Should the Babies of Christian Parents be Circumcised?

 

An illustration of a 4300-year tomb relief at Ankhmaho, Saqqara showing circumcision. 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Circumcision existed before the time of Abraham (c. 2000 BC). It was performed as early as 4000 BC among the Horite and Sethite Hebrew who maintained separate temples and shrines along the Nile River. This has been verified by temple texts and images dated to 4000 BC that show priests circumcising young men. (4000 BC is before Egypt emerged as a political entity.) Since Abraham was of the Hebrew ruler-priest caste, circumcision for him and his household was a received tradition.

Circumcision is one of the customs associated with the early Hebrew, a ruler-priest caste. Other customs include animal sacrifice, concern about ritual purity, dietary restrictions, caste endogamy, ministry at temples and shrines, and sacred moral codes.

There are three references to circumcision in the Bible that tell us about this practice. The first concerns Moses' cousin wife, Zipporah. While traveling to Egypt, she circumcised her son with a flint knife. She accused Moses, saying, "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!" She added, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision." (Exodus 4:25-26)

It appears that Zipporah was angry about having to perform a rite that should have been performed by her priest father back in Midian. This is because, among the Hebrew, the firstborn son of the cousin wife belonged to the household of his maternal grandfather.

Another reference concerns God's command to Abraham to circumcise all the males of his household (Gen. 17:10-14). This account reflects the covenant theology of a later period. As a Hebrew, Abraham would have been circumcised as a young man while he was living in Mesopotamia. This was the custom among the early Hebrew (4200-2000 BC).

Finally, there is the ambiguous account of the renewal of the covenant whereby Joshua was to circumcise the "people" a second time. Presumably, the circumcision was performed on uncircumcised boys who had been born during the wanderings of the clan of Jacob (Israelites). 

At that time the Lord said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the people of Israel again the second time." So Joshua made flint knives and circumcised the people of Israel at Gibeath ha-aralot (Josh. 5:2-3). This appears to be an explanation for Ha-aralot, which means a "hill of foreskins." It is a reference to an uncircumcised people. 

Some considerations

Christian parents have asked whether or not they should have their infant sons circumcised. I offer these considerations.

In as much as Christians are grafted into the faith of Abraham the Hebrew, circumcision is appropriate.

In as much as Christians are not under the Law of Moses, parents should not feel compelled to circumcise their infant sons.

In as much as the Apostolic Tradition poses Baptism using the Trinitarian Formula as the Christian equivalent to circumcision, all Christian parents should have their children baptized, thereby making them members of the mystical Body of Christ.

Related reading: Baptism in the Teaching of Paul; Circumcision Debated; Cousin Brides Among the Hebrew; The Substance of Abraham's Faith

The Fertile Crescent and the Cradle of Civilization

Alice C. Linsley

Breasted's Fertile Crescent

Historians have long used the term "cradle of civilization" to speak of Mesopotamia. Today the terms "fertile crescent" and "cradle of civilization" are synonymous in many minds. For anthropologists this poses a problem because "civilization" looks different among the Nilo-Saharans and the Mesopotamians when examined in greater detail. The ancient Nilo-Saharans and Mesopotamians had a different way of life, a different conception of the Creator and a different cosmology. The Nilo-Saharans were the first to practice circumcision and animal sacrifice, and the divine name YHWY originated in the Upper Nile. The expectation of a righteous ruler who would lead his people to immortality originated among the Nilo-Saharans. This is why they took such great care in the burial of their rulers.

Reporting on his second expedition to Abydos (1896-1897), Abbe Émile Amélineau had this to say about Abraham's Anu ancestors: "These Anu were agricultural people, raising cattle on a large scale along the Nile, shutting themselves up in walled cities for defensive purposes. To this people we can attribute, without fear of error, the most ancient Egyptian books, The Book of the Dead and the Texts of the Pyramids, consequently, all the myths or religious teachings. I would add almost all the philosophical systems then known and still called Egyptian. They evidently knew the crafts necessary for any civilization and were familiar with the tools those trades required. They knew how to use metals, at least elementary metals. They made the earliest attempts at writing, for the whole Egyptian tradition attributes this art to Thoth, the great Hermes an Anu like Osiris, who is called Onian in Chapter XV of The Book of the Dead and in the Texts of the Pyramids.” Abydos and Heliopolis (Biblical On) were Ainu shrine cities of the Fertile Crescent.

"Fertile Crescent" refers to part of the ancient Near East that has been considered to be the principal center for the emergence of agriculture, villages, and cities. The term was coined by James Henry Breasted (1865–1935), a scholar of ancient Egypt and director of the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago, in his 1916 textbook, Ancient Times: A History of the Early World.

Mesopotamia was assumed to be the “cradle of civilization” because of two developments that occurred there: the rise of the city and the invention of writing. Between 3000-2200 B.C, the principal Mesopotamian cities were Lagash, Iraq with about 60,000 inhabitants, Mohenjo-daro, Pakistan, with about 40,000 inhabitants, and Mari, Syria, with 50,000 inhabitants. At that same time Nekhen (Hierakonpolis) was the most important settlement along the Nile, with an estimated population of 20,000. It was a bustling city that stretched for over 2 miles along the edge of the floodplain. Recent discoveries at Nekhen continue to push back the dating of early civilizations. On May 6, 2014 Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim announced the discovery of a Pre-Dynastic tomb that dates to about 500 years before King Narmer of 1st Dynasty.

Renée Friedman, who has direct knowledge of the excavations at Nekhen, has written that the "evidence of industrial production, temples, masks, mummies, and funerary architecture as early as 3500 B.C. is placing Hierakonpolis at the forefront of traditions and practices that would come to typify Egyptian culture centuries later. These discoveries may have knocked Narmer and his palette off their historical pedestal, but they confirm the central role the city played in the long development of Egyptian civilization. It is little wonder that for millennia the deified early kings of Hierakonpolis, called the Souls of Nekhen, were honored guests at the coronations and funerals of all pharaohs."

