Alright, I’m calling bullshit. This has come up here before. It’s a completely unfalsifiable claim so on its face it’s a ridiculous discussion, but exactly where is the biblically prescribed method of circumcision? What verse tells us how much foreskin to remove?
Gymnasiums were a place where men did sporting things completely naked. They were also hotbeds of homosexuality. But as men were naked, it was obvious if they were circumcised. The Jewish men who wanted to get involved in this though had enough of a foreskin left that they were able to "make themselves uncircumcised" - do something with it to look uncircumcised like the Greeks.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
Then @Earth_is- needs to amend his posts to remove the references to the biblically prescribed amount of foreskin to take as you have acknowledged there is no such thing. He made that false claim multiple times.@The Revolting Man, there is no biblically prescribed method of circumcision. All methods are therefore valid under the Law.
Historically speaking though, there is plenty of evidence that circumcision as actually practiced in the Old Testament was generally less severe than today. For just one example, 1 Maccabees 1:14-15 states that as part of the Jew's apostasy (and note that I am using this as history, not scripture, so we don't need to debate whether it's biblical, I'm not saying this is biblical):
Gymnasiums were a place where men did sporting things completely naked. They were also hotbeds of homosexuality. But as men were naked, it was obvious if they were circumcised. The Jewish men who wanted to get involved in this though had enough of a foreskin left that they were able to "make themselves uncircumcised" - do something with it to look uncircumcised like the Greeks.
The medical techniques used to stretch the remaining foreskin to regrow it to the original length are well documented by ancient authors, and widely discussed in both theological, historical and medical circles. For example, here is a modern medical paper in a plastic surgery journal that discusses these ancient techniques:
This is not "bullshit", it is not an "unfalsifiable claim" - it is backed by substantial historical documentation. It's just a historical fact. Of course you're welcome to ignore all this history if you want to role reverse with @Earth_is- and have him be the person presenting real history and you be the person pretending history doesn't exist, if you like, that would be amusing for the rest of us!Uncircumcision: a historical review of preputial restoration - PubMed
Throughout history, demands for restoration of the prepuce after circumcision were most commonly related to the political or religious persecution of the Jewish people. The first evidence for such a procedure is mentioned in the Bible: Under the reign of Antiochus IV (168 BC) Hellenistic ideals...
You’re welcome to visit the Reddit for “foreskin restoration.” It has 31k members. There’s literally hundreds - if not thousands - of people on there that manually grew back most of their foreskin, and they all attest that the changes in sexual sensation/orgasm was a night and day difference. Some that had ongoing relationships reported that it also improved their relationships as the increased foreskin made it much more pleasurable for the women too.
That wasn’t a retraction of your false statements that a biblically mandated amount of foreskin to remove exists. It does not. You need to retract those false statements.
I apologise for the sarcasm, it was uncalled for.
The two Hebrew words used to describe Old Testament circumcision are namal & muwl. Namal means “clipped,” like you might clip your fingernails. The word muwl means “to curtail, to blunt, to cut shorter.” There are totally different words used in Hebrew for “cut off” or “removed.”
Alright, just to recap: you claim that there is a biblically mandated amount of foreskin to be removed based on English translations of Hebrew words you don’t actually understand?
If experience that includes remembered adult functionality is weak sauce, what exactly is an opinion worth that literally has no memory of any other reality or contrast?
How many of those sons are married?
It always blows my mind when you go off into left field. You’re normally so calm and logical and then weird stuff just sends you off like a bottle rocket.
And He didn’t put any restrictions or limits or instructions around circumcision. Are you saying He left something out…..?
You’re saying He made a mistake by not limiting the practice.
It is not at all logically obvious. The one time I waded through the disturbing numbers of penis pictures it took to try and prove it was logical I was left thinking how illogical it was. And how long has it been since medical personnel were trustworthy? You do know who pushes this tripe right? The origins of anti-circumcision crusade is with feminists and secularists. You’re siding with the morons.
If what you’re saying is true then how could circumcision not be bad? At least have the strength of your convictions. The whole push of this thread is that modern circumcision is unbiblical and harmful to men and even marriages. We even had @Joleneakamama makknf one of her rare illogical statements by blaming the failure of her parent’s 35 year marriage on a circumcision. I’m sorry @Joleneakamama but uncircumcised people get divorced too. If any of this thread were true then of course modern circumcision is bad. Have a backbone.
And the accusation of disputing “history”?
How many of your sons are married? My sons are 23 to 2 so no one is panicking here yet.
This is nuts. Are you claiming there are marriage rates disparities between circumcised and uncircumcised men? Higher divorce rates? Do you have any data?
I only meant to point out that one part of the study above was about how complete foreskin removal impacted the sexual pleasure of the man's partner. In the case of your sons they are not married and so don't have one. In the case of my parents, it seems that my mom's experience was not very positive....and that lead to very little intimacy for 20 years preceding their divorce....something that my sis and I cannot imagine.
It’s also something my wife can’t imagine so there may be other factors.
You are getting all worked up about defending the method of circumcision that you have received and have personally used on your sons. I appreciate that you don't want anyone telling you that you made the wrong decision - and I am not saying that. I'm not against you.
Here you are reading American culture into my statements and getting completely the wrong idea as a result. Circumcision is only a dominant practice in the USA, meaning you get anti-circumcision crusades and all that. It is ONLY the USA that is like that. In the rest of the world, including New Zealand, circumcision is an unusual practice and there are no anti-circumcision crusaders because they'd have nothing to do. It's actually very difficult to get a child circumcised in New Zealand, because almost no doctors do it, there's just no demand. The Jews have to specifically organise this within their community. So I am not siding with anybody like that, I've never met anyone like that. My perspective is actually quite the opposite - coming from a society where circumcision is almost never practiced, and working out whether I should do it to my sons and how.
No, you didn’t read what I wrote. I said that if what you say is true then you SHOULD think modern circumcision is wrong.
That is not at all clear.
How can you help someone understand an idea that you can’t defend?