JJMJS 8 (2021)

Issue 8 2021

J M JJ S Journal of

the Jesus Movement in its Jewish Setting From the First to the Seventh Century

Table of contents Defying the Dialectic: A Different Paradigm for Understanding Circumcision in Ancient Jewish and Christian Texts M ADRYAEL TONG Just A Flesh Wound? Reassessing Paul’s Supposed Indifference Toward Circumcision and Foreskin in 1 Cor 7:19, Gal 5:6, and 6:15 RYAN D. COLLMAN Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin: The Significance of ἀκροβυστία for Paul’s Argument about Circumcision in Romans 4:9–12 KARIN B. NEUTEL Re-Framing Paul’s Opposition to Erga Nomou as “Rites of a Custom” for Proselyte Conversion Completed by the Synecdoche “Circumcision” MARK D. NANOS The Bestial Glans: Gentile Christ Followers and the Monstrous Nudity of Ancient Circumcision ISAAC T. SOON Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement: The Contributions of Simon Claude Mimouni, “Paul within Judaism” and “Lived Ancient Religion” THOMAS R. BLANTON IV

JOURNAL OF THE JESUS MOVEMENT IN ITS JEWISH SETTING: FROM THE FIRST TO THE SEVENTH CENTURY Editor-in-Chief Anders Runesson (University of Oslo, Norway) Editorial Committee Genevive Dibley (Rockford University, USA) Oded Irshai (The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) Alexei Sivertsev (DePaul University, USA) Managing Editor: Knut H. Høyland (managingeditor@jjmjs.org) Assistant Managing Editor: Wally V. Cirafesi (Moody Bible Institute, USA; assistantmanagingeditor@jjmjs.org) Editorial Secretary: Jens Lægreid (edsecr@jjmjs.org) Forum Director: Ralph J. Korner (Taylor Seminary, Canada) Linguistic editing and layout: E. Cole (steteditorial@gmail.com) Cover design: Mathias Eidberg (University of Oslo, Norway) The Journal of the Jesus Movement in Its Jewish Setting (JJMJS) is an independent open-access peer-reviewed journal. It is published online in co-operation with the Faculty of Theology, University of Oslo; The Centre for the StudyŠ of Christianity, Hebrew University; and the Department of Religious Studies, DePaul University.

All content in JJMJS is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License.

Papers for submission should be directed to the Editor-in-Chief, Anders Runesson, at anders.runesson@teologi.uio.no. For further information regarding the journal please visit our website or contact our managing editor, Knut H. Høyland at managingeditor@jjmjs.org.

ISSN 2374-7862 (Print) ISSN 2374-7870 (Online)

www.jjmjs.org

JOURNAL OF THE JESUS MOVEMENT IN ITS JEWISH SETTING: FROM THE FIRST TO THE SEVENTH CENTURY Issue 8 (2021)

www.jjmjs.org

Special Issue on Circumcision In the spring of 2019, an international group of scholars came together at the University of Oslo to discuss male circumcision, under the heading “Ancient Attitudes in Light of Contemporary Questions.” The current issue of JJMJS is the result of this productive meeting. Its contributions discuss circumcision across a range of sources, from the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint, and other early Jewish and early Christian writings, to Greco-Roman art and imagery. The writings of Paul are the central focus in most of the articles, which is perhaps unsurprising given the importance of circumcision as a topic in several of his letters.

The “contemporary questions” in the title of the meeting relate in part to discussions surrounding male circumcision today. While these debates often center on arguments related to bodily integrity, religious freedom, and the rights of parents and children, understandings of the past and the historiography of circumcision also play a role in them. Increasing our understanding of historical attitudes and practices related to circumcision, particularly for the ideologically significant time period that is the focus of this journal, is therefore of value for informed discussion.

The second aspect of the “contemporary questions” relates more directly to the focus of this journal, which makes it such a fitting platform for the work that resulted from the meeting. The shift in scholarship that has led to understanding the Jesus movement consistently in relation to other forms of early Judaism has significant implication for how attitudes towards circumcision are studied. Previously, scholars predominantly reconstructed a specifically “Christian” understanding of circumcision and identified it as one of the breaking points between “Judaism” and “Christianity.” When sources such as Paul’s letters are read as part of the spectrum of attitudes towards circumcision that we find in early Jewish sources, particularly with an awareness of possible distinctions between eighth-day and proselyte circumcision, a different picture emerges. M Adryael Tong’s article shows the tensions in scholarship between looking for uniformity while also acknowledging diversity on the ground. She argues instead for keeping the fundamental fluidity of circumcision discourse in the Hebrew Bible and later sources consistently in view. Ryan Collman focuses on Paul’s negations of circumcision and foreskin in 1 Corinthians and Galatians. He challenges the conventional interpretation that these verses indicate Paul’s indifference to circumcision and shows how circumcision and foreskin are rather categories that are useful as points of comparison. My own contribution

4 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

highlights the relevance of the term “foreskin” in Romans 4, which is often misunderstood as “uncircumcision,” rather than as a physical term that is a marker of religious and ethnic difference. In describing Abraham as being “in foreskin,” Paul therefore makes an entirely different argument about his faithfulness than Pauline scholarship overwhelmingly supposes. Mark Nanos argues that the phrase ἔργα νόμου in Paul denotes “rites of a custom,” specifically proselyte initiation. According to Nanos, the phrase does not indicate criticism of Torah, as has often been assumed, but is in fact based on Torah. Isaac Soon uses ancient visual culture to reconstruct possible attitudes towards circumcision among Paul’s gentile audiences, particularly in Galatians. This material suggests that circumcision was associated with sexual dysfunction and aesthetic deformity and that non-Jews would therefore have been highly unlikely to be willing to undergo circumcision. In the final contribution, Thomas R. Blanton IV discusses the French monograph on circumcision by Simon Claude Mimouni, which is often overlooked in English-language scholarship. He connects Mimouni’s work to the developments of “Paul within Judaism” and “Lived Ancient Religion” in recent scholarship. In doing so, he draws attention to the tension between “inherited” structures and the continual processing of diverse actors in relation to circumcision. By challenging existing scholarly views on circumcision and highlighting the fluid and constructed nature of circumcision discourse, this issue therefore hopes to make an important contribution to the re-evaluation of New Testament and other early Christian sources as part of early Jewish diversity, rather than as distinct from it.

Finally, I am grateful to all the participants in the Oslo meeting: Ward Blanton, Ryan Collman (with a special thanks for suggesting the title of my paper), Diana Edelman, Ada Engebrigtsen, Rebecca Harrocks, Sandra Jacobs, Marianne Bjelland Kartzow, Mark Nanos, Ellen Aasland Reinertsen, Anders Runesson, Nora Stene, Isaac Soon, Matthew Thiessen, M Adryael Tong, and Holger Zellentin, whose collegial input contributed to the content of this issue and to the editors of JJMJS for their support.

Karin Neutel Guest Editor

Defying the Dialectic: A Different Paradigm for Understanding Circumcision in Ancient Jewish and Christian Texts M Adryael Tong Interdenominational Theological Center | matong@itc.edu JJMJS No. 8 (2021): 5–29 Abstract By tracing the contours of circumcision rhetoric in the Hebrew Bible, I demonstrate that there is a consistent fluidity at the heart of circumcision discourse from its inception through the early development of Christianity and rabbinic Judaism. By means of a conceptual heuristic and literary analysis, I show that the Hebrew Bible theorizes circumcision in a variety of ways—as a covenantal requirement, a borderline between Israel and other peoples, a signifier of general righteousness, and/or any combination. This fluidity of circumcision discourse then extends into Second Temple literature. Thus, the diversity of circumcision ideologies we find in Second Temple texts is no innovation or devolution from a pristine Scriptural consensus, but rather, a reflection of the fundamentally ambiguous circumcision ideologies in the Hebrew Bible itself. Nevertheless, Second Temple texts present their particular (and differing) ideologies as faithful representations of a presumed singular Biblical circumcision ideology. I thus suggest that holding this fundamental fluidity of circumcision discourse in view may help us better understand Jewish and Christian disagreements over circumcision not so much as a cataclysmic break from biblical precedent, but rather as the result of irreducible ambiguities inherent to circumcision from the very beginning.

Keywords Circumcision, Hebrew Bible, Parting of the Ways 1. Introduction There is a curious tendency within much of “circumcision studies” to search for some kind of unitary (or “common-denominator”) Jewish (or Christian) ideology

6 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

of the practice, while simultaneously acknowledging a diversity of opinions among the members or sects of any particular community. Nina Livesey makes such a critique of scholars of circumcision in antiquity: The Jewish practice of circumcision, as treated in texts from the second century BCE to the first century CE, the time period to which interpreters turn for the definition of this rite, has no monovalent meaning … Within all these writings, the meaning of circumcision is in every instance contingent upon context …

By contrast, the situation within the scholarship on circumcision belies this fundamental diversity in the meaning of circumcision. While several general reference works acknowledge the differences in understandings of circumcision, rarely is that same degree of variety reflected in the analytical discussions (i.e., lectures, commentaries, and specialized studies) on circumcision in the ancient world. 1 Consider, as representative of the tendency which Livesey indicates, E. P. Sanders: As on every point, there was some variety of interpretation and practice [regarding circumcision]. Mendelson has pointed out that Philo saw circumcision not as a rite ‘whereby a male child gains entry into the congregation of Israel’, but rather a sign of ‘the spirit of compliance or non-compliance in the parents’. The allegorizers to whom Philo refers, but whose position he does not fully describe, may have wished to surrender circumcision as a sign of being Jewish. Further, it is not certain that all Jewish communities required circumcision of adult males who converted to Judaism. Despite some diversity in interpretation and a few exceptions to the rule, circumcision of males was commonly regarded as an essential part of Jewish practice. 2

* Many thanks to Evan Hershman for his invaluable help editing this article.

1 Nina Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 1–2.

2

E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief, 63 BCE-66 CE (London: SCM Press, 1992), 213–214, emphasis mine. In addition to the examples Livesey collates, this tendency implicitly underpins, e.g., Daniel Boyarin’s A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). By labelling Paul (and Philo) as “radical,” Boyarin implies that there is a “normative” ideology against which Paul is “radical.”

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 7

Here, although Sanders recognizes a lack of consensus among ancient Jews concerning circumcision ideology and practice, he nevertheless reveals a desire for some kind of standard position, even if vague or ambiguous.

Similarly, Andreas Blaschke argues in his book Beschneidung that Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Christian discourse on circumcision follows a “rough schematization” based upon a “three-step dialectic of thesis (Israel or Jews), antithesis (pagan), and synthesis (Christians).” 3 However, he then admits that the individual positions in themselves are not completely uniform: There were allegorizing Jews and Jewish apostates who rejected circumcision; there were Gentiles who, as Godfearers, were sympathetic to the idea of circumcision but did not dare to do so because of their social position, and there were (especially Jewish-)Christians who still considered the execution of (physical) circumcision necessary. 4 But if none of the three categories—Jewish, Greco-Roman, and Christian—are unitary, why argue that circumcision discourse as a whole be schematized? Why does it make more sense to propose a kind of Hegelian dialectic than to say that all circumcision discourse is fundamentally fluid? Why is a model we know to be inexact preferable to one characterized by ambiguity?

This assumption of fluidity—even inconsistency—within the biblical text is nothing new. As John Barton writes: From ancient times Bible readers have been aware of apparent inconsistencies in the biblical text. Jewish scholars discussed contradictions between the various bodies of legislation in the Pentateuch, and between the Pentateuch and Ezekiel; everyone knew that Kings and Chronicles tell differing stories; and Christians were confronted by their opponents with the accusation that the Gospels were mutually inconsistent. The discovery of such inconsistencies is not the work of modern biblical critics, but of many ordinary readers of the Bible from time immemorial. 5

3

Andreas Blaschke, Beschneidung: Zeugnisse der Bibel und verwandter Texte (Tübingen: Franke Verlag, 1998), 491. My translation.

4 Blaschke, Beschneidung, 491. My translation.

5 John Barton, The Nature of Biblical Criticism (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007), 13.

8 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

Why then, in the case of circumcision, does a thoroughgoing desire to search for some kind of “majority opinion” regarding the practice of circumcision persist?

Why assume consistency with regard to praxis and not with regard to text?

Unlike Livesey, I do not believe this desire for coherence stems from a lack of attentiveness to the diversity of meaning among Jewish and Christian texts on circumcision, leading, as she claims, to “understandings of this rite and of firstcentury Jews and Judaism that are both limited and false.” 6 Rather, I wonder to what extent the desire to discover a normative Jewish ideology of circumcision might itself be a result of the discursive endpoint of the circumcision controversy in late antiquity: the establishment of two separate religions, Judaism and Christianity. Dominant historical narratives within both traditions present the separation of Judaism and Christianity as, in part, due to a fundamental disagreement regarding the practice of circumcision. Since the efficacy of such origin mythologies relies on an assumption within both religious traditions that circumcision ideologies within each of the communities remain stable, perhaps the desire to discover a consistent ideology of circumcision among ancient Jews and Christians derives from an anachronistic retrojection based upon our knowledge of subsequent history. Could it be, then, that from the point of view of first-century Jews, circumcision was actually an open and contentious question— and only appears to have some kind of coherency in hindsight?