Nekhen was a principal city of Breasted's Fertile Crescent.

Long before this (9700-4400 years ago), the Gobero populations were living between along the major water systems of Niger. The early Holocene occupants at Gobero (7700–6200 B.C.) were mainly sedentary peoples with lakeside funerary sites that include the earliest recorded cemetery in the Sahara. Surely, ritual burial sites as large as that found at Gobero should be considered marks of human civilization.

The cradle of civilization is indeed Breasted's fertile crescent, a much greater expanse of land than Mesopotamia alone. There were agricultural and cattle-herding settlements in the Nile Valley during the last Glacial Maximum and the terminal Pleistocene (20,000 to 8500 B.C.). The Nile Valley and the green Sahara are part of the cradle of civilization. The crescent was populated by peoples who had a common religious and linguistic heritage, but these developed differently outside of Africa.


Correcting Distortions

Some Bible scholars have distorted the anthropological picture by ignoring Abraham's Nilo-Saharan ancestors as they are identified in Genesis 4-10. Jewish writers, for example, generally begin the history of the Jews with the calling of Abraham. While Abraham did live in Mesopotamia, his ancestors came from Africa. One was the Kushite kingdom builder Nimrod (Gen. 10). 

In the mid to late 20^th century Old Testament studies benefited from archaeological discoveries in the Near East and from linguistic studies of ancient Near Eastern languages such as Akkadian, Elamite and Sumerian. Connections were made between ancient Near Eastern religious practices and those of Abraham and his ancestors. Today scholars continue to labor those connections though there is overwhelming evidence that practices such as animal sacrifice and circumcision began in the Nile Valley, not in Mesopotamia. For example, William W. Hallo, a former Yale professor, insists that the practice of animal sacrifice originated in ancient Mesopotamia. He seems to be unaware that priests sacrificed animals at the Horite shrine city of Nekhen as early as 4000 B.C. 

It was commonly asserted that the Gilgamesh Epic was the basis for the Biblical story of the flood. Much was made of the parallels between the two accounts, but generally the differences, which are significant, were overlooked or ignored. More recently, the "Ark Tablet" of only twenty lines was translated by British Museum scholar Irving Finkel. It is an Old Babylonian account in which the deity instructs the ruler Atrahasis to build and waterproof a circular boat or coracle. The tablet dates to 1900-1700 B.C. and therefore dates to a time about 500 years after the Biblical Noah.

As far as the invention of writing, Breasted included the Nile Valley because writing was already in an advanced state among the Nilotic and Proto-Saharan peoples before the 4th millennium B.C.

Nilotic scribe
(c. 2494 to 2345 BC)

In Abraham's time there were about 750 hieroglyphs (priest symbols). Only about 500 signs were commonly used. However, in the time of Menes there may have been as many as 1000. Archaeology Magazine reported (1999) that the earliest Egyptian glyphs date to 3400 BC, the time of Menes, which challenges "the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia."

The rock paintings of the Sudan and Arabia, and the lexemes that appear in the Nilotic, Dedanite and Thamudic scripts indicate considerable uniformity in written communication over a vast region. We recognize Y/I/J, O, X, T and W among the oldest of the lexemes.

Further, DNA studies have demonstrated that modern humans first emerged in Africa and that these populations moved out of Africa, taking with them their languages and their religious practices. Linguistic studies provide evidence that the oldest units of spoken language (phonemes) originated in Africa and the farther from Africa that peoples migrated the greater the loss of the original phonemes. Even today, Africa has the greatest genetic and linguistic diversity of any place in the world.


Related reading: The Origin of Circumcision, Where Did Animal Sacrifice Originate?; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y; Scholarly Prejudice?; Newly Discovered Pyramid Predates Noah; The Nubian Context of YHWH; Boat Petroglyphs of Egypt's Central Desert; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant

Circumcision Debated

Circumcision was practiced before the time of Abraham among the Nilo-Kushitic peoples. Both males and females were circumcised and the practice continues today in that same part of the world.

Circumcision is not unique to Jews. It is practiced among many of Abraham's Arab and Egyptian descendants as well. However, some European nations have taken action against it, considering it bodily mutilation, even "torture" of the infant. Dutch doctors no longer perform circumcisions. Circumcision wars are being waged in Australia. Last year San Francisco proposed a ban on circumcision.

Circumcision draws attention to the global conflict between ancient regard for the supernatural (metaphysical) and the modern materialist worldview.

The following is a report from BioEdge.

A row over circumcision in Germany has escalated after a formal complaint was lodged against a rabbi in the city of Hof. According to a doctor from the city of Giessen, "Religious freedom cannot be used as an excuse for carrying out violence against an under-age child". The dispute was ignited by a June 26 ruling by a Cologne court that circumcision of a child constituted "illegal bodily harm," even with parental consent.

Ever since the German government has been searching for a compromise which will satisfy the Jewish community and international critics, while honouring the court decision. The President of the Conference of European Rabbis, Pinchas Goldschmidt, has described the decision as "one of the gravest attacks on Jewish life in the post-Holocaust world".

Germany's national Ethics Council (Ethikrat) has recommended authorising circumcision if safeguards are in place. "There must be a green light for circumcision but under the conditions of a full explanation to the parents, the agreement of both parents, the treatment of pain and the professional execution of the circumcision," chairwoman Christiane Woopen said.

