of the institutionalized system of patrilineal dissent, a system that ultimately overwhelms vestiges of matrilocality and matrilineal dissent. At strategic points in the story, the phallic trope reiterates its “subliminally insistent” iconic flashes until, finally, the descendants of Jacob are imagined as emerging not from the wombs of mothers but from the penis of the patriarch. They are yotsei yerekh Yaakov, “those who went out of Jacob’s `thigh’ (yerekh)” (Gen. 46:26; Exod. 1:5).

As a sign of male fecundity, circumcision memorializes the transforming moment when Abram, separated by God’s order, from his own father’s house, becomes the primogenitor Abraham who is to be “father to a multitude of nations” (Gen. 17:4). We shall see that as the patriarchal saga progresses toward the climactic escape of Abraham’s grandson Jacob from the household of his mother’s family, followed almost immediately by his naming as Israel, there are diminishing traces of matrilineal and matrilocal traditions in the text. Along the three-generation journey to Israelite nation-hood that follows the commandment to circumcise, the echoing pattern of phallocentric incidents includes the oath on Abraham’s yerekh, the wounding of Jacobs yerekh, the circumcision of the males of Shechem, and the oath on Jacob’s yerekh. Finally, near the end of the Book of Genesis and once again at the beginning of the Book of Exodus, we have that definition of the Israelite clans as emanations of the yerekh of Jacob. Bridging the two biblical books and a narrative gap of hundreds of years, the repeated citation of Jacob’s thigh as the Israelites’ biological source focuses attention on the patriarchal line of descent. As the people of Israel begin their wanderings, this reminder of their origin in Jacob’s phallus, with its sign of God’s covenant, links the final patriarch to the future generations of fathers and sons whose bodies will be marked with the same sign.

Professor Elizabeth Wyner Mark, Wounds, Vows, Emanations.​

The seemingly strange idea that scripture could be speaking of Jewish patriarchs producing their young from their "thigh" (long known to be a euphemism for the phallus) unveils secrets concerning the founding ritual of the Jewish people that are finally coming out from behind the skene of modesty and weak exegesis and into the foreground of recent studies of the seminal ritual. Professor Mark says:

While this recurrent phallic imagery might be obvious to readers in diligent pursuit of patterns of textual repetition, for the more casual reader the euphemisms of an ancient tradition of modesty may make the pattern almost invisible. Of course, the ancient audience, attuned to the literary conventions of their time, readily understood that thighs, hips, legs, loins [loincloths], and other nearby body parts are often stand-ins for the genital organs, but for us this image substitution may hide meaningful self-references in the text, especially when translation adds its own layer of concealment. Moreover, our present-day discomfiture with the reverence our ancient forebears displayed toward the circumcised penis creates a subconscious aversion to lifting certain semantic veils. We would rather keep our usual discreet terminology in the case of, for example, "the oath on the thigh" than face the frank image conveyed by the unveiled alternative: a man pledging a solemn vow while holding the penis of one of the patriarchs of Judaism.

Professor Elizabeth Wyner Mark, "Phallic Trope in the Patriarchal Narrative."​

The Professor's statement concerning the "lifting of certain semantic veils," in parallel to the lifting of the quintessential veil, removed in the founding of the covenant, couldn't be more nakedly clear since this ritual lifting of the most important religious veil hides, perhaps even in the lifting of the veil, the singularly most important knowledge mankind will ever gain concerning his past, present and future. Justifying this claim is the work of the Professor (Elliot R. Wolfson) most diligently in pursuit of the patterns associated with the unveiling and covering up long associated with brit milah. In his most recent work on ritual circumcision, Professor Wolfson has come as close as any Jew can come to uncovering the meaning of the sign of the covenant without cutting so deep into the spirit of the ritual that the flesh where the sign is located is lost to the ravages of the exegetical cutting (which Professor Wolfson has himself paralleled with the actual cutting of the flesh).

Not withstanding the acknowledged wordiness of the foregoing, so to say, it's fair to point out that a reader following the foregoing in the slightest way will be reward for the trouble by what Professor Wolfson has in store for us. Where he goes from where we are at this point, will definitely not disappoint. . . .



John

 
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John D. Brey

John D. Brey

Well-Known Member
John D. Brey said:
The Professor's statement concerning the "lifting of certain semantic veils," in parallel to the lifting of the quintessential veil, removed in the founding of the covenant, couldn't be more nakedly clear since this ritual lifting of the most important religious veil hides, perhaps even in the lifting of the veil, the singularly most important knowledge mankind will ever gain concerning his past, present and future. Justifying this claim is the work of the Professor (Elliot R. Wolfson) most diligently in pursuit of the patterns associated with the unveiling and covering up long associated with brit milah. In his most recent work on ritual circumcision, Professor Wolfson has come as close as any Jew can come to uncovering the meaning of the sign of the covenant without cutting so deep into the spirit of the ritual that the flesh where the sign is located is lost to the ravages of the exegetical cutting (which Professor Wolfson has himself paralleled with the actual cutting of the flesh).