This article traces the contours of circumcision rhetoric in the Hebrew Bible and argues that there is a fluidity at the heart of circumcision discourse from the very beginning. By demonstrating the variety of ways the Hebrew Bible theorizes circumcision—as a covenantal requirement, a borderline between Israel and other peoples, a signifier of general righteousness, and/or any combination thereof—I suggest that the multivalent meanings of circumcision in subsequent Jewish and Christian discourse are not an aberration or devolution from a unified theology of circumcision, but are rather a natural result of an inconsistent biblical legacy. In other words, given the variety of ways the biblical text portrays circumcision, it is perhaps more surprising that there seems to be any form of consistency among Jewish (and/or Christian) opinions towards the practice.

My analysis focuses on how the rhetoric of the Hebrew Bible gestures toward particular circumcision ideologies. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the circumcision ideologies expressed, for example, in Gen 17; Isa 52:1, or Jer 6:10, reflect “actual” historical Israelites’ attitudes towards their “actual” circumcisions (or about the “actual” foreskins of their non-Israelite neighbors or enemies).

Rather, I begin from the assumption that the Hebrew Bible is a literary text that— 6

Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 4.

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 9

while it may bear some relation to historical realia—cannot provide us any direct access to Israelite history.

Thus, I survey instances of circumcision language in the Hebrew Bible and then group these examples of circumcision discourse into a heuristic taxonomy of three main categories: “Covenantal/Ritual,” “Identity,” and “Metaphorical.” I determine an instance of circumcision discourse as “Covenantal/Ritual” when the primary meaning of the word “circumcision” or “foreskin” in the passage refers to the covenantal ritual of circumcision described in Gen 17. An “Identity” example deploys “circumcision” or “foreskin” rhetorically to emphasize difference between the Israelites as a people among peoples. A usage of “circumcision” or “foreskin” is “Metaphorical” when it signifies something other than (or in addition to) the covenantal ritual practice of circumcision, but not as a specific means of distinguishing Israelites from other peoples.

None of these categories are airtight. There are examples of circumcision language that do not easily fall into any of these categories, and certain citations will fall into multiple categories. 7 Still, classifying these verses according to this heuristic taxonomy tracks the meanings of “circumcision” and “foreskin,” while at the same time clarifying how particular meanings are emphasized in some contexts and not others. As a result, my analysis sheds light on the diversity of circumcision ideologies within the Hebrew Bible, from circumcision as a ritualized action, to circumcision as a mark of ethnic identification and separation, to “circumcision” as a generalized metaphor indicating one’s privileged status vis à vis God. Ultimately, my aim is not to simply sort every usage of circumcision in the Hebrew Bible, but rather to sketch the parameters of a fundamentally fluid discourse of circumcision as it was received by later interpreters. 8

7

For example, Jer 11:16 where the LXX mistranslates ‫מוּלּ֣ה גְ ד ֗ ָֹל ֗ה‬ ָ ‫ ֲה‬in ‫ת ַאר ָק ָ ֥רא‬ ֹ ֔ ‫ַז֤ יִת ַ ֽר ֲﬠנָ ֙ן ֵיְפ֣ה ְפ ִרי־‬

‫יּוֹתיו‬ ֽ ָ ‫יה וְ ָר ֖ﬠוּ ָדּ ִל‬ ָ ‫מוּלּ֣ה גְ ד ֗ ָֹלה ִה ִ ֥צּית ֵא ֙שׁ ָﬠ ֔ ֶל‬ ָ ‫הו֖ה ְשׁ ֵ ֑מ� ְל ֣קוֹל ֲה‬ ָ ְ‫ י‬as φωνὴν περιτομῆς (ἐλαίαν ὡραίαν εὔσκιον τῷ εἴδει ἐκάλεσεν κύριος τὸ ὄνομά σου· εἰς φωνὴν περιτομῆς αὐτῆς ἀνήφθη πῦρ ἐπ’ αὐτήν, μεγάλη ἡ θλῖψις ἐπὶ σέ, ἠχρεώθησαν οἱ κλάδοι αὐτῆς). Although the LXX uses περιτομή in a non-literal manner, I

am excluding this citation from my taxonomy of the semantic range of circumcision discourse since it seems so clearly to be a translation error.

8 For this kind of work, see, Jason S. Derouchie, “Circumcision in the Hebrew Bible and Targums: Theology, Rhetoric, and the Handling of Metaphor,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 14.2 (2004): 175–203.

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2. Covenantal/Ritual The locus classicus of biblical circumcision discourse, Gen 17, sits firmly within the “Covenantal/Ritual” category. This passage establishes the requirement, procedure, and reason for practicing the physical ritual of circumcision among Abraham and his descendants as “the sign of the covenant between me and you” (Gen 17:11). 9 Phrases such as “Every male among you shall be circumcised” (17:10), 10 “you shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin” (17:11), 11 and “any male who does not circumcise the flesh of his foreskin, that one will be cut off from his people” (17:14) all refer to this ritual procedure. 12 I also place into this category passages that primarily communicate that Abraham’s circumcision at ninety-nine years old, Ishmael’s at thirteen, and Isaac’s at eight days old were all performed according to the ritual requirements set out in Gen 17. This includes Gen 17:24– 25, which reports that “Abraham was ninety-nine years old when he circumcised the flesh of his foreskin, and his son Ishmael was thirteen years old when he was circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin,” 13 and Gen 21:4, which recounts that “Abraham circumcised his son Isaac when he was eight days old just as God had commanded him.” Historical texts such as Josh 5, which recounts Joshua’s circumcision of all the Israelites before they cross the Jordan River, are also “Covenantal/Ritual,” since the biblical context suggests that Joshua circumcised the Israelites to conform their bodies to the ritual requirements of the Abrahamic covenant. 14 9

‫יכם‬ ֽ ֶ ֵ‫וּבינ‬ ֵ ‫( וּנְ ַמ ְל ֶ֕תּם ֵ ֖את ְבּ ַ ֣שׂר ָﬠ ְר ַל ְת ֶכ֑ם וְ ָהיָ ֙ה ְל ֣אוֹת ְבּ ִ ֔רית ֵבּ ִינ֖י‬MT). καὶ περιτμηθήσεσθε τὴν σάρκα τῆς

ἀκροβυστίας ὑμῶν, καὶ ἔσται ἐν σημείῳ διαθήκης ἀνὰ μέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ ὑμῶν (LXX).

10

‫ִה ֥מּוֹל ָל ֶכ֖ם ָכּל־זָ ָ ֽכר‬

11

‫וּנְ ַמ ְל ֶ֕תּם ֵ ֖את ְבּ ַ ֣שׂר ָﬠ ְר ַל ְת ֶכ֑ם‬

12

Similar verses: Gen 17:12, 13, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27; 21:4; and Lev 12:3. For more on authorship and structure of Gen 17, see Sean McEvenue, The Narrative Style of the Priestly Writer (Rome: Biblical Institute Press, 1971), 156–160; Benjamine Zeimer, AbramAbraham: Kompositionsgeschitche Untersuchungen zu Genesis 14, 15, 16 und 17 (BNZW 350; Berlin: De Gruyter, 2005); André Wénin, “Recherche sur la structure de Genèse 17,” Biblische Zeitschrift 50.2 (2006): 192–211; and “Circoncision et alliance dans la Genèse.

Essai d’intepretation,” in La Circoncision: Parcours Biblique, ed. Regis Burnet and Didier Luciani (Brussels: Lessius, 2013). For relationship between P and H, see, David Bernat, Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Priestly Tradition (SBL Ancient Israel and Its Literature 3; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2009); Mark Brett, “The Priestly Dissemination of Abraham,” The Hebrew Bible and Ancient Israel 3.1 (2014): 87–107.

13 14

‫ן־שׁ�֥ שׁ ֶﬠ ְשׂ ֵ ֖רה ָשׁ ָנ֑ה ְבּ ִ֨המּ ֹ֔לוֹ ֵ ֖את ְבּ ַ ֥שׂר ָﬠ ְר ָל ֽתוֹ‬ ְ ‫ן־תּ ְשׁ ִ ֥ﬠים וָ ֵ ֖ת ַשׁע ָשׁ ָנ֑ה ְבּ ִהמֹּל֖ וֹ ְבּ ַ ֥שׂר ָﬠ ְר ָל ֽתוֹ וְ יִ ְשׁ ָמ ֵﬠ֣אל ְבּנ֔ וֹ ֶבּ‬ ִ ‫וְ ַ֨א ְב ָר ָ֔הם ֶבּ‬

Later Christian exegetes, such as Justin Martyr, reinterpret this episode as signifying a “second circumcision,” or “circumcision of the heart,” rather than the literal removal of

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 11

3. Identity Paradigmatic examples of “Identity” usages of circumcision discourse include the various references to “uncircumcised Philistines” in Judg 14:3; 1 Sam 17:26 and 17:36, and 2 Sam 1:20, in which “uncircumcised” and “Philistines” are presented in parallel. For example, 2 Sam 1:20 states, ‫ן־תּ ְשׂ ַ֙מ ְחנָ ֙ה ְבּנ֣ וֹת ְפּלִ ְשׁ ִ֔תּים ֶ ֽפּן־‬ ִ ‫ל־תּ ַב ְשּׂ ֖רוּ ְבּחוּ ֣צֹת ַא ְשׁ ְקל֑ וֹן ֶפּ‬ ְ ‫ל־תּ ִגּ֣ידוּ ְב ֔ ַגת ַ ֽא‬ ַ ‫ַא‬ ‫ַתּ ֲﬠ�֖ זְ נָ ה ְבּנ֥ וֹת ָה ֲﬠ ֵר ִ ֽלים׃‬

Tell it not in Gath, Do not proclaim it in the streets of Ashkelon, Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, Lest the daughters of the uncircumcised exult.

Recent archeology has cast doubt on the biblical assertion that the Philistines did not practice circumcision. 15 Thus, it is possible that the rhetorical force behind the modifier “uncircumcised” in “uncircumcised Philistines” is meant more to underscore the difference between Israelites and Philistines— “circumcised Israelites” versus “uncircumcised Philistines”—than to provide information about actual genital morphology. Circumcision language in these

penile foreskin (e.g. Justin, Dial. 113.6–7; Origen, Hom. Jos. 5.5; Lactantius, Epit. 4.17).

Similarly, the Babylonian Talmud discusses Josh 5 as a “second circumcision,” and theorizes that Joshua’s second circumcision was meant to correct the Israelites’ heretofore halachically dubious circumcision by fully exposing the corona (b. Yebam 71b).

Nevertheless, the text of Josh 5 in context suggests that Joshua was required to circumcise the Israelites before they entered the land because they had not yet been (literally, actually, physically) circumcised. The covenantal logic here is clear. Since the Abrahamic covenant with God specifically entails the promise of land (and progeny), the Israelites needed to be properly circumcised in order to uphold their half of the bargain before assuming possession of the land.

15 See Itzhaq Shai, “Philistia and the Philistines in the Iron Age IIA,” Zeitschrift des Deutschen Palästina-Vereins 127.2 (2011): 119–134; Avraham Faust, Israel’s Ethnogenesis: Settlement, Interaction, Expansion and Resistance (London: Routledge, 2006); Faust, “The Bible, Archeology, and the Practice of Circumcision in Israelite and Philistine Societies,” Journal of Biblical Literature 134.2 (2015): 273–290; and Avraham Faust and Justin LevTov, “The Constitution of Philistine Identity: Ethnic Dynamics in Twelfth to Tenth Century Philistia,” Oxford Journal of Archeology 30.1 (2011): 13–31. I would like to thank the participants in the "Expert Meeting on Male Circumcision: Ancient Attitudes in Light of Contemporary Questions” at the University of Oslo (May 9–11, 2019) for bringing this scholarship to my attention.

12 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

passages is deployed in order to signify the difference between “them” and “us.” 16 Without the words’ literal/actual/physical meanings fully receding, the terms “circumcised” and “uncircumcised” nevertheless primarily signify ethnic difference. This is especially evident in passages such as Judg 15:18; 1 Sam 14:6; 1 Sam 31:4, and 1 Chron 10:4, where “uncircumcised” is a metonym for “Philistines.” For example, Judg 15:14–18 recounts Samson’s battle with the Philistines: ‫הוה וַ ִתּ ְה ֶ֨יינָ ה‬ ָ֗ ְ‫אתוֹ וַ ִתּ ְצ ֨ ַלח ָﬠ ֜ ָליו ֣ר ַוּ� י‬ ֑ ‫וּפ ִל ִשׁ ִ ֖תּים ֵה ִ ֣ריעוּ ִל ְק ָר‬ ְ ‫ד־ל ִחי‬ ֶ ֔ ‫הוּא־בא ַﬠ‬ ָ֣ ‫סוּריו ֵמ ַ ֥ﬠל יָ ָ ֽדיו׃‬ ֖ ָ ‫שׁר ָבּ ֲﬠ ֣רוּ ָב ֵ֔אשׁ וַ יִּ ַ ֥מּסּוּ ֱא‬ ֣ ֶ ‫ים ֲא‬ ֙ ‫רוֹעוֹתיו ַכּ ִפּ ְשׁ ִתּ‬ ָ֗ ְ‫שׁר ַﬠל־ז‬ ֣ ֶ ‫ָה ֲﬠב ִֹ֜תים ֲא‬ ‫אמר ִשׁ ְמ ֔שׁוֹן ִבּלְ ִ ֣חי‬ ֶ ֹ ‫�־בּהּ ֶ ֥א ֶלף ִ ֽאישׁ׃ וַ ֣יּ‬ ֖ ָ ַ‫דוֹ וַ יִּ ָקּ ֶ֔ח ָה וַ יּ‬ ֙ ָ‫י־ח ֖מוֹר ְט ִר ָיּ֑ה וַ יִּ ְשׁ ַל֤ח י‬ ֲ ‫וַ יִּ ְמ ָ ֥צא ְל ִ ֽח‬ �‫�תוֹ לְ ַד ֵ֔בּר וַ יַּ ְשׁ ֵ ֥ל‬ ֣ ‫֖יתי ֶ ֥א ֶלף ִ ֽאישׁ׃ ַוֽ יְ ִה֙י ְכּ ַכ‬ ִ ‫ַה ֲח ֔מוֹר ֲח ֖מוֹר ֲחמ ָֹר ָ ֑תיִ ם ִבּ ְל ִ ֣חי ַה ֲח ֔מוֹר ִה ֵכּ‬ ‫אמר‬ ַ֔ ֹ ‫אד֒ וַ יִּ ְק ָ ֤רא ֶאל־יְ הוָ ֙ה וַ יּ‬ ֹ ‫ַה ְלּ ִ ֖חי ִמיָּ ֑דוֹ וַ יִּ ְק ָ ֛רא לַ ָמּ ֥קוֹם ַה ֖הוּא ָ ֥ר ַמת ֶ ֽל ִחי׃ וַ יִּ ְצ ָמ ֮א ְמ‬ ‫שׁוּﬠה ַהגְּ ד ָֹל֖ה ַה ֑זּ ֹאת וְ ַﬠ ָתּ ֙ה ָא ֣מוּת ַבּ ָצּ ָ֔מא וְ נָ ַפלְ ִ ֖תּי‬ ֥ ָ ‫ת־ה ְתּ‬ ַ ‫ֽד־ﬠ ְב ְדּ ֔� ֶא‬ ַ ‫ַא ָתּ ֙ה נָ ַ ֣ת ָתּ ְב ַי‬ ‫ְבּיַ ֥ד ָה ֲﬠ ֵר ִ ֽלים׃‬