But the recommendation was made after a robust debate. A legal scholar, Reinhard Merkel, said that it was "bizarre" that religious communities could be allowed to define when and how a human body could be injured. If a child's right to bodily integrity had to be weighed against religious requirements, this was a "legal policy crisis". However, he squared the circle by invoking an "indebtedness" to Jews which called for a "special law". Constitutional law expert Wolfram Höfling, on the other hand, argued that parental rights were paramount. If they believed that the ritual was in the best interests of the child then this should be respected, especially since millions of circumcisions have occurred without complications.

The row has spread to Scandinavia as well. In neighbouring Denmark an article in the Politiken newspaper described circumcision as a ritual involving the torture of a baby. The Danish Parliament is gearing up for a debate on the issue. Since report by the Children's Ombudsman in 2003 described circumcision as a violation of children's rights, a ban has a lot of support. Finn Schwarz, president of the Jewish Congregation of Copenhagen, says that if circumcision is banned, Jews will have no choice but to pack their bags and leave.

For many Jews, this is a transcendental issue, despite the small but real possibility of harming a child. The deputy prime minister of Israel, Eli Yishai, wrote a letter to German Premier Angela Merkel in which he said: "Circumcision is one of the most important commandments for the Jewish people, and the first given to one of the fathers of our nation, Abraham, as a sign of his eternal treaty [with God]. Even in times of slavery and exile, Jews made sure to fulfill this commandment, and did so happily." German Jews should not have to choose between Judaism and their citizenship.

Related reading:  The Origins of Circumcision; Circumcision Among Abraham's People; Circumcised Phallus an Egyptian Hieroglyph; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; Why Zipporah Used a Flint Knife; Female Circumcision or Genital Mutilation?

Why Zipporah Used a Flint Knife

Badarian flint knife
BC 3500

Alice C. Linsley

A reader has asked, "Why did Zipporah use a flint knife to circumcise her son when she could have used metal? Didn't she live during the Bronze Age?"

It is true that Zipporah lived in the late Bronze Age (BC 1550-1150). She was the daughter of the priest of Midian. His name was Jethro and he was a descendant of Abraham, the Hebrew, by Abraham's cousin wife, Keturah (Gen. 25).

The Hebrew people were careful to preserve the ritual practices of their Horite Hebrew ancestors (their Horim). It was the tradition to use flint knives for circumcision. The ruler of Og (Numbers 21) slept in an iron bed. An iron bed was an innovation, but the Horim didn't encourage innovation when it came to sacred rituals such as animal sacrifice, the coronation of rulers, and circumcision.

It is likely that the knives were made of flint with a high sodium content. This would inhibit infection. The knife shown here was produced by a process called "knapping." Some of the oldest and largest collections of knapped stone tools has been found at Kathu in South Africa.


For further information, read Zipporah's Flint Knife; Circumcision Among Abraham's People; The Origins of Circumcision, Circumcision and Binary Distinctions

The Origin of Circumcision

Alice C. Linsley

The Upper Nile appears to be the point of origin of the features of religion that are associated with Moses and his people. This includes animal sacrifice, the burning of incense, circumcision, ruler-priests, the Holy Name YHWH or Yahu, and the solar imagery of the ancient Horite Hebrew.

Circumcision originated among the ancient Nilo-Saharans before 3200 BC. It is likely that both males and females of the ruling class were circumcised. It is not known whether the common people were circumcised, probably not. This appears to have been a practice of the ruler-priest caste called "Horim" or Horites, after 580 BC known as Jews, though some Arabs were also in this caste.

3200 BC flint knife
from al-Badari

Flint or obsidian knives were used to perform the circumcisions. These often had edges sharper than modern surgical steel. Flint workshops have been found throughout the Negev, suggesting that even after the production of iron tools, the flint knife was preferred for circumcision, possibly because infection was less of a risk given the high saline composition of the flint.

The largest flint knives, dating to about 3200 B.C., were found at Nekhen, a center for the worship of Horus, who was called the "seed of God." Votive offerings at the temple of Horus were gigantic, up to ten times larger than the normal mace heads and stone bowls found elsewhere. These objects are found only at Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), suggesting that the 4000 B.C. temple there was extremely prestigious.

Today circumcision of boys is widely practiced among Jews, and circumcision of boys and girls is practiced among many Nilotic peoples such as the Samburu. The circumcision of Samburu boys is a rite of initiation to moran (warrior) status.  This is reflected in Joshua 5:4 which says, "And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of the people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war."

For Samburu girls circumcision of the clitoris signifies availablity for marriage and childbearing. Until she is circumcised, she is regarded as unfit for marriage.  Here are some first-hand conversations that express the respect felt for circumcised wives in the part of Africa where this practice originated.

A Somali man said: “You had better treat your mother with more respect, boy! A circumcised woman! A woman whose womb has brought forth three sons into this family! That is a circumcised woman, my son, not some loose woman who can be treated as of little account. Without her, this family would have no one to pass along the name! Now you listen: you start giving her gifts, you cast your eyes down when she enters a room; do you hear me?”

A Sudanese man said: “Is this how you speak to your sister-in-law? Have you forgotten that she is circumcised? If this is how you treat circumcised women, then does your own family mean nothing to you?"


Biblical References to Circumcision

There are three references to circumcision in the Bible that tell us about this practice.  The first concerns Moses' cousin wife, Zipporah. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched his legs with it. She said, "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!"  And when He let him alone, she added, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision."  Exodus 4:25, 26

This is believed to be the oldest biblical reference to circumcision and it pertains to the ruler's cousin wife. Moses' first wife was his half-sister, a Kushite (Numbers 12). Her designation as Kushite means that Moses' father married a Kushite. Likely this refers to Ishar, the mother of Korah and Moses' half-sister wife.  She was a descendant of Seir the Horite (Gen. 36).  So this oldest reference to circumcision connects it to the Horim or Horite Hebrew.

