At the time, the Samaritans were trying to integrate with the Jews. The rapist, Shechem, has the exact same name as the Samaritan capital. Essentially, the Bible tells us that the command to circumcise all generations was handed down three times: to Abraham, to Moses and to Joshua. The priests who put together the Bible seem to have felt this contradictory.
They therefore rewrote the ancient story of Joshua, stressing that circumcision was re-handed down to Joshua, not given anew. Hence the term "a second time" in verse 2; and also the verse explaining that circumcision was discontinued in the desert. Apparently it was these same priests who decreed that circumcision should take place on the eighth day, since the significance of that day stems from the priestly laws of purity that were unknown in the First Temple period.
The commandment to circumcise babies on the eighth day follows a verse Leviticus 12 that says that a woman who gives birth to a male child is ritualistically unclean for a week or two weeks if she has a daughter.
By touching his mother, the newborn would incur the uncleanness too; thus only on the eighth day would the newborn be ritualistically clean, and able to undergo the sacrament. However, during the First Temple era, circumcision may have been conducted not on babies but at puberty, possibly upon marriage.
This theory is based on two legs. One is that contemporary primitive societies that circumcise usually do it as a rite of passage at puberty as some Arab communities do to this day. Also, First Temple texts don't mention circumcision of infants, though that is a "sin" of omission. The second is linguistic theory regarding the meaning of the Semitic root H-T-N. Returning to the baffling biblical verse where Zipporah conducts a circumcision, upon completing the act, she twice asserts that someone is a hatan, meaning "bridegroom", of blood - but what exactly might a bloody bridegroom be?
Some scholars hypothesize that in ancient Hebrew, hatan didn't only mean "bridegroom" but "man undergoing circumcision. This double meaning of "someone undergoing circumcision" and "bridegroom" may seem bizarre. But in Arabic, the same root H-T-N carries both the meaning of circumcision and marriage.
Zipporah's statement may attest that ancient Hebrew also used this same root to mean circumcision and marriage. There is physical support for this thesis: the peoples who spoke West Semitic languages roughly correspond to the ancient peoples who practiced circumcision. Speakers of the East Semitic languages did not practice circumcision, and they don't use this root neither for marriage nor for circumcision.
This tidy separation implies that circumcision arose after the West and East Semitic people split, but before the West Semitic peoples split again into the different language communities, including the speakers of Arabic and Hebrew. The way West Semites used H-T-N may hint at how the root took on the meaning of both "wedding" and "circumcision".
West Semitic languages don't use this root for just any marriage related words. Words of the root H-T-N appear in words for "bridegroom" but not bride, for "father of the bride" but not for "father of the bridegroom.
Perhaps, at some ancient time, before Arabic and Hebrew diverged, weddings were events at which the father of the bride circumcised the bridegroom.
A study published in applying Bayesian regression models used by geneticists to determine biological family trees to determine the family tree of Semitic languages concluded that West and East Semitic languages split in about BCE, so circumcision probably came about after that date. The same study also concluded that Arabic split from the rest of the other West Semitic languages at around BCE, so circumcision probably came about before that.
Otherwise it is difficult to explain how Arabic and the rest of the West Semitic languages share the root H-T-N in relation to marriage.
According to the same research, these West Semitic people from whom proto-Arabic speakers splintered probably lived in modern-day Syria. Since the first archaeological evidence of circumcision is a tomb drawing from ancient Egypt dating to the 24th century BCE, it could have been introduced to the Egyptians by Semitic tribes as they expanded southward.
The odds seem stacked in favour of divine revelation. I was interested to see how the skeptics would respond to the argument and the research.
My rebuttals are presented below:. Skeptic: ' There were many different cultures before The Jews started doing circumcision. They mostly ripped it off from others. The Bible isn't evidence of your claim at all. My Response: According to Wikipedia, anthropologists don't even know for sure when circumcision started. While male circumcision exists in other cultures, only the Israelite culture got it spot on in terms of the ideal moment to circumcise.
Ancient African circumcision for example varies greatly from the Jewish practice. It would usually occur in young warrior initiation schools or as a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, requiring a display of courage under the knife. In South Africa it is performed most of the time on teenage boys or 18 years and older. There is no evidence however, of eighth day circumcision pre-dating The Bible. This shows this wasn't simply a result of trial and error.
Otherwise you would expect to see these other ancient cultures getting to the same result. McMillen, M. Newborns, on the other hand, are extremely resilient. So the most humane time is to circumcise in the first month of life. Thus the safest day for circumcision in a baby's life is day eight. The fact that the Bible records the exact and earliest "cut off" point for a newborn reveals a divine fingerprint. God knew exactly what he was doing. Skeptic: How did you come to the conclusion that an omnipotent god beamed secret knowledge into one man's brain is a more plausible explanation than people observed that babies who were circumcised too early bled to death, whereas babies who were circumcised later did not?
My Response: This is a straw man. All the passage says is that He instructed them to circumcise their male children on the eighth day. Why not later when they were 10, 20 or even 30 days old? Was it purely coincidental? Is that even plausible, given the evidence? God knows about human anatomy because He is the Creator. The Israelite's were ignorant of modern science and biology.
This had to be revelation from the Lord! American Pregnancy confirms 8th day levels. Giving Birth Naturally - Male Circumcision. Chris Hill on Yeshua Explored. X 11 You are to undergo circumcision, Y and it will be the sign of the covenant Z between me and you. AC My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.
AD 14 Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised AE in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; AF he has broken my covenant. AI 16 I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her. AJ I will bless her so that she will be the mother of nations; AK kings of peoples will come from her. AN Will Sarah bear a child at the age of ninety?
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