When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came against him shouting. The spirit of the LORD rushed upon him and the ropes on his arms became like flax that was burned with fire, and the bonds melted off his hands. He found a fresh jawbone of an ass. He picked it up and killed a thousand men. Then Samson said, “With the jaw of an ass, masses upon masses!

With the jaw of an ass, I have slain a thousand men.” When he 16

Jonathan Z. Smith, Imagining Religion: From Babylon to Jonestown (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 10. I return to these verses as an example of a blend of Identity and Metaphorical circumcision later. I cite them here to underscore the fact that Identity circumcision does not require that the people demarcated as “uncircumcised” actually be uncircumcised in reality. Rather, Identity circumcision discourse is more interested in the use of circumcision language as a kind of differentiating “slur.” The extent to which the slur is an accurate description is less important than its expression of group differentiation.

For more on slurs and debates over their descriptive vs. expressive semantics, see Joseph A. Hedger, “The Semantics of Racial Slurs: Using Kaplan’s Framework to Provide a Theory of the Meaning of Derogatory Epithets,” Linguistic and Philosophical Investigations 11 (2012): 74–84; “Meaning and Racial Slurs: Derogatory Epithets and the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface,” Language and Communication 33 (2013): 205–213; and the following engagements with his work, such as Adam M. Croom, “Remarks on ‘The Semantics of Racial Slurs,’” Linguistic and Philosophical Investigation 13 (2014): 11–32; “The Semantics of Slurs: A Refutation of Pure Expressivism,” Language Sciences 41 (2014): 227–242; Geoff Nunberg, “The Social Life of Slurs,” in New Work on Speech Acts, ed. Daniel Fogal, Daniel W. Harris, and Matt Moss (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018), 237–295.

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 13

finished speaking, he threw the jawbone away, and thus the place was called Rameth-lehi. He was very thirsty and he called to the LORD, “You have given this great victory to your servant, must I now die of thirst and fall into the hands of the uncircumcised?”

Although the story does not necessarily name the “uncircumcised (‫ ”) ָה ֲﬠ ֵר ִ ֽלים‬to whom Samson refers in his speech, it is clear from context that he must mean the Philistines. Thus, the purpose of the word “uncircumcised” here is not to communicate the actual physical state of the people to whom Samson refers, but rather to indicate that they are the “them” to Samson’s “us.”

The story of Dinah and Shechem in Gen 34 is one of the most puzzling examples of circumcision as an Identity discourse. The Bible recounts the rape of Dinah, Jacob’s daughter, by Shechem, son of Hamor the Hivite. After he rapes her, Shechem decides he wants to marry Dinah, and he goes with his father to ask Jacob for his consent. Jacob’s sons answer, saying that Shechem will only be allowed to marry Dinah if he and the rest of his people are circumcised. Although Hamor and Shechem agree to the procedure, it is a trick. On the third day after the Hivites are circumcised, “while they were still in pain (‫יוֹתם ֽכֹּ ֲא ִ֗בים‬ ֣ ָ ‫”) ִ ֽבּ ְה‬, Jacob’s sons, Simeon and Levi, attack them, murder them all, and take their wives, children, livestock, and property as plunder, “because their sister had been defiled (‫חוֹתם‬ ֽ ָ ‫”) ֲא ֶ ֥שׁר ִט ְמּ ֖אוּ ֲא‬ (Gen 34:27). When they return, Jacob rebukes them, saying that his sons’ actions will cause the other people residing in the land to attack him and his family.

Simeon and Levi respond with, “Should our sister be treated like a whore? ( ‫זוֹנה‬ ָ֕ ‫ַה ְכ‬ ‫נו‬ ֽ ֵ ‫ת־א‬ ֲ ‫( ”)יַ ֲﬠ ֶ ֖שׂה ֶא‬Gen 34:31). ּ ‫חוֹת‬ Scholarly attention has often focused on the gendered dynamics of this 17 text. However, some interpreters have astutely recognized an inter-ethnic 17

For discussion of the rape/seduction elements in the story, see Lyn M. Bechtel, “What if Dinah is not Raped? (Genesis 34),” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 19.62 (1994): 19–36; Susanne Scholz, “Was it Really Rape in Genesis 34: Biblical Scholarship as a Reflection of Cultural Assumptions,” in Escaping Eden: New Feminist Perspectives on the Bible, ed. Harold C. Washington, Susan Lochrie Graham, and Pamela Thimmes (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 182–198; Jean-Daniel Macchi, “Amour et Violence: Dina et Sichem en Gènese 34,” Foi et Vie 99.4 (2004): 29–38; Yael Shemesh, “Rape is Rape: The Story of Dinah and Shechem (Genesis 34),” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 119.1 (2007): 2–21. For analysis of Dinah’s silence and andocentrism, see Ronald R. Clark Jr., “The Silence in Dinah’s Cry,” Restoration Quarterly 49.3 (2007): 143– 158; Carolyn Blyth, “Terrible Silence, Eternal Silence: a Feminist Re-Reading of Dinah’s Voicelessness in Genesis 34,” Biblical Intepretation 17.5 (2009): 483–506; Blyth, “‘Listen to

14 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

tension at play within the story. Angela Wagner, for example, argues that “the violent response of Jacob and his sons has much less to do with a distinction between seduction and violent rape, as it does with what can perhaps best be termed as ethnic concerns.” 18 Julie Bokser similarly claims, “What is really at stake here is not sexual violation but the hazard posed by potential exogamous relationships.” 19 It is also possible to harmonize interpretations that focus on inter-ethnic relations between the Israelites and Shechemites with readings of Gen 34 that focus on the gender dynamics. For example, Alice A. Keefe argues that in Gen 34, “the violated body of the woman functions as a metonym for the social body,” 20 thus suggesting that the link between sexual ethics and ethnic anxieties cannot be so easily disentangled.

Despite the clear Identity themes running throughout the story, the role circumcision plays in either undermining or shoring up an Israelite identity is ambiguous. The text can be read in two ways. In one version, Jacob’s sons offer the Shechemites the option to become circumcised and join together with the Jacobites as one people (Gen 34:15). 21 But, because Shechem had defiled their sister (34:13), 22 the brothers decided from the beginning that they would take revenge upon the Shechemites while they were still in pain from their operations (34:25). When Jacob rebukes Simeon and Levi for their violent plot, the brothers respond by asking, “Should our sister be treated like a whore?” (34:31). 23 When read this way, as Blaschke suggests we should, circumcision appears as an My Voice’: Challenging Dinah’s Silence in Genesis 34,” The Expository Times 120.8 (2009): 385–387; Janell Johnson, “Negotiating masculinities in Dinah’s Story: Honor and Outrage in Genesis 34,” Review & Expositor 115.4 (2018): 529–555.

18 Angela B. Wagner, “Considerations on the Political-Juridical Proceedings of Genesis 34,” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 38.2 (2013): 145–161 (146).

19 Julie Bokser, “The Rape of Dinah: Gender, Body, Text, and the Israelite Nation,” Cithara 37.2 (1998): 5–14 (5). For more on ethnic relations in Genesis 34, see Pablo Andiñach, “Dina, un Mujer Víctima de Violencia Sexual y Étnica: Estudio Preliminar de Génesis 34,” Revisita Bíblica 66.1 (2004): 37–52; Matthew Thiessen, “Protecting the Holy Race and Holy Space: Judith’s Reenactment of the Slaughter of Shechem,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 49 (2018): 165–188.

20 Alice A. Keefe, “Rapes of Women/Wars of Men,” Semeia 61 (1993): 79–97 (79). See also, Anathea Portier-Young, “Daughter of Simeon and Daughter of Dinah: Genesis 34 in Judith and Joseph and Asenath,” paper presented at the Catholic Biblical Association, August 5– 6, 2006.

21

‫מּל ָל ֶכ֖ם ָכּל־זָ ָ ֽכר‬ ֹ ֥ ‫מנוּ ְל ִה‬ ֹ ֔ ‫ִ ֚אם ִתּ ְהי֣ וּ ָכ‬

22

‫שׁר ִט ֵ֔מּא ֵ ֖את ִדּ ָינ֥ה ֲאח ָ ֹֽת‬ ֣ ֶ ‫ת־ח ֥מוֹר ָא ִ ֛ביו ְבּ ִמ ְר ָ ֖מה וַ יְ ַד ֵבּ֑רוּ ֲא‬ ֲ ‫ת־שׁ ֶ֨כם וְ ֶא‬ ְ ‫ֽי־יַﬠ ֜קֹב ֶא‬ ֲ ‫וַ יַּ ֲﬠנ֨ וּ ְב ֵנ‬

23

‫חוֹתנוּ‬ ֽ ֵ ‫ת־א‬ ֲ ‫יַﬠ ֶ ֖שׂה ֶא‬ ֲ ‫זוֹנה‬ ָ֕ ‫אמ ֑רוּ ַה ְכ‬ ְ ֹ ‫וַ יּ‬

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 15

efficacious (and necessary) means of joining a non-Israelite community with Israel. 24 Readers are led to believe that had Simeon and Levi not gone ahead with their murderous plot—or, if Shechem had not raped Dinah, but had instead respectfully approached her father in the first place and asked to marry her—the Israelites and Shechemites would have peacefully merged and become one people.

In this interpretation, the problem is the act of sexual violence perpetrated against Dinah, and not exogamy in general.

A second way of reading the story, suggested by Matthew Thiessen, presumes that Simeon and Levi’s offer to circumcise the Shechemites and join them with the Israelites was always disingenuous, not because Jacob’s sons were already determined to punish the Shechemites for the rape of their sister, but because they (as the author/redactor of Gen 34 depicts them) believe that joining ethnic lines is immoral and/or impossible. 25 In this version of the story, Shechem is a problem because he is from an ethnic group whom the Israelites are destined to destroy (Deut 7:1–3), and not because he committed an act of sexual violence against Dinah. Presumably, had Shechem been an Israelite, Jacob would have simply consented to have him marry Dinah in accordance with Exod 22:15–16 and Deut 22:28–29, which allow a rapist to marry the woman he rapes if her father agrees. If Thiessen’s interpretation is correct—i.e., that “Genesis 34 explicitly and emphatically rejects the possibility that the circumcision of the Canaanites would result in their becoming part of Jacob’s family” 26—then we might conclude that the text imagines circumcision as a marker of a predetermined stable ethnic identity rather than as a means by which such an identity is constituted.

According to both interpretations of the story, Gen 34 construes circumcision as a mechanism of identity—either a means by which ethnic identity is formed (version 1), or demarcating the boundaries of a stable ethnic identity that cannot be crossed (version 2). Regardless, the narrative is difficult to understand, no matter which interpretation one prefers. Claudia Camp writes that in the story of Dinah and Shechem, "the mythic preference for endogamy comes to its fullest, and fully circular expression. But this circularity—the story of an insider who must become an outsider in order to be accepted inside—contains a 24

Blaschke, Beschneidung, 32. See also Klaus Grünwaldt, Exil und Identität: Beschneidung, Pass und Sabbat in der Priesterschrift (Frankfurt am Main: Hain, 1992), 7; Saul Olyan, Rites and Rank: Hierarchy in Biblical Representations of Cult (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 65.

25 Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 47–51.

26 Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 63.

16 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

myth-exploding contradiction that is obvious when read from the other direction.” 27 In other words, if the author/redactor is using the story in Gen 34 as a means of undermining a competing idea that circumcision can ethnically transform a person, he does a rather odd job of it. 28 The moral implications of the story are vague, and it is hardly clear that Simeon and Levi acted righteously, especially in light of Jacob’s curse in Gen 49:5–7. 29 Furthermore, the only version of circumcision explicitly articulated in the text is one where circumcision does constitute ethnic identity—even if it is implicitly refused by the plot of the story.