The next reference concerns God's command to Abraham to circumcise all the males of his household (Gen. 17:10-14). This account shows evidence of the covenant theology of a later period. Probably the source is the same as the book of Deuteronomy. It is almost certain that Abraham was circumcised before the passage in Genesis 17 because in Genesis 12 we are told about his meeting with the Pharaoh, an understated account of a remarkable moment in the patriarch's life. Likely he met with Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II, a powerful ruler of the 11th Dynasty who reigned for 51 years. Only circumcised males were permitted to appear before Pharaoh. Therefore, it is highly probable that Abraham was already circumcised at the time of his audience with Mentuhotep.

Finally, there is the somewhat ambiguous account of the renewal of the covenant whereby Joshua was to circumcise the "people" a second time.  At that time the Lord said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the people of Israel again the second time." So Joshua made flint knives, and circumcised the people of Israel at Gibeath ha-aralot. (Joshua 5:2,3)

Some translations read "children" instead of people and some read "Israelites," allowing for the possibility that females were circumcised also.  It is argued that "ha-aralot" can refer only to male circumcision since it means "hill of foreskins," but in Pharaonic circumcision, the clitorus was regarded as foreskin.

The Bible offers this explanation for the second circumcision: Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people that were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. (Joshua 5:5) 

Today what is called "female genital mutilation" should properly be called "Pharaonic circumcision" and it shares the same point of origin as male circumcision. Therefore it is irrational to argue against the one and not the other.

In November 1982, Canadian Anthropologist Janice Boddy's fascinating essay on Pharaonic circumcision appeared in American Ethnologist. The essay was titled "Womb as Oasis: The symbolic context of Pharaonic circumcision in rural Northern Sudan" (Vol.9, pgs. 682-698). Here Boddy sets forth her research on Pharaonic circumcision among the Sudanese. Among the Sudanese this practice of female circumcision parallels the circumcision of males and reflects the binary distinction between females and males, one of the more important binary distinctions found throughout the Bible.

Boddy explains: "In this society women do not achieve social recognition by becoming like men, but by becoming less like men physically, sexually, and socially. Male as well as female circumcision rites stress this complementarity. Through their own operation, performed at roughly the same age as when girls are circumcised (between five and ten years), boys become less like women: while the female reproductive organs are covered, that of the male is uncovered. Circumcision, then, accomplishes the social definition of a child's sex by removing physical characteristics deemed appropriate to his or her opposite: the clitoris and other external genitalia, in the case of females, the prepuce of the penis, in the case of males." (Boddy, pg. 688)

The Egyptian word for phallus was khenen (hnn) related to khenty, meaning before or in front of. The relief above shows circumcision as depicted in the tomb of Ankhmahor in Saqqara, Sixth Dynasty. This was a practice of a royal priest caste. This depiction appears with images pertaining to ritual purification of priests.


Herodotus (BC 485-425) wrote concerning the origins of circumcision:

"Egyptians and the Ethiopians have practiced circumcision since time immemorial. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine themselves admit that they learnt the practice from the Egyptians, while the Syrians in the river Thermodon and the Pathenoise region and their neighbours the Macrons say they learnt it recently from the Colchidians. These are the only races which practice circumcision, and it is observable that they do it in the same way with the Egyptians."


Related reading:  Pharaonic Circumcision in the Sudan: A Case Study; Sudan is Archaeologically Rich; Circumcision Among Abraham's People; Circumcised Phallus an Egyptian Hieroglyph; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; The Nubian Context of YHWH

Moses's Wives and Brothers

Analysis of the marriage and ascendancy structure of Moses' family reveals the distinctive pattern of the Horite Hebrew ruler-priest caste.

Moses had two wives. His Kushite wife was his half-sister, as was Sarah to Abraham. The pattern of Moses's family is identical to that of the rulers listed in Genesis 4, 5 and 11 and to that of Abraham's father Terah and Samuel's father Elkanah. One of the sons of Korah the Younger (Ishar's son) was named Elkanah. This is the name of the prophet Samuel's father who also had two wives. Samuel's family was also Horite.

It appears that all of these great men of Genesis and Exodus were Horite Hebrew rulers. Many are designated as divinely appointed by the initial letter Y in their Hebrew names, a solar cradle.

Moses’ father was Amram. He had two wives, following the pattern of his forefathers who were Horite Hebrew priest-scribes. Exodus 6:20 indicates that Jochebed was probably Amram's half-sister, and if so, she was Amram's principal wife. Her name is also spelled Jacquebeth and refers to the African homeland, probably ancient Kush. The Horite Hebrew were originally from the Nile Valley.

Amram's relationship to Jochebed parallels Abraham's relationship to Sarah. Both were first wives, married at a young age. The ruler's second wife was usually a patrilineal cousin or niece. Such was the case with Amram's second wife Ishar and Abraham's second wife, Keturah. This pattern is characteristic of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of Horite ruler-priests.

Ishar is a woman's name, derived from the Hebrew isha, meaning "woman." Women are sometimes listed as "sons" in Genesis and Exodus if the ruling line is traced through them, which is the case with Ishar (Ex 6), and Anah and Oholibamah (Gen. 36). The last two women are Horites of Edom, of the house of "Seir the Horite."

Likewise, Ishar was a descendant of Seir the Horite. She was either Amram's half-sister or his patrilineal cousin (as was Keturah to Abraham). Ishar was the mother of Korah the Younger (Num. 26:59), who she named after her father Korah the Elder. Korah the Younger is the one who opposed Moses' authority.

Exodus 6:17 lists Ishar and Amram in the same generation. These were Kohath's children by two different wives. A characteristic of the marriage and ascendancy pattern of the Horite ruler-priests is that they had two wives.

 
According to Numbers 26, Korah's claim to be the ruler-priest was supported by the Hanochites (descendants of Ha'nock, the first born son of Jacob's firstborn son Reuben). As the first born son of the cousin/niece bride Korah was to rule the territory of his maternal grandfather.