Not withstanding the acknowledged wordiness of the foregoing, so to say, it's fair to point out that a reader following the foregoing in the slightest way will be reward for the trouble by what Professor Wolfson has in store for us. Where he goes from where we are at this point, will definitely not disappoint. . . .
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Professor Wolfson has long made the fruitful connection between the literary produce of the pen, versus what the pen-is (and produces) in biological re-production. Long ago, in Circle in the Square, Professor Wolfson established the relationship between the two kinds of production and produce:

. . . It is clear that the zoharic authorship, consistent with standard medieval views, reflecting in turn ancient Greco-Roman as well as Near Eastern cultural assumptions, identified the writing instrument (pen or chisel) with the phallus, on one hand, and the tablet or page with the female on the other. It is evident from other zoharic passages that the act of engraving---which signifies in its most elemental sense the process of forming or giving shape by digging out space from slabs of matter ---is understood in sexual terms as phallic penetration . . . (p. 62).

It may be concluded from these and other passages that in zoharic literature engraving letters, or more generally the process of writing or inscription, is a decidedly erotic activity: the active agent of writing is the male principle; the written letters are the semen virile, and the tablet or page upon which the writing is accomplished is the female principle. . . It is obvious, therefore, that the letters must be seen as the semen that the male imparts to the female. (p. 68).​

Within the realm of writing, scripturally speaking, there are two fundamental genus: the sacred-glyph (hieroglyph), and the demotic word or letter associated with the pen. A sacred-glyph is different from a demotic word (or letter) in the important sense that the hieroglyph is an image of a tangible thing being used to produce an idea, or thought. In the hieroglyph, the idea, or thought, is still housed in the tangible image (from the natural world) that the sacred-glyph uses for the purpose of producing a thought. The hieroglyph is literally the incarnation of idea, or thought, with the thing (from the natural world) being used to produce the thought or idea. At the stage of the hieroglyph, the tangible and the intangible aren't yet separated. A sacred-thought, produced in a hieroglyphic sense, doesn't allow the separation of thought from tangible thing.

As I have suggested at length elsewhere, circumcision especially expresses the phallic nature of writing, for through this ritual the letter/sign of the covenant (`ot berit) is inscribed on the flesh. The incision on the penis of the infant boy is the first act of writing, which all other acts of writing emulate (p. 75-76).​

Consistent with the ideas being discussed, Professor Wolfson implies something very important here, which comes into full bloom only in his more contemporary writings concerning circumcision. Professor Wolfson explicitly, or implicitly, consciously, or subconsciously, implies what is the case, and case in point, that the writing on the flesh of the male Jew on the eighth day represents the original act of writing such that the seminal question arises whether this writing on the flesh of the male Jew is hieroglyphic or demotic? If demotic, then the writing of brit milah severs the unity of tangible thing and idea from the sacred-glyph producing the first demotic letter or word. . . If hieroglyphic, the writing of brit milah creates a sacred-glyph that's a picture, or pictogram, of some tangible thing (from the natural world) that the glyph, or image, uses to produce the thought, or idea, born of the act of writing. . . . Is brit milah, as the seminal act of writing, the act of a priest producing a sacred-glyph (as we would expect) or the act of a writer/amanuensis producing the demotic separation that severs the written word from it's source in the sacred-glyph? Does the mohel connect the word or letter written in the flesh with a tangible image from the natural world, or is his act the severing of a thought, or idea, from the tangible thing first associated with ideas and thoughts. Is the mohel's act evolution or priestly evocation? Ontological, or meontololgical?



John

 
D

Desert Snake

Veteran Member
John D. Brey said:
The nation of Israel cut the flesh of the foreskin. Paul said that's mutilation.



John
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Actually, your usage of nation of Israel in that context would be wrong. The nation of Israel is not a persona that can practice circumcision, circumcision was practiced at the time of Paul's writing, would be a more apt sentence.

That being said, in the NT we note how some are going to be circumcised, have themselves circumcised, / and they are in Israel, and some do not believe in circumcision, Like our Paul, although Paul was from the circumcision group; hence, the practice of physical circumcision was not a complete norm, and actually neither were other religious beliefs, since we still note sacrifice to idols being referenced, so forth.


This might back your premise in a study that separates the supposed instruction to circumcise, from the concept, ie non textual, of why it is performed.

Ie if circumcision were understood in earlier times as a multi-meaning esoteric act, then the physical circumcision does certainly bear non- biblical, or non jewish text, study


Not q problem, as far as I tell,
 
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