The question of how to interpret the circumcision subplot in Gen 34 was just as puzzling for ancient readers as it is for modern scholars. For example, Theodotus’s account of the story follows an ethnicizing interpretation, and presents the circumcision of the Shechemites as a good-faith effort to have the group join with the Israelites, which is spoiled by Simeon and Levi’s anger at their sister’s treatment. 30 Similarly, in one manuscript of the Testament of Levi, the brothers urge Jacob not to circumcise the Shechemites because they know Jacob’s offer to allow the Shechemites to join the Israelites is genuine. 31 Jubilees follows an identity-based interpretation of the story more closely. It focuses on the crime of exogamy rather than sexual violation (Jub. 30) and—perhaps in an attempt to resolve the strangeness in the biblical text that Camp identifies—it leaves out the

27

Claudia Camp, Wise, Strange, and Holy: The Strange Women and the Making of the Bible (JSOTSup 320; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2000), 294.

28 It is possible that some of this strangeness should be ascribed to Genesis 34’s process of redaction. See, Sigo Lehming, “Zur Überlieferungsgeschichte von Gen 34,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 70 (1958): 228–250; Albert de Pury, “Genèse 34 et l’histoire,” Revue bilique 76.1 (1969): 5–49.

29 See Stanley Gevirtz, “Simeon and Levi in ‘The Blessing of Jacob’ (Gen 49:5–7),” Hebrew Union College Annual 52 (1981): 93–128; Joseph Fleishman, “The Legal Background to the Punishment of Simeon and Levi,” Beit Mikra 58 (2013): 120–152 [Hebrew].

30 See John Collins, “The Epic of Theodotus and the Hellenism of the Heasmoneans,” Harvard Theological Review 73 (1980): 91-104; Reinhard Pummer, “Genesis 34 in Jewish Writings of the Hellenistic and Roman Periods,” The Harvard Theological Review 75.2 (1982): 177-188; Mary Anna Bader, Tracing the Evidence: Dinah in Post-Hebrew Bible Literature (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 102-106.

31 James Kugel, “Simeon and Levi’s Attack on Shechem, or: The Mystery of Ms C of the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in Sibyls, Scriptures, and Scrolls: John Collins at Seventy, ed. Joel Baden, Hindy Najman, and Eibert Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 655672. See also James Kugel, “The Study of Dinah in the ‘Testament of Levi,’” The Harvard Theological Review 85.1 (1992): 1-34; Bader, Tracing the Evidence, 91-95.

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 17

circumcision subplot altogether. 32 Josephus also omits the circumcision narrative elements, perhaps, as Louis H. Feldman suggests, in order to counter GrecoRoman stereotypes of Jews as overly aggressive proselytizers. 33 Philo, however, unlike other ancient interpreters (although resonant with his preferred mode of biblical interpretation), allegorizes the entire narrative. He presents Simeon and Levi as symbols of virtue, who attack the Shechemites while they were “still occupied by pleasure-loving, passion-loving, uncircumcised business” (Migration 224). 34 Circumcision is thus depicted, in Philo’s presentation, in metaphorical terms, as a signifier of unvirtuous hedonism, rather than as a marker of ethnic identity.

4. Metaphorical The use of “circumcision” and “foreskin” in a primarily metaphorical (nonpenile) sense in the Hebrew Bible is rarer than its Covenantal/Ritual or Identity usage, but the examples become central to later Jewish and Christian disputes over circumcision. In Exod 6:12 and 6:30, for example, Moses describes himself as “foreskinned of lips (‫) ֲﬠ ַ ֥רל ְשׂ ָפ ָ ֽתיִ ם‬.” Jer 6:10 laments those who are “foreskinned of

32

See Marth Himmelfarb, “Levi, Pinehas, and the Problem of Intermarriage in the Time of the Maccabean Revolt,” Jewish Quarterly Review 6.1 (1999): 1-24; Bader, Tracing the Evidence, 106-110; Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 67-86.

33 Louis H. Feldman, “Philo, Pseudo-Philo, Josephus, and Theodotus on the Rape of Dinah,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 94.2 (2004): 253–277.

34 ἔτι ὄντας ἐν τῷ φιληδόνῳ καὶ φιλοπαθεῖ καὶ ἀπεριτμήτῳ πόνῳ. For additional scholarship on circumcision discourse in Philo, see Valentin Nikiprowetzky, Le commentaire de l’écriture chez Philon d’Alexandrie: son caractère et sa portée, observations philologique (Leiden: Brill, 1977), 237–238; Richard D. Hecht, “The Exegetical Contexts of Philo’s Interpretation of Circumcision,” in Nourished with Peace: Studies in Hellenistic Judaism in Memory of Samuel Sandmel, ed. Fredrick E. Greenspahn, Earle Hilgert, and Burton L. Mack (Chicago: Scholars Press, 1984), 53–61; Daniel Boyarin, Carnal Israel: Reading Sex in Talmudic Culture (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 197–216; Boyarin, A Radical Jew, 13-38; Blaschke, Beschneidung, 206–209; Ellen Birnbaum, “Allegorical Interpretation and Jewish Identity among Alexandrian Jewish Writers,” in Neotestamentica Et Philonica: Studies in Honor of Peder Borgen, ed. David E. Aune, Torrey Seland, and Jarl Henning Ulrichsen, (Leiden: Brill, 2003): 307–329; Maren Niehoff, “Circumcision as a Marker of Identity: Philo, Origen and the Rabbis on Gen 17:1–14,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 10 (2003): 89–123; Shaye Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 61–63; Nina Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 41–76.

18 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

ears (‫) ֲﬠ ֵר ָל֣ה ָאזְ ָ֔נם‬.” 35 Lev 26:41 warns the people that God will humble “their foreskinned heart (‫)לְ ָב ָב ֙ם ֶ ֽה ָﬠ ֵ ֔רל‬.” Deut 10:16 urges the people to “circumcise the ַ ),” and in 30:6 assures Israel that “The foreskin of their hearts (‫וּמ ְל ֶ֕תּם ֵ ֖את ָﬠ ְר ַל֣ת לְ ַב ְב ֶכ֑ם‬ ְ ‫�הי� ֶא‬ ֛ ֶ ‫הו֧ה ֱא‬ ָ ְ‫וּמל י‬ ָ֨ ).” Jer 4:4 LORD your God will circumcise your heart ( ֖�‫ת־ל ָב ְב‬ similarly exhorts the people to “Circumcise yourselves for the LORD and remove the foreskins of your hearts (‫מּלוּ ַליהוָֹ ֗ה וְ ָה ִ֙ס ֙רוּ ָﬠ ְר ֣לוֹת לְ ַב ְב ֶ֔כם‬ ֹ ֣ ‫) ִה‬.” Finally, Lev 19:23 does not relate “foreskin” to the human body as in the examples above of lips, ears, and hearts, but rather commands that the first three years of fruit from a plant “be considered as its foreskin (‫ ”)וַ ֲﬠ ַרלְ ֶ ֥תּם ָﬠ ְר ָל ֖ת ֹו‬and since “it will be foreskins for you, do not eat it (‫)יִ ְה ֶי֥ה ָל ֶכ֛ם ֲﬠ ֵר ִ ֖לים ֥ל ֹא יֵ ָא ֵ ֽכל‬.” 36 Although I categorize these usages of “foreskin” and “circumcision” as metaphorical, they are not necessarily allegorical or disembodied. Instead, I use “metaphor” in a sense drawn from cognitive linguistics: “metaphor is defined as understanding one conceptual domain in terms of another conceptual domain.” 37 Some scholars read Exod 6:12 as an allegorical or figurative usage of “foreskin” to describe Moses’s lack of oratorical (or perhaps even linguistic) skill, 38 but others argue that this verse describes a physical condition. 39 Regardless, both readings 35F

35 Although the LXX keeps the circumcision metaphor (ἰδοὺ ἀπερίτμητα τὰ ὦτα αὐτῶν), Targum Jonathan changes “Look, they are foreskinned of ears (‫ ”) ִהנֵּ ֙ה ֲﬠ ֵר ָל֣ה ָאזְ ָ֔נם‬to “Look, ְ ‫) ָהא ִא ַט ִפּ ַשׁת‬.” Due to the late date of the Targumim, however, we their ears are dull (‫אוּדנְ הוֹן‬ cannot rule out the possibility that this is in part due to Jewish and Christian debates surrounding this passage.

36 This detail will form a (tautological) basis for why circumcision takes place at the penis in t. Šabb. 15:9.

37 Zoltán Kövecses, Metaphor: A Practical Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 4. See also, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 5; and Nick Reimer, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Semantics (New York: Routledge, 2016), 90–104.

38 Noth argues that “the word ‘uncircumcised’ bears the transferred meaning ‘incompetent’” (61), while Dozeman says it signifies an “inability to speak persuasively” (168). White claims that “This is the first figurative use of noncircumcision that we find in the Torah” (58). (Martin Noth, Exodus: A Commentary [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1962]; Thomas Dozeman, Commentary on Exodus [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2009]; Thomas White, Exodus [Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2016]).

39 See Jeffrey H. Tigay, “‘Heavy of Mouth’ and ‘Heavy of Tongue’: On Moses’ Speech Difficulty,” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 231 (1978): 57–67; Nahum Sarna, Exodus: The Traditional Hebrew Text with the New JPS Translation and Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1991), 33; Nyasha Junior and Jeremy Schipper, “Mosaic Disability and Identity in Exodus 4:10, 6:12, 30,” Biblical

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 19

understand one conceptual domain in the terms of another conceptual domain, i.e. “foreskin.” Whether or not “foreskinned of lips” designates an allegorical lack of oratorical skill or a physical disability, the use of the word “foreskin” refers to a different concept to understand something about Moses’s condition. In fact, the word “foreskin” tends to disappear in ancient translations of Exodus, indicating that it functioned to frame Moses’s speech in terms of something conceptually separate. For example, the LXX translates Exod 6:12 as ἐλάλησεν δὲ Μωυσῆς ἔναντι κυρίου λέγων Ἰδοὺ οἱ υἱοὶ Ισραηλ οὐκ εἰσήκουσάν μου, καὶ πῶς εἰσακούσεταί μου Φαραω; ἐγὼ δὲ ἄλογός εἰμι

Moses said in the presence of the Lord, “Look, the sons of Israel do not listen to me, so how will Pharaoh listen to me? I am ineloquent.”

The Greek translation of Exod 6:30 similarly avoids the metaphor: καὶ εἶπεν Μωυσῆς ἐναντίον κυρίου Ἰδοὺ ἐγὼ ἰσχνόφωνός εἰμι, καὶ πῶς εἰσακούσεταί μου Φαραω

And Moses said before the presence of the Lord, “Look, I am weak-voiced, so how will Pharaoh listen to me?”

Likewise, Targum Onqelos uses “heavy with speech (‫ ”)יקיר ממלל‬instead of “foreskinned of lips” for Exod 6:12 and 6:30, thus rendering it consistent with Exod 4:10. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan has “difficult of speech (‫ ”)קשי ממליל‬as does Targum Neofiti. 40 Regardless of whether ‫ ערל‬in the Masoretic Text is meant to signify something physical or something allegorical, it is clear that ancient translators treated it as metaphorical.

5. Analysis of the Categories Instances of Covenantal/Ritual circumcision discourse follow the ritual logic of the narrative set out in Gen 17, wherein circumcision signifies the covenant between God and the offspring of Abraham through Isaac (Gen 17:21). 41 Unlike Interpretation (2008): 429–433. For interpretations that propose both and/or either a physical or metaphorical explanation of “foreskin,” see J. Phillip Hyatt, Commentary on Exodus (London: Oliphants, 1971), 95; Blaschke, Beschneidung, 93; William Propp, Exodus 1–18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 274.