Korah's descendants are praised in 1 Chronicles 26. Here the Chronicler classifies them with the gatekeepers of Obed-Edom. Obed was the name of David's grandfather and Edom is the traditional homeland of the Horites. Petra, the capital of Edom, reflects Horite architecture.

The Pattern of Two Wives

Following the custom of his Hebrew forefathers, Moses had two wives. The first wife would have been a half-sister, the wife of Moses' youth. It is likely that he married her while in Egypt. She is said to be Kushite (Numbers 12) and for some reason Moses' siblings didn't approve of the marriage, although the marriage was probably arranged by Amram. 

Zipporah, Moses' cousin bride, is mentioned in Exodus 2:15-16 and in Exodus 18:1-6. Moses met her while she at a well where she was drawing water for her father’s flocks. Priests were also shepherds who maintained shrines near wells, springs or other bodies of water. Zipporah was the daughter of "the priest of Midian". In other words, her father was a descendant of Abraham by Keturah who bore him a son named Midian.

Moses’ Kushite wife is not named, but she was likely a woman of high rank and his half-sister. Moses's first wife would have been a half-sister (as was Sarah to Abraham), if Moses married according to the pattern of his Hebrew ruler-priest ancestors. HIs second wife would have been a patrilineal cousin (as was Keturah to Abraham). Moses likely had children in Egypt by his first wife before he fled to Jethro in Midian and married Zipporah.

The criticism of Moses' marriage to the first wife is related in this passage: “When they were in Hazeroth, Miriam and Aaron spoke against Moses because of the Cushite woman he had married: “He married a Kushite woman!” They said, “Has the Lord God spoken only through Moses? Has God not spoken through us as well?” (Numbers 11:35-12:2)

We don’t know why Aaron and Miriam criticized Moses for marrying the Kushite woman, but it is was not racially motivated since all these people were descendants of Noah by Kush (Ham's son) and Aram (Shem's son) since the two lines intermarried. Likely, Moses’ siblings were angry that he asserted authority over Aaron, his older brother, by marrying Korah's sister and then marrying a Midiante wife. His marriage to Korah's sister strengthened the alliance with the Kushites and his marriage to Zipporah strengthened the alliance to the Midianites. This led to the formation of a powerful alliance of peoples related by blood and marriage and strengthened Moses' position as ruler.

In order for Moses to rule, he had to have two wives. This pattern of rulers having two wives is first found in Genesis 4 which mentions Lamech and his two wives. It continues through the generations with Nahor, Terah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and as we have seen with Moses. [3] This also explains Abraham's urgency to fetch a cousin wife for Isaac so that Isaac could rule after Abraham's death. This suggests that we should look in the biblical text for clues as to who Isaac's first wife would have been. We know that she would have been a half-sister, since Rebecca was the cousin bride. Likely, Isaac's first wife was a daughter of Yishbak, another son of Abraham by Keturah.

Here we find the 3-son pattern with Yishmael, Yishbak and Yitzak.  It is like other 3-son tribal units that we have seen: Uz, Buz and Huz; Og, Magog and Gog. The pattern corresponds to the 3-son Kushite rulers Sheba-qo, Shebit-qo and Ta-Har-qo. Here we find the Meroitic honorary suffix qo. The first two names are linguistically equivalent to the biblical name Sheba, an ancestor of Abraham and his cousin-wife Keturah. Ta-Har-qo is a Horus name.


The Youngest Son Rules

Isaac was the younger of the 3 first-born sons and he was chosen to rule over Abraham's territory after Abraham's death. The theme of the youngest son as ruler runs throughout the Bible. However, he never rules without objection from his siblings who express jealousy such as Miriam and Aaron. Cain’s jealousy of his younger brother overturns his natural affection to the point that he commits fratercide. Likewise, the jealousy of Joseph’s older brothers overturned their affection and they sold him into slavery. Neither was David, the youngest of the 12 sons of Jesse, treated well by his brothers. They left him to tend the flock while they returned home to feast with the Prophet Samuel. We have an allusion to this in the opening of the Song of Songs, which says that beloved’s skin is as dark "as the tents of Kedar" because he was made to work in the sun by his older brothers.

Zipporah and the Flint Knife

There is a strange story about Zipporah circumcising Moses’ son using a flint knife. As far as we know women didn’t circumcise males. This would have been a violation of the gender role distinctions practiced among Abraham's people. Women circumcised females and men circumcised males. This has led some to wonder if perhaps Moses was uncircumcised and Zipporah circumcised him in an urgent situation, but the Egyptians practiced male circumcision and Moses would not have been permitted to appear before Pharaoh had he been uncircumcised.[4]  Besides, the text specifically says that Zipporah circumcised her son.

“On the way, at a place where they spent the night, the LORD met him and tried to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it, and said, “Truly you are a bridegroom of blood to me!” So he let him alone. It was then she said, “A bridegroom of blood by circumcision.” (Exodus 4:24-26)

Here we see Zipporah acting as a priest in applying the blood of the son to save her (uncircumcised = ritually impure) husband. This is the only written record of a woman involved with male circumcision and Zipporah clearly was not happy to be put in that situation. In her cultural context performing an act reserved for men would have diminished her femininity. She sacrificed an aspect of her womanhood in performing this act to save her husband.


Related reading: Were the Shasu Related to Moses?; The Nubian Context of YHWH; The Horite Ancestry of Jesus Christ; The Ethnicity of Abraham and David; The Genesis Record of Horite Rule; Who Were the Horites?; Lamech Segment Analysis; Abraham's Nephews and Nieces; The Eyes of Horus Speak of Jesus; Abraham and Job: Horite Rulers; God's African Ancestors; Moses and Abraham: Different Origins of Israel?


NOTES

1. The name “Korah” means shaved head. This was the custom for priests in Egypt preparing for their terms of service in the temples. See Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 2007, p.37.

2. Many of the rulers in Genesis and Exodus met their wives at wells. That is because they married the daughters of priests who tended shrines where there were either natural springs or wells.

3. All of these royal priests married two wives and maintained them in separate households on a north-south axis. These settlements marked the north and southern boundaries of the ruler’s territory along the water system he controlled. The pattern of ruler-priests having 2 wives continues throughout the Bible. Elkanah is a later example, with his two wives Hannah and Penninah.

4. Circumcision was a sign of purity among the Egyptians and none who were uncircumcised were permitted to appear before Pharaoh. Circumcision applied to females also. Read about Pharaonic circumcision here.

Zipporah's Flint Knife

Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched his legs with it. She said, "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!"  And when He let him alone, she added, "A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision."  Exodus 4:25, 26 (The Jewish Study Bible)

flint knife with ivory handle
(Badarian 3200 B.C.)

Alice C. Linsley


Moses had two wives, following the pattern of his ruler-priest father and forefathers. One wife was Kushite (Numbers 12). This wife would have been his half-sister. Her designation as "Kushite" means that Moses' father married a Kushite. The mother of Korah and Moses' half-sister wife was Ishar, a descendant of Seir.  Moses' mother was Jochebed. Korah's mother was Ishar, but the two men had the same father, Amram. Amram had two wives according to the pattern of ruler-priests among his people.

Moses' cousin wife was Zipporah, the daughter of a kinsman Jethro (Yetro). He was a Horite Hebrew priest living in Midian. Habiru were widely dispersed in the ancient world.

Moses met Zipporah at a well where she was drawing water for her father’s livestock. Priests maintained shrines near wells, natural springs or along the banks of rivers. As a priest's daughter, Zipporah would have been familiar with animal sacrifices and with circumcision, but she would not have performed these nor would she have been present when they were performed. This is why her circumcision of her first-born son is remarkable. It also suggests that Moses was not qualified to circumcise his son. Apparently, Amram's first-born sons were Korah and Aaron, both priests. They would have been qualified to do it, but were not present when the necessity arose.

Flint knives and circumcision are also mentioned in Joshua. At that time the Lord said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the people of Israel again the second time." So Joshua made flint knives, and circumcised the people of Israel at Gibeath ha-aralot. And this is the reason why Joshua circumcised them: all the males of lthe people who came out of Egypt, all the men of war, had died on the way in the wilderness after thy had come out of Egypt. Though all the people who came out had been circumcised, yet all the people that were born on the way in the wilderness after they had come out of Egypt had not been circumcised. Joshua 5:2-5

4000 B.C. Badarian flint

The necessity to circumcise those born in the wilderness required the production of flint knives. Flint was the first mineral used to make tools.  Flint or obsidian have edges sharper than modern surgical steel. Flint workshops have been found throughout the Negev, suggesting that even after the production of iron tools, the flint knife was preferred for circumcision in honor of an ancient tradition among Abraham's Horite people.

The largest flint knives, dating to about 3000 B.C., were produced in Egypt and were found at Hierakonpolis (Nekhen) was a Horite shrine city dedicated to Horus who was called the "son" of the Creator Ra. Votive offerings at the temple of Horus were gigantic, up to ten times larger than the normal mace heads and stone bowls found elsewhere. These objects are found only at Nekhen, suggesting that the 4000 B.C. temple there was extremely prestigious.

Nekhen is the site of the most ancient temple and city in Egypt. By 3500 BC, it was a city of many neighborhoods, industries and private homes, extending over 3 miles along the Nile. Masks, pottery, graves and tombs with reliefs and paintings have been found there. Horite priests placed invocations to Horus at the summit as the sun came over the eastern horizon. At Nekhen archaeologists have discovered a 3000 B.C. life-sized statue of a Horite priest and a 2300 B.C. golden hawk head of Horus.

Anthropologically, Nekhen is a significant site because here we find all the evidence of an advanced civilization in the Nile Valley before the emergence of Egypt. These features include city building, written communication, hierarchical social structure, ritual burial, ship building, river trade, and complex religious expressions. Nekhen was an important city of James Henry Breasted's "Fertile Crescent."

Related reading: Why Zipporah Used a Flint Knife; Why Nekhen is Anthropologically Significant; The Urheimat of the Canaanite Y

Circumcision and Binary Distinctions

Alice C. Linsley


How fair and how pleasant art thou, O love, for delights!
This thy stature is like to a palm tree, and thy breasts to clusters of grapes.
I said, I will go up to the palm tree, I will take hold of the boughs thereof...
--Song of Solomon, Chapter 7:6-8


In November 1982, Anthropologist Janice Boddy's fascinating essay on Pharaonic circumcision appeared in American Ethnologist. The essay was titled "Womb as Oasis: The symbolic context of Pharaonic circumcision in rural Northern Sudan" (Vol.9, pgs. 682-698). Here Boddy sets forth her research on Pharaonic circumcision among the Sudanese.  Circumcision appears to have originated among the ancient Kushites. Sudan was part of ancient Kush and Abraham's ancestors came from this part of Africa.

In Pharaonic circumcision, the clitoris and labia minora are removed. Then the labia majora is sewn closed, leaving a small opening at the vulva for the release of urine and menstrual blood. Among the Sudanese this practice of female circumcision parallels the circumcision of males and emphasizes the binary distinction between females and males.

Boddy explains: "In this society women do not achieve social recognition by becoming like men, but by becoming less like men physically, sexually, and socially. Male as well as female circumcision rites stress this complementarity. Through their own operation, performed at roughly the same age as when girls are circumcised (between five and ten years), boys become less like women: while the female reproductive organs are covered, that of the male is uncovered. Circumcision, then, accomplishes the social definition of a child's sex by removing physical characteristics deemed appropriate to his or her opposite: the clitoris and other external genitalia, in the case of females, the prepuce of the penis, in the case of males" (Boddy, pg. 688).