40 Texts from The Comprehensive Aramaic Lexicon (Targum Studies Module), available online: http://cal.huc.edu/.

41

‫מּוֹﬠ֣ד ַה ֶ֔זּה ַבּ ָשּׁ ָנ֖ה ָה ַא ֶ ֽח ֶרת‬ ֵ ‫יתי ָא ִ ֣ קים ֶאת־יִ ְצ ָ ֑חק ֲא ֶשׁר֩ ֵתּ ֨ ֵלד ְל�֤ ָשׂ ָר ֙ה ַל‬ ֖ ִ ‫ת־בּ ִר‬ ְ ‫וְ ֶא‬

20 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

an Identity narrative, the covenantal narrative does not depict the primary purpose of circumcision as the separation of Israel from other peoples. Gen 17 specifically notes that Ishmael was circumcised, and constituted as a separate people from Israel—“he will be the father of twelve princes and I will make him a great nation” (Gen 17:20). 42 Gen 17 thus depicts the primary division between Israel and other peoples as lineage rather than circumcision. Josh 5 reaffirms this emphasis on the covenanted promise of land and progeny in the (re-)circumcision of the sons of the Israelites who had come up from Egypt: ‫אתם ִמ ִמּ ְצ ַ ֖ריִ ם‬ ֥ ָ ‫�דים ַבּ ִמּ ְד ָ ֥בּר ַבּ ֶ ֛דּ ֶר� ְבּ ֵצ‬ ֨ ִ ִ‫ל־ה ָﬠם ַהיּ‬ ָ ֠ ‫ל־ה ָ ֖ﬠם ַה ֹֽיּ ְצ ִ ֑אים וְ ָכ‬ ָ ‫י־מ ִ ֣לים ָהי֔ וּ ָכּ‬ ֻ ‫ִ ֽכּ‬ ‫שׁי‬ ֤ ֵ ְ‫ל־ה ֜גּוֹי ַאנ‬ ַ ‫תּם ָכּ‬ ֹ ֨ ‫ ִ ֣כּי ַא ְר ָבּ ִ ֣ﬠים ָשׁ ָ֗נה ָה ְל ֣כוּ ְב ֵנֽי־יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵא ֮ל ַבּ ִמּ ְד ָבּר֒ ַﬠד־‬.‫א־מלוּ‬ ָֽ ֹ‫ל‬ ‫הו֑ה ֲא ֶ֨שׁר נִ ְשׁ ַ ֤בּע יְ הוָ ֙ה לָ ֶ֔הם‬ ָ ְ‫א־שׁ ְמ ֖ﬠוּ ְבּ ֣קוֹל י‬ ָ ֹ ‫ַה ִמּ ְל ָח ָמ ֙ה ַהיּ ְֹצ ִ ֣אים ִמ ִמּ ְצ ַ ֔ריִ ם ֲא ֶ ֥שׁר ֽל‬ ‫בוֹת ֙ם ָל ֶ֣תת ֔ ָלנוּ ֶ ֛א ֶרץ זָ ַ ֥בת ָח ָ ֖לב‬ ָ ‫הו֤ה ֽ ַל ֲא‬ ָ ְ‫ת־ה ָ֗א ֶרץ ֲא ֶשׁר֩ נִ ְשׁ ַ֨בּע י‬ ָ ‫אוֹתם ֶא‬ ֣ ָ ‫ְל ִב ְל ִ֞תּי ַה ְר‬ ‫א־מלוּ‬ ֥ ָ ֹ ‫י־ﬠ ֵר ִ ֣לים ָהי֔ וּ ִ ֛כּי ל‬ ֲ ‫הוֹשׁ ַ� ִכּ‬ ֑ ֻ ְ‫יה ֙ם ֵה ִ ֣ קים ַתּ ְח ָ֔תּם א ָ ֹ֖תם ָ ֣מל י‬ ֶ ֵ‫ת־בּנ‬ ְ ‫ וְ ֶא‬.‫ְוּד ָ ֽבשׁ‬ :�‫אוֹתם ַבּ ָ ֽדּ ֶר‬ ָ֖

Now, while all the people who came out of Egypt had been circumcised, none of the people born in the desert on the way when they were coming out of Egypt had been circumcised.

Since the Israelites had wandered in the desert for forty years until the entire nation—men of military age who came out of Egypt—had perished; they who had not obeyed the LORD, the LORD swore never to let them see the land that the LORD had promised to their fathers to give to us—a land flowing with milk and honey. But He had raised up their sons in their stead, and it was them that Joshua circumcised—for they were uncircumcised at the time, having not been circumcised on the way (Josh 5:5–7).

Josh 5, despite its later reinterpretations, makes most sense understood as an affirmation of the covenantal nature of circumcision. Since God deemed the Israelites who came out from Egypt as undeserving of the covenanted land and offspring, he did not allow them to enter the land. Even so, circumcision is a signifier of this covenant. Thus, this generation of people needed to be circumcised by Joshua. This story, therefore, imagines circumcision’s primary purpose as a condition of the covenantal agreement between God and Israel, rather than a division from other peoples.

42

‫יוֹליד וּנְ ַת ִ ֖תּיו ְלג֥ וֹי גָּ ֽדוֹל‬ ִ ֔ ‫יא ֙ם‬ ִ ‫ים־ﬠ ָ ֤שׂר נְ ִשׂ‬ ָ ֵ‫ְשׁנ‬

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 21

Identity circumcision discourse, on the other hand, presents circumcision as a technology of ethnic difference—i.e., as a means of separating “us” from “them.” 43 As such, circumcision takes on a moral implication that is absent from Covenantal/Ritual discourse. While the Covenantal/Ritual narrative of circumcision portrays circumcision as a necessary—but not sufficient— condition for receiving God’s covenanted gifts, it is not presented as a good in and of itself. This is especially clear in the above passage from Josh 5, which juxtaposes two groups: the circumcised men who came out of Egypt and their uncircumcised sons (whom Joshua subsequently circumcises). God favors the uncircumcised sons over the circumcised men who escaped from Egypt because the Israelites who came out of Egypt failed to obey God. Identity circumcision, however, characterizes circumcision as a moral good and uncircumcision as a moral stain.

For example, in Isa 52:1, “Put on your beautiful garments, oh Jerusalem, the holy city; for the uncircumcised and the unclean shall enter you no more,” the passage presents “uncircumcised and unclean” as a hendiadys in opposition to Jerusalem’s beauty and holiness.

Blaschke speculates that some dimensions of Identity circumcision can be attributed to a specific historical situation: “it compensates during the exilic period for the loss of the institutions of temple, land, and kingdom, which had hitherto established identity.” 44 Without their institutions of cultural identity, Blaschke argues, the Israelites shifted identity concerns onto a different signifier, namely circumcision. In addition, the oppression of the Israelites during the exilic period might also explain why Identity circumcision came to carry such a clear moral resonance. So, rather than circumcision itself being considered positive, it became laden with moral and theological significance (in response to oppression) as the new signifier of Israelite identity in the absence of temple, land, and kingship. 45 On this account, circumcision carries no specific moral value (negative or positive) on its own but rather acquires its moral implications via its function as a group divider. Thus, the Israelites do not hate the Philistines because they are

43

I use the term “technology of ethnic difference” as shorthand for “a means by which ethnic difference is materialized.” For more on what I mean by “materialization,” see Judith Butler, Bodies That Matter (London: Routledge, 1993), 1–19.

44 Blaschke, Beschneidung, 104. See also Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology, Vol. 1, trans. D. M. G. Stalker (New York: Harper & Row, 1962); Klaus Grünwaldt, Exil und Identität. Against arguments that locate circumcision’s increasing importance to the exilic period, see, Bernat, Sign of the Covenant, 115–122.

45 This may also explain the intense moral significance of circumcision in Second Temple texts such as Maccabees.

22 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

uncircumcised. Rather, the Israelites hate the Philistines and, since the Philistines are uncircumcised, by extension foreskin must be morally repugnant because the Philistines are morally repugnant. 46 While Identity circumcision assumes circumcision’s positive moral value due to its ability to divide “us” from “them,” Metaphorical usages of “foreskin” and “circumcision” likewise denote something of positive or negative value. Exod 6:12, 30 and Jer 6:10, for instance, rely on the idea that uncircumcision is negative, although to different degrees. “Uncircumcised lips” in Exod 6:12, 30 seems to suggest that Moses is simply unfit to speak (whether because of a lack of skill or a physical disability), whereas “uncircumcised ears” seems to signify something more problematic, such as a willful refusal to listen and obey. Instances of “circumcision of the heart,” e.g., in Lev 26:41, Deut 10:36, 30:6, and Jer 4:4, are all portrayed as uncomplicatedly positive. Lev 19:23, however, is more difficult to categorize. The first three years of fruit are forbidden—considered “foreskin”— either because they are unclean or because they are otherwise harmful (the biblical passage does not clarify). In many ways, the Lev 19:24 passage makes far more sense within the Covenantal/Ritual framework where circumcision is morally neutral but ritually productive. 47 Another option is that Lev 19:24 is an example of a Metaphorical version of Covenantal/Ritual circumcision.

46

This elision of morality, ethnic division, and circumcision will become decoupled in Paul, who will argue that circumcision’s function as an ethnic divider does not imply a moral valuation, e.g., “circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing (ἡ περιτομὴ οὐδέν ἐστιν, καὶ ἡ ἀκροβυστία οὐδέν ἐστιν)” (1 Cor 7:19). Later Christians will “flip the script” and argue that circumcision’s function as an ethnic divider proves that it is immoral, e.g., Tertullian, Adversus Marcionem, 5.

47 Here, I am informed by the distinction drawn by Jonathan Klawans in his Impurity and Sin in Ancient Judaism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), particularly his discussion of Niddah (104–108). Klawans points out that although Niddah is generally considered an issue of ritual impurity, sex with a Niddah is considered a moral impurity. He suggests that medieval and modern emphasis on menstrual impurity was the result of changes within Judaism resulting from the destruction of the Temple. I suggest that, in addition, there was an elision of a Niddah with sex with a Niddah. In other words, woman could not be thought of (by rabbinic men) outside of her appropriate role as sexual object. This meant that women—inasmuch as to be a woman meant to be potentially Niddah and necessarily a sexual object—posed a perpetual moral “threat” to men. The elision, I hypothesize, mirrors the elision of circumcision as ritual guarantee of God’s covenant with circumcision as a moral good. So, in the same way that, over time (perhaps sometime between the tannaitic and amoraic period), woman as potential Niddah and woman as sexual object could not be thought as separable, neither, over time (sometime in the Second Temple period to the

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 23

What makes the Metaphorical circumcision category so difficult is the impossibility of classifying all metaphorical usages of “foreskin” and “circumcision” according to the same explanation. Exod 6:12 and 6:30 make sense as extensions of the Covenantal/Ritual category, wherein circumcision takes on a positive moral value and foreskin a negative one as a result of their ability to produce a ritual outcome—i.e., in their ability to correctly certify the covenant.

Conversely, the citations of “circumcision” and “foreskin” in Jeremiah seem to extend Identity circumcision, especially in the context of Jeremiah’s overall concerns regarding Israel’s identity vis-à-vis the nations. As a result, there is no one clear explanation for how “foreskin” and “circumcision” take on morally negative or positive connotations even though the metaphorical usages seem to rely on precisely those connotations. Basically, the Metaphorical category takes the “circumcision = good, foreskin = bad” connotations that arise from the other two categories and then applies them metaphorically to other concepts that are not directly related to either Covenant/Ritual or Identity.

6. Blended Categories The purpose of the taxonomy above is to clarify the semantic fields potentially operative in any given ancient text on circumcision, while simultaneously illuminating the ways in which circumcision discourse remains fluid and ambiguous. While the examination of specific usages helps situate a citation’s context within a broader conception of circumcision discourse, no one citation determines the absolute parameters of that discourse—or renders our heuristic illegible. Here, I want to explore four cases where a blending of categories seems, on the surface, to undermine my heuristic taxonomy, but upon closer inspection, demonstrates its usefulness. Thus, even if the heuristic taxonomy does not capture every instance of biblical circumcision language, the parameters of the categories nevertheless provide a vocabulary for describing such instances of blending. For example, Exod 12:43–49 appears to blend Covenantal and Identity circumcision tropes: ‫אכל ֽבּוֹ׃‬ ַ ֹ ‫א־י‬ ֥ ֹ ‫ל־בּן־נֵ ָ ֖כר ל‬ ֶ ‫ֹשׁה וְ ַא ֲה ֔ר ֹן ֖ז ֹאת ֻח ַ ֣קּת ַה ָ ֑פּ ַסח ָכּ‬ ֣ ֶ ‫אמר יְ הוָ ֙ה ֶאל־מ‬ ֶ ֹ ‫וַ ֤יּ‬ ‫ל־בּוֹ׃‬ ֽ ‫אכ‬ ַ ֹ ‫א־י‬ ֥ ֹ ‫תּוֹשׁב וְ ָשׂ ִ ֖כיר ל‬ ֥ ָ ‫אכל ֽבּוֹ׃‬ ַ ֹ ‫וּמלְ ָ ֣תּה א ֹ֔תוֹ ָ ֖אז ֥י‬ ַ ‫ת־כּ ֶ֑סף‬ ָ ַ‫ל־ﬠ ֶבד ִ ֖אישׁ ִמ ְקנ‬ ֥ ֶ ‫וְ ָכ‬ ‫רוּ־בוֹ׃ ָכּל־‬ ֽ ‫וּצה וְ ֶ ֖ﬠ ֶצם ֥ל ֹא ִת ְשׁ ְבּ‬ ָ ‫ן־ה ָבּ ָ ֖שׂר ֑ח‬ ַ ‫ן־ה ַ ֛בּיִ ת ִמ‬ ַ ‫א־תוֹציא ִמ‬ ִ֧ ֹ ‫ְבּ ַ ֤ביִ ת ֶא ָח ֙ד יֵ ָא ֵ֔כל ל‬ ‫ה ִה ֧מּוֹל ֣לוֹ ָכל־זָ ָ֗כר‬ ֒ ָ‫ֲﬠ ַ ֥דת יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ ֖אל יַ ֲﬠ ֥שׂוּ א ֹֽתוֹ׃ וְ ִ ֽכי־יָ ֨גוּר ִא ְתּ ֜� ֗ ֵגּר וְ ָﬠ ָ֣שׂה ֶפ ַס ֮ח ַליהו‬

advent of Christianity), could circumcision as covenantal be thought as separable from circumcision as moral good (at least for a certain plurality of Jews).

24 JJMJS No. 8 (2021) ‫תּוֹרה ַא ַ֔חת יִ ְהיֶ ֖ה‬ ֣ ָ ‫אכל ֽבּוֹ׃‬ ַ ֹ ‫א־י‬ ֥ ֹ ‫ל־ﬠ ֵ ֖רל ֽל‬ ָ ‫וְ ָא ֙ז יִ ְק ַ ֣רב ַל ֲﬠשׂ ֹ֔תוֹ וְ ָהיָ ֖ה ְכּ ֶאזְ ַ ֣רח ָה ָ ֑א ֶרץ וְ ָכ‬ ‫תוֹכ ֶ ֽכם׃‬ ְ ‫ָ ֽל ֶאזְ ָ ֑רח וְ ַל ֵגּ֖ר ַה ָגּ֥ר ְבּ‬

And the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “This is the law of the Passover offering: No foreigner shall eat it. But any slave a man bought may eat it once he has been circumcised. No bound or hired laborer shall eat of it. It shall be eaten in one house—you shall not take any of the flesh out of the house, nor shall you break a bone of it. The whole community of Israel shall offer it.