The Afro-Asiatic worldview maintains binary opposites. The complementarity of the opposites is evident only when their distinctions are clear. So it is important that women become less like men and men less like women. The lingam (male organ) and yoni (female organ) of Hinduism represent the eastern expression of the Afro-Asiatic worldview. Both are displayed in Hinudism. However, in the western Afro-Asiatic tradition, phallic pillars such as the one shown at right are displayed, but the female organ is never shown. It covered or hidden. This fits the binary distinction between revealed and hidden found in Genesis. It also fits the Sudanese view of the complementarity of gender roles which assigns firm structure to males and softness and fluidity to females.

It is likely that among Abraham's ancestors (Horim) both males and females were circumcised among the ruling classes. That the female reproductive organ is not mentioned in the Bible is not surprising. The female organ was not represented among the ancient Horim. Neolithic fertility symbols are often associated with female imagery among the other peoples, but at Kfar HaHoresh, for example, only phallic figurines have been found.


Gender Roles as Complementary

The Sudanese who practice Pharaonic circumcision believe that the fetus is formed from the union of a man's seeds with his wife's blood. Sexual intercourse causes the woman's blood to thicken or coagulate and she ceases menstruation until after the baby's birth. In their thinking, the child receives its bones from its father and its flesh and blood from its mother. This reflects their observation of the roles that males and females play in society. As Carol Gilligan also observed in her book In a Different Voice, males insist on rules and structure. It is from them that a society receives its rigidity (bones). It is through women that it receives fluidity and integration (its blood and flesh) (Boddy, pg. 692).

As the Sudanese believe that life is in the blood, it is especially important for the women of their society to conduct themselves as women. Boddy explains, “In Sudan, as elsewhere in the Muslim world, a family's dignity and honor are vested in the conduct of its womenfolk" (Boddy, pg. 686). Femininity is stressed and Pharaonic circumcision is seen as an enhancement of the woman’s femininity, potential fertility and purity.

Likewise male circumcision was seen as an enhancement of maleness. The complement to the circumcised male could only be a circumcised female.

Even today African men boast of their sexual strength and are careful about not spilling their seed. As Laura Bohannan discovered when she attempted to tell the story of Hamlet to a group of West African men, the chief is to have more than one wife so that his seed will "build up his house". He is grateful to the wife who bears him many children.

This also explains why barrenness is such a pitiable condition among the women of Genesis. Those unable to bear children were perceived as less than fully female. The woman's lack of fruit implies a deficiency of femaleness. Sarah's lament over not being able to have children was met by the divine promise that she would bring forth a son in her old age. This promise came after years of sorrow and humiliation, and though Sarah finally bore a son, she would not have seen herself as Abraham's perfect complement - not when his other cousin wife, Keturah, bore him 6 sons.

We understand something of Rachel's grief in not being as fruitful as her sister. Though she was clearly loved by Jacob, this was not sufficient to console her. It was Leah, the one less loved of Jacob, who proved most fruitful and therefore a perfect complement to Jacob.


Fertility and the Date Palm

Among Abraham's people, the traditional cure for sterility was to place a date from the date palm (tamar) in the vagina of the barren women. The date nut (below) and coconut (shown right) resemble the vagina and the womb. The date palm was known from the first Pharaonic dynasties and among Abraham's people was a symbol of fertility.

The oasis or well is the natural habitat of date palms and also the place where unmarried men could met unmarried women. Abraham met Keturah at the Well of Sheba (Beersheba) and Moses met his future wife at a well or oasis frequented by Midianites.

Female circumcision is practiced in rural areas of Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Sudan, Somalia, Chad, Nigeria and Niger. According to a 2002 study done in Nigeria, female circumcision does not reduce sexual activity and circumcised females experience sexual arousal and orgasm as frequently as uncircumcised. However, circumcised females are more likely to find husbands of standing. Uncircumcised females are regarded as loose women, just as the Jews regarded the uncircumcised as unclean.

There were some first-hand conversations provided for anthropology students that express the respect and gratitude felt toward circumcised mothers in Africa. (These have been removed due to the irate and irrational rhetoric that makes anthropological objectivity impossible in a public forum.)

I preserved this statement by a Somali man.

“You had better treat your mother with more respect, boy! A circumcised woman! A woman whose womb has brought forth three sons into this family! That is a circumcised woman, my son, not some loose woman who can be treated as of little account. Without her, this family would have no one to pass along the name! Now you listen: you start giving her gifts, you cast your eyes down when she enters a room; do you hear me?”

A Sudanese man said: “Is this how you speak to your sister-in-law? Have you forgotten that she is circumcised? If this is how you treat circumcised women, then does your own family mean nothing to you?"

Feminist activists working in Africa have made it nearly impossible for the religious conviction of these women to be satisfied. Many have had to go to other countries for the procedure. A health adviser to the vice-president of Sierra Leone, Fuambai S. Ahmadu, speaking to an anthropology conference in San Francisco in 2016 said:

"How can Western public health officials, global health institutions and feminist organizations maintain a straight face in condemning African female genital surgeries as FGM and yet turn a blind eye, even issue guidelines for the performance of very similar and sometimes more invasive female genital surgeries on Western women under the guise of cosmetic surgery?"

Related reading:  Circumcision Among Abraham's People; Binary Distinctions and Kenosis; Blood and Binary Distinctions; Binary Sets in the Ancient World

Circumcision Among Abraham's People

Alice C. Linsley

Circumcision of both males and females appears to originate among Nilotic tribes such as the Samburu. Among the Samburu circumcision of boys marks the initiation to moran (warrior) status and for girls it signifies becoming a woman. Once circumcised, a girl can be married and start her own family. However, not all Nilotic tribes practice circumcision. The principal initiation rite of the Luo involves removing six front teeth.