If a stranger, who dwells with you, would offer the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, all his males must be circumcised. Then he shall be admitted to offer it. He shall then be as a citizen of the land. But no uncircumcised person shall eat [the Passover sacrifice]. There shall be one law for the citizen and the stranger who dwells among you.

As in Gen 17 and Josh 5, this passage presents circumcision as a ritual requirement—in this case, as a prerequisite for eating the Passover sacrifice. In Josh 5, the uncircumcised Israelites are not depicted as morally problematic (and indeed, are implied to be in better moral standing than the previous generation), but they nevertheless cannot enter the land until they are circumcised in accordance to the stipulations of the covenant. Exod 12:43–49 similarly does not depict the slave (‫ ) ֶ ֥ﬠ ֶבד ִ ֖אישׁ‬of an Israelite household, 48 or the sojourner who lives among the Israelites (‫ )יָ ֨גוּר ִא ְתּ ֜� ֗ ֵגּר‬as somehow morally compromised. They can eat the paschal sacrifice once they are circumcised. At the same time, the language of the text clearly states that individuals who are forbidden from eating the sacrifice are “foreign (‫אכל‬ ַ ֹ ‫א־י‬ ֥ ֹ ‫ל־בּן־נֵ ָ ֖כר ל‬ ֶ ‫) ָכּ‬.” Taken together with the circumcision requirement, the text implies that to be uncircumcised (and therefore forbidden the paschal lamb) is to be foreign—and to fulfill the ritual requirement of circumcision is “to become like a native of the land (‫) ָהיָ ֖ה ְכּ ֶאזְ ַ ֣רח ָה ָ ֑א ֶרץ‬.” As a result, the text blends the ritual logic of Covenantal circumcision with the idea of circumcision as ethnic boundary, characteristic of Identity circumcision. 49 48 F

48 49

See Gen 17:12–13.

The Mekilta de-Rabbi Ishmael (Pischa 15) clearly wrestles with this elision of ritual and identity functions of circumcision in this passage. For example, the Mekilta asks why the text repeats “no uncircumcised person may eat of it” (Exod 12:48) after saying that “no foreigner may eat of it” (12:43) and reasons that had it not said so, one might think an uncircumcised Israelite was permitted to eat of it ( ‫ למה נאמר והלא כבר נאמר‬.‫וכל ערל לא יאכל בו‬ ‫)כל בן נכר לא יאכל בו אבל ישראל ערל שומע אני יהא כשר לאכול בפסח ת"ל וכל ערל לא יאכל בו‬.

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 25

Exod 4:26—and the entire episode of Exod 4:24–26—is an especially complicated example of circumcision discourse, and thus difficult to characterize within our heuristic. It recounts a strange circumcision performed by Zipporah: ‫יתוֹ׃ וַ ִתּ ַ ֨קּח ִצפּ ָ ֹ֜רה ֗צֹר וַ ִתּ ְכר ֹ֙ת ֶאת־‬ ֽ ‫הוה וַ יְ ַב ֵ ֖קּשׁ ֲה ִמ‬ ָ֔ ְ‫שׁהוּ י‬ ֣ ֵ ְ‫וַ יְ ִ ֥הי ַב ֶ ֖דּ ֶר� ַבּ ָמּ ֑לוֹן וַ יִּ ְפגּ‬ ‫ן־דּ ִ ֛מים ַא ָ ֖תּה ִ ֽלי׃ וַ ִיּ ֶ֖ רף ִמ ֶ ֑מּנּוּ ָ ֚אז ָ ֽא ְמ ָ ֔רה‬ ָ ‫אמר ִ ֧כּי ֲח ַת‬ ֶ ֹ ‫ָﬠ ְר ַל֣ת ְבּ ָ֔נהּ וַ ַתּ ַגּ֖ע ְל ַרגְ ָל֑יו וַ ֕תּ‬ ‫מּוּ�ת׃‬ ֽ ‫ֲח ַ ֥תן ָדּ ִ ֖מים ַל‬

At a night encampment on the way, the LORD encountered him and tried to kill him. So Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin, and touched Moses’s legs with it saying, “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.”

The puzzling anecdote has bewildered scores of readers, ancient and modern alike. As Jacobs argues, the interpretation of Exod 4:24–26 often reveals far more about the interpreter than the text itself. 50 Although this story is hard to categorize, there does seem to be a clear lack of Identity elements. Rather, circumcision seems to function as a kind of ritual action meant to prevent something horrible from happening. Although it is not clear that God (or an angel) 51 attacks Moses because he is uncircumcised, it is clear that circumcision resolves the issue. Nevertheless, it is hard to say for certain whether circumcision is meant to fulfill a specific ritual requirement or not. Rather, the text seems to assign circumcision (at least in this very narrow circumstance) a kind of apotropaic function. At the same time, the action is hardly morally neutral. As a result, I suggest this passage blends the logic characteristic of Covenantal/Ritual circumcision, where circumcision is a ritual prerequisite, and the moral implications (and/or threat of danger) that Metaphorical usages of circumcision language tend to convey.

Ezekiel’s circumcision idiom likewise blends aspects of different categories. For example, Ezek 44:6–9 says:

50

Andrew S. Jacobs, “Blood Will Out: Jesus’ Circumcision and Early Christian Readings of Exodus 4:24–26,” Henoch 30 (2008): 311–332. For more studies on the variety of interpretations of Exod 4:24–26, see S. M. Langston, Exodus Through the Centuries, (Blackwell Bible Commentaries; Oxford: Blackwell, 2006), 72–77; John T. Willis, Yahweh and Moses in Conflict: The Role of Exodus 4:24–26 in the Book of Exodus (Bern: Peter Lang, 2010).

51 See, for example, Origen, Against Celsus 5.47 and Epiphanius, Panarion 30.27.3.

26 JJMJS No. 8 (2021) ‫וֹת ֶיכ֖ם‬ ֵ ‫ל־תּוֹﬠ ֽב‬ ֲ ‫ב־ל ֶכ֛ם ִ ֽמ ָכּ‬ ָ ‫הו֑ה ַר‬ ִ ְ‫ל־בּ֣ית יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ֔אל ֥כֹּה ָא ַ ֖מר ֲאד ָֹנ֣י י‬ ֵ ‫ל־מ ִר֙י ֶא‬ ֶ֙ ‫וְ ָא ַמ ְר ָ ֤תּ ֶא‬ ‫י־ל ֙ב וְ ַﬠ ְר ֵל֣י ָב ָ֔שׂר ִל ְהי֥ וֹת ְבּ ִמ ְק ָדּ ִ ֖שׁי לְ ַחלְּ ל֣ וֹ‬ ֵ ‫יא ֶכ֣ם ְבּ ֵנֽי־נֵ ָ֗כר ַﬠ ְר ֵל‬ ֲ ‫ֵ ֥בּית יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ ֽאל׃ ַבּ ֲה ִב‬ ‫יכם׃‬ ֽ ֶ ‫בוֹת‬ ֵ ‫ל־תּוֹﬠ‬ ֲ ‫יתי ֶ ֖אל ָכּ‬ ִ֔ ‫ת־בּ ִר‬ ְ ‫רוּ ֶא‬ ֙ ‫ת־ל ְח ִמ֙י ֵ ֣ח ֶלב וָ ָ ֔דם וַ יָּ ֙ ֵפ‬ ַ ‫יב ֶכ֤ם ֶא‬ ְ ‫יתי ְבּ ַה ְק ִ ֽר‬ ֑ ִ ‫ת־בּ‬ ֵ ‫ֶא‬ ‫ֹה־א ַמ ֮ר‬ ָ ‫ימוּן ְלשׁ ְֹמ ֵ ֧רי ִמ ְשׁ ַמ ְר ִ ֛תּי ְבּ ִמ ְק ָדּ ִ ֖שׁי ָל ֶ ֽכם׃ כּ‬ ֗ ‫וְ ֥ל ֹא ְשׁ ַמ ְר ֶ ֖תּם ִמ ְשׁ ֶ ֣מ ֶרת ָק ָד ָ ֑שׁי וַ ְתּ ִשׂ‬ ‫ל־בּן־נֵ ָ֔כר‬ ֶ ‫ל־מ ְק ָדּ ִ ֑שׁי ְל ָכ‬ ִ ‫ל־בּן־נֵ ָ֗כר ֶ ֤ﬠ ֶרל לֵ ֙ב וְ ֶﬠ ֶ֣רל ָבּ ָ֔שׂר ֥ל ֹא יָ ֖בוֹא ֶא‬ ֶ ‫ה ָכּ‬ ֒ ִ‫ֲאד ָֹנ֣י יְ הו‬ ‫ֲא ֶ֕שׁר ְבּ ֖תוֹ� ְבּ ֵנ֥י יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ ֽאל׃‬

You shall say to the rebellious house of Israel: Thus said the Lord GOD, “For too long, O House of Israel have you committed all your abominations, admitting foreigners, foreskinned of heart and foreskinned of flesh, to be in My Sanctuary and profane My Temple when you offer up My Food—the fat and the blood. You have broken my Covenant with all your abominations. You have not carried out the duties concerning My Sacred Offerings, but have appointed them to carry out the duties of My Sanctuary for you.” Thus the Lord GOD said, “Do not let any foreigner, foreskinned of heart and foreskinned of flesh, enter My Sanctuary—no foreigner whatsoever among the people of Israel.”

Werner Lemke notices Ezekiel’s peculiar language and argues that the prophet’s description of foreigners as “foreskinned of heart and foreskinned of flesh ( ‫ֶﬠ ֶ֤רל ֵל ֙ב‬ ‫( ”)וְ ֶﬠ ֶ֣רל ָבּ ָ֔שׂר‬Ezek 44:7,9) notably contrasts with other citations of “foreskinned of the heart.” 52 Lemke is correct in his observation that Ezekiel’s use of “foreskin” language is distinct from other metaphorical uses of circumcision, such as in Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; 30:6, and Jer 4:4. 53 I disagree, however, with his explanation that Ezek 44:7–9 represents “a dismissal of the metaphorical in favor of the literal meaning of circumcision.” 54 Lemke argues that because Ezekiel implies that “all foreigners who are uncircumcised in flesh, are, by definition, also uncircumcised 51 F

52F

53F

52

Werner Lemke, “Circumcision of the Heart: The Journal of a Biblical Metaphor,” in A God So Near: Essays on Old Testament Theology in Honor of Patrick D. Miller, ed. Brent A. Strawn and Nancy R. Bowen (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2003): 299–319. For more on the exclusivist rhetoric in Ezek 44:7–9, see Mark A. Awabdy, “YHWH Exegetes Torah: How Ezekiel 44:7–9 Bars Foreigners from the Sanctuary,” Journal of Biblical Literature 131.4 (2012): 685–703. For more on the identity of the “foreigners” in Ezekiel 44:7,9, see Benjamin Kilchör, “Ezechiel und Ägypten: Ein Vorschlag zur Identifikation der Fremden in Ezechiel 44, 7.9,” Biblische Notizen 179 (2018): 3–17.

53 Lemke, “Circumcision of the Heart,” 311.

54

Lemke, “Circumcision of the Heart,” 312.

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 27

in heart … the close correlation between the two in effect obliterates the distinction between them.” 55 But, how does it follow that Ezekiel dismisses the metaphorical in favor of the literal? Does it not make more sense to say that Ezekiel correlates the literal foreskin of the penis with the metaphorical foreskin of the heart? If this is the case, I think rather than classifying Ezekiel’s circumcision idiom as strictly metaphorical, it makes sense to understand Ezekiel’s usage of circumcision language as a symbiotic blend of Metaphorical and Identity tropes.

Thus, the moral implications of both Metaphorical and Identity circumcision mutually reinforce one another in order to amplify Ezekiel’s rhetoric.

Jer 9:24–25 (MT)/25–26 (LXX) likewise combines an instance of Identity circumcision with a Metaphorical one, but to a different end than Ezekiel.

Jeremiah says, ‫הוּדה‬ ֗ ָ ְ‫ל־מ ְצ ַ ֣ריִ ם וְ ַﬠל־י‬ ִ ‫ל־מוּל ְבּ ָﬠ ְר ָ ֽלה׃ ַﬠ‬ ֖ ‫ל־כּ‬ ָ ‫הו֑ה ָוּפ ַ֣ק ְד ִ֔תּי ַﬠ‬ ָ ְ‫ִה ֵנּ֛ה יָ ִ ֥מים ָבּ ִ ֖אים נְ ֻאם־י‬ ‫צוּצ֣י ֵפ ָ֔אה ַהיּ ְֹשׁ ִ ֖בים ַבּ ִמּ ְד ָ ֑בּר ִ ֤כּי ָכל‬ ֵ ‫ל־ק‬ ְ ‫ל־מוֹאב וְ ַﬠל֙ ָכּ‬ ָ֔ ‫מּוֹן וְ ַﬠ‬ ֙ ‫ל־בּ ֵנ֤י ַﬠ‬ ְ ‫ל־א ֞דוֹם וְ ַﬠ‬ ֱ ‫וְ ַﬠ‬ ‫י־לב׃‬ ֽ ֵ ‫ל־בּית יִ ְשׂ ָר ֵ ֖אל ַﬠ ְר ֵל‬ ֥ ֵ ‫ַהגּוֹיִ ֙ם ֲﬠ ֵר ֔ ִלים וְ ָכ‬

Lo, days are coming—declares the LORD—when I will take notice of all who are circumcised with foreskin, of Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the desert dwellers who have the hair of their temples clipped. For all these nations are foreskinned, but all the House of Israel are foreskinned of heart.

While Ezekiel equates “foreskinned of flesh” with “foreskinned of heart,” Jeremiah constructs a contrasting relationship between “Egypt, Judah, Edom, the Ammonites, Moab, and all the desert dwellers who clip the edges of their hair” who are “foreskinned,” and “the House of Israel” who are “foreskinned of heart” (Jer 9:25/26). Furthermore, the structure of the passage initially groups all who are “circumcised in the foreskin (‫ל־מוּל ְבּ ָﬠ ְר ָ ֽלה‬ ֖ ‫ ”) ָכּ‬together (Jer 9:24/25), and only distinguishes the “foreskinned” nations from the “foreskinned of heart” in the following verse. Blaschke has a particularly compelling interpretation of the passage. He suggests that ‫ל־מוּל ְבּ ָﬠ ְר ָ ֽלה‬ ֖ ‫ ָכּ‬ought to be translated as “all who are circumcised with foreskin,” i.e., “all who are circumcised yet still are foreskinned.” 56 Following this translation, Jeremiah then distinguishes between the nations that are “foreskinned” because they are not of Israel, and the House of Israel that is “foreskinned” because it is “foreskinned of heart.” Thus, unlike 5F

55

Lemke, “Circumcision of the Heart,” 312.

56

Blaschke, Beschneidung, 57–60.

28 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

Ezekiel’s elision of Identity and Metaphorical circumcision tropes, Jeremiah’s rhetoric relies on a distinction between Identity and Metaphorical circumcision.

7. Conclusion In summary, my heuristic map of circumcision discourse in the Hebrew Bible has identified three (or, perhaps, two and a half) literary strands: Covenantal/Ritual, Identity, and Metaphorical circumcision. To reiterate, these tropes group textual instances of “circumcision,” “foreskin,” and related words. They rely on the literary context of the aforementioned words and do not necessarily indicate how the “average Israelite” may or may not have understood his circumcision. Rather, this heuristic helps us understand how the Hebrew Bible presents circumcision.

Covenantal/Ritual circumcision follows a ritual logic. It is a prerequisite for the reception of the Abrahamic covenant, as instituted in Gen 17. This ideology of circumcision does not portray the physical action of circumcision or the state of circumcision as a means of differentiating Jews from others, nor does the ritual carry a moral value beyond its necessity as a ritual element. For example, Josh 5 does not depict the generation of Israelites about to enter the land as any less Israelite before Joshua circumcises them than after, nor are they considered less righteous before their circumcision than after. Rather, their circumcision is necessary in order to fulfill the necessary requirements of the covenant before they can assume the land. Conversely, Identity circumcision, exemplified by the phrase “the uncircumcised Philistines,” imagines circumcision as differentiating “us” from “them.” As a result, circumcision assumes a moral value due to its association with the in-group, while foreskin is denigrated because it signifies an outsider status. Finally, Metaphorical examples of circumcision language function primarily as signifiers of value—of something being either in good order or disordered. So “foreskinned of lips” (e.g., Exod 6:12) implies that one’s speech does not function as it should; people who are “foreskinned of ears” (e.g., Jer 6:10) do not listen properly as they should; and those who are “foreskinned of heart” (e.g., Lev 26:41) are morally disordered.

Although different circumcision ideologies can be identified to some extent, these categories do not account for every instance of circumcision language in the Hebrew Bible. The specific mechanics of each discursive category are somewhat elastic. Furthermore, certain examples seem to blend different circumcision discourses together—sometimes in mutually reinforcing ways, but not always. In the end, “circumcision in the Hebrew Bible” reveals itself not to be a systematic or coherent ideology, as much as it is a collection of sometimes competing—and sometimes cooperating—discourses deployed in various ways to serve a diversity of agenda.

Tong, Defying the Dialectic 29

As a result, it would be misleading to say there is a discourse of circumcision in the Hebrew Bible. Rather, we should speak of discourses of biblical circumcision. The ambiguity of these discourses, and the confusing and complex ways they shift in response to particular rhetorical aims, mean that when later Jewish and Christian intellectuals attempt to articulate a single coherent circumcision ideology, derived from the biblical text, they will choose from a huge buffet of options. As a result, we might understand the differences in Jewish and Christian articulations of circumcision—as well as the different conceptualizations of circumcision within Jewish and Christian communities— not as a cataclysmic break from a biblical consensus, but rather as a continuation of an already contentious conversation about circumcision within the Hebrew Bible itself. No Jewish or Christian text can claim to faithfully represent circumcision as it is articulated in the Bible, since the Bible itself is not consistent.

In the end, then, it is the differences between Jewish and Christian ideologies of circumcision—as well as the diversity of opinion within each of these communities—which are more faithful to biblical circumcision than any paradigm that attempts to establish one ideology as “normative.” Indeed, it seems that there is nothing more biblical than disagreement.

www.jjmjs.org

Just A Flesh Wound? Reassessing Paul’s Supposed Indifference Toward Circumcision and Foreskin in 1 Cor 7:19, Gal 5:6, and 6:15 ∗ Ryan D. Collman University of Edinburgh | ryan.collman@gmail.com JJMJS No. 8 (2021): 30–52 Abstract Three times in his epistles (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15), Paul appears to state that circumcision and foreskin are nothing, and then compares them to something else. In 1 Cor 7:19, Paul negates circumcision and foreskin and puts them in contrast to keeping the commandments of God. In Gal 5:6, Paul states that circumcision and foreskin do not have power, but pistis that is made effective through love does. Lastly, in Gal 6:15, Paul states that neither circumcision nor foreskin, but new creation—full stop. These three verses have led the majority of interpreters to conclude that Paul believes that circumcision and foreskin have become irrelevant or adiaphora, and thus he collapses the distinction between Jews and gentiles. This paper argues that by conflating these three verses and removing them from their epistolary contexts, the bulk of interpreters have fundamentally misunderstood what Paul is communicating. This article argues that Paul negates circumcision and foreskin on rhetorical grounds, not because they are truly nothing or indifferent things for him, but to draw the reader’s attention to the concept with which they are being compared. In this revisionist reading, it becomes clear that circumcision and foreskin—and what they represent—still occupy a valuable space in Paul’s Weltanschauung.

Keywords Paul, circumcision, foreskin, 1 Corinthians, Galatians, indifference, adiaphora ∗

Many thanks to Karin Neutel for coordinating the Expert Meeting on Male Circumcision at the University of Oslo (May 9–11, 2019) where this argument was originally presented.

I learned a great deal from my colleagues that week and am thankful for their critical engagement with this work. I am also indebted to Matthew Novenson, whose incisive feedback has improved this article in numerous ways.

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 31

1. Introduction In one of the most memorable scenes in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, King Arthur encounters the Black Knight. After a few short moments of dueling, the King lops off the Black Knight’s arms and legs. In an attempt to downplay the seriousness of his injuries, the Black Knight exclaims, “’Tis but a scratch!” and “It’s just a flesh wound!” and continues to fight the King. The incredulity of the Black Knight is what makes this scene so iconic and hilarious. It is obvious to everyone but him that his missing limbs are much more than “a scratch” and a mere “flesh wound.” Similarly, when Paul states that circumcision and foreskin are nothing three times in his epistles (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15), we too should be taken aback by the shocking nature of these statements, as they do not seem to cohere with Paul’s reality. How could a circumcised on the eighth-day Jew in the first century make such a claim? Has circumcision become a mere flesh wound for Paul? It is conceivable that a Jew exclaiming that circumcision was just an inconsequential flesh wound could have been treated like an apostate in the eyes of many of his coreligionists. 1 In the same vein, how can Paul say that foreskin—the troublesome bit of flesh that typified gentile otherness—is also now as insignificant as a mere scratch? 2 Looking at the Jewish and Greco-Roman literature of his day, no one else seems to approach circumcision and foreskin with such a level of apparent indifference. 3 1

There are not cut and dry standards that render an individual as an apostate; rather, apostasy is relative based on the perspective of the one who is declaring an individual to be an apostate. On this, see John M. G. Barclay, “Paul Among Diaspora Jews: Anomaly or Apostate?” JSNT 60 (1995): 89–120, at 111–112. Cf. Acts 21:21.

2 Elsewhere in Paul’s writings he too states the circumcision and foreskin are not matters of indifference. For the Jew, circumcision indeed has value (Rom 3:1–2) and for the nonJew, circumcision has damning consequences (Gal 5:2–4). Foreskin—whether literal or metaphorical—is always portrayed negatively in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Gen 34:14; 1 Sam 17:26; Jer 9:26; Ezek 28:10; 44:7–9).

3 E.g., 1 Macc 1:15; Jub. 15:25–26; Philo, Migr. Abr. 89–93; Petronius, Poems 24; Juvenal, Sat. 14.97–106; Celsus, On Medicine 7.25.1. A possible exception to this perspective that some may point to is Ananias in Josephus’ account of the circumcision of Izates of Adiabene (Ant. 20.2.3–4). Ananias states that Izates does not need to adopt circumcision to embrace Jewish customs, but he does note that God will forgive Izates for failing to undergo the procedure. This seems to indicate that Ananias thought circumcision was necessary, but for political expedience it could be omitted, and God would be merciful.

Ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman views of circumcision and foreskin are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Generally speaking, in the Jewish world circumcision was at the center of the covenant with Abraham and was therefore a major component of Jewish male identity.

32 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

In each of these occurrences—1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6, and 6:15—Paul then puts circumcision and foreskin in contrast to something else; keeping the commandments of God, faithfulness working through love, and new creation. In 1 Cor 7:19, he writes, “Circumcision is nothing, and foreskin is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God.” 4 In Gal 5:6, he states, “For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision has power, nor foreskin, but faithfulness working through love.” Lastly, in Gal 6:15, he writes, “For neither circumcision is anything, nor foreskin, but new creation.” The fact that these passages all share a similar theme—that is, the seeming negation of circumcision and foreskin paired with a contrastive ἀλλά—has led many interpreters to conflate these passages into a flattened Pauline maxim in which circumcision and foreskin are declared by Paul to be irrelevant, meaningless, or adiaphora. 5 In other words, in the minds of many, Foreskin, on the other hand, was viewed negatively and as something in need of removal.

In the Greco-Roman world, foreskin was valorized and circumcision—or a deficient foreskin—was viewed as a mutilation or deformity. For a brief overview of how foreskin and circumcision were viewed in the broadly conceived Greco-Roman world, see Frederick M. Hodges, “The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesmē,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75 (2001): 375–405; Thomas R. Blanton IV, “The Expressive Prepuce: Philo’s Defense of Judaic Circumcision in Greek and Roman Contexts,” SPhiloA 31 (2019): 127–161. Notably, outside of the Jewish people there were other Near Eastern nations that practiced some form of circumcision (e.g., Egyptians).

4 All biblical translations in this article are my own.

5 For a brief discussion of “neither circumcision, nor foreskin” as a Pauline maxim in the context of ancient rhetoric and adiaphora, see Rollin A. Ramsaran, “Paul and Maxims,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, ed. J. Paul Sampley (Harrisburg, PA: Trinity, 2003), 429–456, esp. 437–448. For a tempered approach to Paul and adiaphora, see Will Deming, “Paul and Indifferent Things,” in Sampley, Paul in the Greco-Roman World, 384– 403. Discussions of adiaphora in Paul have tended to flatten these circumcision and foreskin texts into a single maxim—a practice I argue against below. While some recent applications of adiaphora in the study of Paul (e.g., Ramsaran and Deming, noted above) have been careful to note the various types of indifferent things present in Stoic thought— namely, preferred and unpreferred indifferent things—the broad, generic application of adiaphora that is common in scholarship has framed circumcision and foreskin as being irrelevant or insignificant without due consideration for the positive and negative spaces they occupy in Paul’s Weltanschauung. Notably, Paul never comments negatively on the circumcision of Jews, but he always speaks negatively concerning the adoption of circumcision by gentiles (a possible exception to this would be Phil 3:2–3, but there I believe Paul’s opponents are Judaizing gentiles, and the “circumcision” in Phil 3:3 refers to Paul and Timothy, the Jewish authors of the letter). In fact, Paul highlights the value that

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 33

circumcision has become “just a flesh wound” for Paul. This paper pushes back against this prevalent stream of interpretation, opting for a more contextual approach to these texts in which the various nuances of each occurrence are appreciated. 6 2. Circumcision and Foreskin in Paul’s Thought Before I comment on the passages that are the subject of this article, it is worth discussing the place of circumcision and foreskin in Paul’s thought due the important role these categories play in his Weltanschauung. As Nina Livesey has demonstrated, Paul uses circumcision and foreskin in his letters in various ways to make specific points. He employs them metonymically, metaphorically, and as actual references to the state of the male member. 7 Most important for understanding Paul’s use of these terms is how he can neatly divide the entirety of humanity into those who are circumcised and those who are foreskinned; literally translated, Paul simply refers to all human males as either circumcisions or foreskins (Rom 3:30; 4:9–12; Gal 2:7). 8 This follows Paul’s bifurcation of all humanity into the categories of Jews and gentiles/the nations (Rom 3:29; 9:24; 1 Cor 1:23; Gal 2:14–15; cf. Rom 1:16; 2:9–10; 3:9; 10:12; 1 Cor 1:22, 24; 10:32; 12:13; Gal 3:28). It is important to recognize that for Paul, the division between the circumcision does have for the Jew in Rom 3:1–2, whereas its adoption only has damning consequences for gentiles (e.g., Gal 5:2–4). By relegating circumcision and foreskin to the realm of indifferent things, scholars downplay the continuing place they have in Paul’s understanding of Jews and gentiles and their relationship to the god of Israel. Even when one is careful enough to employ the sub-categories of preferred and unpreferred indifferent things when discussing circumcision and foreskin, these important distinctions are obscured. Given that Paul’s understanding of circumcision and foreskin are intimately tied to his bifurcated understanding of humanity, scholars should avoid universal applications of adiaphora language when looking at circumcision and foreskin in Paul’s letters.