Since Abraham's ancestors came out of the Upper Nile region and the rulers of his people were kin to the rulers of Egypt, so we should not be surprised that circumcision was practiced among his Horite people.  Circumcision originated among the Kushites and Egyptians and the Horites (called "Horim" by the Jews) were ethnically Kushite.

Found at Tel Gezer (dated 12th to mid-11th century BC)
The Egyptian word for phallus was khenen (hnn) related to khenty, meaning before or in front of 

Genesis on Circumcision

The practice of circumcision is first mentioned in Genesis 17 in relationship to a covenant and an heir born to the elderly Abraham and Sarah. Here there is a natural relationship between the gift of fertility and the rite of circumcision. At this point in the narrative Abraham's only first-born son is Ishmael and it is he who is circumcised. Later we are told that Abraham had all the males of his household circumcised. This suggests that all Abraham's sons were to be regarded as priests, since it was generally only priests and rulers who were circumcised among the ancient Nilotic peoples. Likely, this is what stands behind the scripture (II Sam. 18:8) which calls David's sons ruler-priests.

Source critics claim that this section of Genesis is the work of the Priestly source. That would make sense seeing that circumcision was apparently performed among priests in Egypt and required of their slaves also. This suggests that circumcision has to do with ritual purity. Even today uncircumcised women are regarded as ritually unclean and unsuitable as wives among peoples throughout Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia and in Chad and parts of Nigeria.

Circumcision was also required of Egyptian rulers, as evidenced by circumcised royal mummies. This would indicate that Abraham and his sons were nobles, as is suggested also by their being listed among the Horite rulers in Genesis 4, 5 and 11:10-32.

In Genesis 17:11 we read that God told the elderly Abraham to "circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and that will be the sign of the covenant between myself and you." The divine instructions said to circumcise all males of his household on the 8th day after birth, but Ishmael was circumcised at age 13 (Gen. 17:25). The instructions also include the circumcision of slaves.

Genesis doesn't say much else about circumcision, although it is likely that Joseph, as a ruler in Egypt and husband to the daughter of the high priest of On, was circumcised. Nothing is said about female circumcision, but this doesn't mean that it wasn't practiced.

It is clear that Abraham's people practiced circumcision, but it is not likely that circumcision originated with Abraham. In fact, there is a suggestion of another origin in Exodus.

Exodus on Circumcision

In Exodus 4, we find another reference to circumcision. This also is connected to the first-born son. The story of Zipporah circumcising her first-born son has as its backdrop these words to Pharaoh: "Thus says the Lord: Israel is My first-born son. I have said to you, 'Let my son go, that he may worship Me,' yet you refuse to let him go. Now I will slay your first-born son." (Ex. 4:22-23)

The Exodus narrative speaks of a more primitive view of circumcision as a warding off of evil and death, just as the blood of the Passover lamb warded off death. Using a ritual flint knife like the high saline flint knives found at al-Badar, Zipporah cut off her son's foreskin and touched Moses' "legs" (genitals?) with it, saying "You are truly a bridegroom of blood to me!... A bridegroom of blood because of the circumcision."

Two ideas are consistent between the Genesis and Exodus narratives. First, circumcision is a blood rite connected to fertility and most especially with the hope of male heirs. Second, circumcision in itself did not guarantee protection from divine judgment.

Circumcision in Egypt

In ancient Egypt the circumcised penis was a fertility symbol. According to Egyptologist, E. A. Budge (The Gods of the Egyptians, Dover Publications), an early deity of Egypt was a god of circumcision who maintained the fertility of the Nile banks. Early Egyptian mythology also includes the belief that the universe was created by the blood that was shed when God circumcised himself. Here we find the recurring theme of "life in the blood."

Circumcision and Metal Workers

Whatever the origin of circumcision, it is most certain that it comes out of Africa. Even today in many parts of central Africa, when a boy is to be circumcised, the metal worker is called to perform the rite. This may explain why Zipporah circumcised Moses' first-born son. Zipporah was a Midianite and the Midianties were itinerant metal workers. Moses, having been raised in the palace in Egypt, was not qualified to circumcise his own son.

Does this suggest that Abraham, a descendent of the smithy Tubal-Cain, was also a metal worker? It is certainly a good possibility. Even today in central Africa metal working chiefs maintain 2 wives in separate households and intinerate between those homesteads. This is one of the fascinating discoveries of fellow Kentuckian, Michael Kirtley, who traveled through Niger hoping to meet a renowned metal worker named Ahoudan. Michael was told, "You'll be lucky to find him. He has two homes and two wives, in Abardokh and Tabelot." (The Inadan: Artisans of the Sahara, National Geographic, August 1979)

Abraham also had 2 wives and maintained them in separate households. He itinerated between those locations, which led to the idea of Abraham as a "wandering Aramean." If his route was between Hebron (Sarah) and Beersheba (Keturah), we can well understand one of his sources of wealth. His business brought him into contact with merchants who traveled the ancient caravan routes between Heliopolis, a shrine city on the Nile, to Mesopotamia. There is a reference in the Rig Veda (9.112.2) to itinerant metal-smiths who made arrows of metal to sell to wealthy customers, so the itinerant life of metal workers must have extended even to the Indus River Valley.

Abraham refers to himself as an resident alien in Genesis 23:4, but significantly, the people living in the land regarded him as a "great prince of God" living among them (verse 5).

Related reading:  Abraham's Kushite Ancestors; Circumcision and Binary Distinctions; The Importance of Binary Distinctions; The Christ in Nilotic Mythology; Zipporah's Flint Knife; Circumcised Phallus an Egyptian Hieroglyph