6 On the importance of contextualized readings of Paul’s rhetoric, Mark Nanos writes, “Paul’s rhetoric is rhetorical. When it is isolated from its argumentative context for nonJews within the first century, from Jewish communal and conceptual concerns, and made into universal-whatever-the-context-truths for every person, for all times, interpretations run a high risk of missing entirely what the historical Paul and his Judaism represented to his audiences, the good news along with the bad” (“Paul and Judaism: Why not Paul’s Judaism,” in Reading Paul within Judaism [Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017], 3–59, at 44). See also, Krister Stendahl, Paul Among Jews and Gentiles (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1976), 72–73.

7 Nina E. Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol (WUNT 2/295; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 120–122. See also, Joel Marcus, “The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35 (1989): 67–81, at 73–76.

8 Note the androcentric nature of Paul’s division of humanity.

34 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

circumcision and the foreskin is a natural one. In Gal 2:15, Paul states that he and Peter are Jews by nature (ἡμεῖς φύσει Ἰουδαῖοι), and not sinners born from gentiles (οὐκ ἐξ ἐθνῶν ἁμαρτωλοί). Correspondingly, in Rom 2:27, Paul speaks of those who are “the foreskin from nature” (ἡ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία), which is an unusual thing to say. To modern readers, saying that someone is “the foreskin from nature” or “was born foreskinned” is simply an empirical truth that applies to all infant males—barring some kind of physical anomaly or divine intrauterine circumcision. For Paul, however, this natural state of being foreskinned only applies to gentiles; Jews are Jews by nature and are thus naturally circumcised. 9 For Paul, a foreskinned Jew is essentially an oxymoron. 10 This natural distinction between Jews and gentiles is one of the reasons why Paul argues so vehemently against the adoption of circumcision amongst the gentiles in his assemblies. If the gentile men in his assemblies began to adopt circumcision, they would be acting against their nature. 11 While there are currently debates about whether or not Paul actually thought a gentile could become a Jew through proselyte circumcision, 12 the important thing to note for our present purposes is the fact that Paul’s prohibition against gentile adoption of circumcision—and his prohibition against the circumcised undergoing epispasm in 1 Cor 7:18—preserves difference rather than removes it. 13

9

See Pamela Eisenbaum, “Is Paul the Father of Misogyny and Antisemitism? ” CrossCurrents 50 (2000): 506–524, at 517. Paula Fredriksen (Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle [New Haven: Yale, 2017], 124) notes that in Gal 2:15 Paul’s statement implies that gentiles are sinful by nature. In the same way, Rom 2:27 implies that Jews are from nature circumcised. I am indebted to Logan Williams for directing me to this fragment from Euripides that also attests this idea: ἡ φύσις ἑκάστῳ τοῦ γένους ἐστὶν πατρίς; The nature of the race belonging to each [man] is [his] fatherland (Dramatic Fragments 1113; the authenticity of the fragment, however, is debated).

10 Depending on how one understands the place of Acts in Pauline studies, perhaps this conception of the nature of Jews and gentiles could shed light on why Paul had Timothy circumcised (Acts 16:3).

11 Cf. 1 Cor 11:14.

12 See Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); idem, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).

13 J. Brian Tucker, Remain in Your Calling (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2011), 75–80; Lionel J. Windsor, Paul and the Vocation of Israel (BZNW 205; Berlin: de Gruyter, 2014), 46–47; Karin B. Neutel, A Cosmopolitan Ideal (LNTS 513; London: T&T Clark, 2015), 100.

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 35

3. The Prevailing Interpretation As briefly noted in the introduction, the prevailing interpretive trend when dealing with these texts is to flatten them into a single maxim in which circumcision and foreskin become truly nothing for Paul. David Horrell offers a somewhat representative view of these three texts: “Paul is clear that the identity distinction between Jewish and Gentile Christians, the circumcised and the uncircumcised, is now ‘nothing’ (οὐδέν), since both are part of God‘s new creation in Christ (1 Cor 7:19; Gal 5:6; 6:15).” 14 In the same vein, Michael Bird offers this reading: “Participation in this new creation means that the distinctions inherent in the old order, even those mandated “under the law,” cease to have any intrinsic and ongoing validity. Hence [Paul’s] statements [in Gal 5:6, 6:15, and 1 Cor 7:19].” 15 So too, Martinus C. de Boer comments that “[Paul’s] claim that circumcision is a matter of indifference just like uncircumcision (5:6; 6:15; cf. 1 Cor 7:19)…relativizes its importance completely.” 16 Additionally, J. Louis Martyn also conflates these three verses in an attempt to highlight his understanding of the apocalyptic undoing of religious pairs like circumcision and foreskin. 17 On his reading, circumcision and foreskin as religious categories are done away with in

David G. Horrell, “‘No Longer Jew or Greek’: Paul’s Corporate Christology and the Construction of Christian Community,” in Christology, Controversy and Community: New Testament Essays in Honour of David R. Catchpole, ed. David G. Horrell and Christopher M. Tuckett (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 321–344, at 343, see also 337–338.

15 Michael F. Bird, An Anomalous Jew: Paul among Jews, Greeks, and Romans (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016), 6. Later on in this volume, Bird offers a further interpretation of these texts: “Paul’s denial of the value of circumcision and uncircumcision in favor of the value of “new creation” in Gal 6:15 is paralleled by (1) the earlier comment in Gal 5:6, where Paul also denied the important of circumcision and uncircumcision, since what truly matters is ‘faith becoming effective through love,’ which is soon after expressed in terms of Lev 19:18 about love of neighbor in Gal 5:14; and (2) elsewhere, in 1 Cor 7:19, Paul makes a similar denial to that of Gal 6:15 about the insignificance of circumcision and uncircumcision relative to the paramount imperative of ‘obeying the commandments of God.’ In other words, Paul is saying that circumcision and uncircumcision are insignificant in the new creation, and yet the new creation requires love, which fulfills the law and keeps God’s commandments. Thus, new creation and law-as-love command are not only compatible but prescribed by Paul” (161).

16 Martinus C. de Boer, Galatians: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 323.

17 J. Louis Martyn, Galatians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 472–474, 518–519.

14

36 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

the new cosmos. While more examples of this general line of interpretation could be supplied, the point has been sufficiently made. 18 E. P. Sanders has offered a slightly more nuanced interpretation of these three texts, but his conclusions are similar to those proposed above. Sanders notes that in 1 Cor 7:19, circumcision and foreskin are simply matters of indifference, but in the context of Galatians, circumcision is no longer a matter of indifference. 19 In the preceding verses (5:2–5), the acceptance of circumcision leads to a Galatian being cut off from Christ and represents a falling away from grace. Due to this, Sanders rightly notes that Paul’s position in Galatians is not one of indifference. So this question arises for Sanders: “[I]s circumcision a matter of indifference or is it wrong for gentile converts? ” 20 Sanders’ solution to this question is that Paul’s original stance is represented in 1 Cor 7:17–19; circumcision does not matter, but it is better to not change. When, however, circumcision was presented as being necessary for salvation, Paul came to the conclusion that circumcision was entirely wrong. He then offers this brief synopsis of what Paul means in Gal 5:6 and 6:15: “In truth, circumcision does not matter, it only matters because you are being compelled and I am being attacked.” 21 It is worth noting that many—but not all—interpreters focus on the apparent devaluation of circumcision without giving due consideration to the presence of foreskin in these texts. This tendency can be attributed to the long history of interpretation of Paul in which circumcision, Jewish identity, and the E.g., Friedrich Wilhelm Horn, “Der Verzicht auf die Beschneidung im frühen Christentum,” NTS 42 (1996): 479–505, at 485; Andreas Blaschke, Beschneidung: Zeugnisse der Bibel und verwandter Texte (TANZ 28; Tübingen: Francke, 1998), 386–387; John Anthony Dunne, Persecution and Participation in Galatians (WUNT 2/454; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 48 n.17.

19 E. P. Sanders, Paul: The Apostle’s Life, Letters, and Thought (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 495–496.

20 Ibid., 496.

21 Ibid., 496. Similarly, Terence L. Donaldson comments that Paul treats circumcision as an adiaphoron—citing 1 Cor 7:19, Gal 5:6, 6:15—but only when it was not being imposed on gentiles as a condition of salvation (Paul and the Gentiles: Remapping the Apostle's Convictional World [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1997], 280). This position is similar to the one proposed by Neutel: “Even though Paul can describe circumcision as meaningless, whether a person becomes circumcised or not is still not a matter of indifference. The act is not value-neutral: while there is nothing positive to gain from circumcising, for him there is much to lose in doing so” (A Cosmopolitan Ideal, 101). See also, Craig S. Keener, Galatians (NCBC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 286.

18

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 37

law are either redefined or abrogated by Paul. Additionally, the common translation of ἀκροβυστία as “uncircumcision” rather than “foreskin” also aids in overlooking this aspect of these texts. 22 By translating ἀκροβυστία as “uncircumcision,” the interpreter places the focus on the lack of circumcision— the chief identifying mark of a Jew—rather than the presence of foreskin—a fleshy problem that separated non-Jews from Jews. 23 By emphasizing the lack of circumcision as some kind of value-free, natural state, many have privileged nonJewish identity over a Jewish one. This can be seen in some ways in James Dunn’s appraisal of Gal 5:6 and 6:15. Throughout his essay, “Neither Circumcision nor uncircumcision, but…,” Dunn consistently points out that for Paul there is an antithesis between circumcision and Christ, and circumcision and the cross, but he only briefly mentions how foreskin fits into the equation. 24 For Dunn, these “neither…nor…” statements only include foreskin as the counterpart to circumcision in order to demonstrate that all ethnic difference is done away with in Christ. 25 4. Translation and Contextual Issues A key issue that arises when looking at these texts side by side is the different forms they take. While each of these verses includes the pair of circumcision and foreskin and a contrastive ἀλλά, they all vary in form and in content. In 1 Cor 7:19, Paul’s statement takes on its simplest form. Circumcision and foreskin are both individually declared to be nothing, and then he makes the declaration, “but keeping the commandments of God.” In Gal 5:6, the sentence begins with the conjunction γάρ and the prepositional phrase, “in Christ Jesus” (ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ), which connects this verse to what precedes it and limits the scope to the sphere of being in Christ Jesus. Notably, the verb used here is not a simple negation as in 1 On the (mis)translation of ἀκροβυστία in Pauline scholarship, see Karin B. Neutel, “Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin: The Significance of ἀκροβυστία for Paul’s Argument about Circumcision in Romans 4:9–12,” in this issue: JJMJS 8 (2021): 53–74.

23 This is from the perspective of an ancient Jew. We know of other ancient civilizations that practiced some form of circumcision, but they do not seem to be reckoned as being truly or properly circumcised by some of their Jewish contemporaries (e.g., Jer 9:25–26).

24 James D. G. Dunn, “Neither circumcision nor uncircumcision, but…,” in his The New Perspective on Paul, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008), 313–337.

25 On the problematic universalistic assumptions present in Dunn’s discussion of circumcision and Jewish identity, see John M. G. Barclay, “Paul, the Gift, and the Battle Over Gentile Circumcision: Revisiting the Logic of Galatians,” ABR 58 (2010): 36–56, at 45–46. See also, Anders Runesson, “Particularistic Judaism and Universalistic Christianity?

Some Critical Remarks on Terminology and Theology,” ST 53 (1999): 55–75.

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Cor 7:19 and Gal 6:15—though even both of those negations take on different forms—but in Gal 5:6 Paul uses ἰσχύει to demonstrate the lack of power that circumcision and foreskin have. He then contrasts this with “faith working through love” (πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη). Lastly, in Gal 6:15, Paul uses the conjunction γάρ, which links this statement to what proceeds it, negates circumcision and foreskin, and then contrasts this negation with the simple declaration, “but new creation” (καινὴ κτίσις). It is worth noting that the textual transmission of Gal 6:15 attempts to harmonize it to Gal 5:6. In a number of manuscripts, the prepositional phrase ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ is inserted into 6:15 to match the form of 5:6. 26 Additionally, some manuscripts also attempt to harmonize these verses by inserting ἰσχύει into 6:15. 27 1 Cor 7:19: ἡ περιτομὴ οὐδέν ἐστιν καὶ ἡ ἀκροβυστία οὐδέν ἐστιν, ἀλλὰ τήρησις ἐντολῶν θεοῦ.

Gal 5:6: ἐν γὰρ Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ οὔτε περιτομή τι ἰσχύει οὔτε ἀκροβυστία ἀλλὰ πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη.

Gal 6:15: οὔτε γὰρ περιτομή τί ἐστιν οὔτε ἀκροβυστία ἀλλὰ καινὴ κτίσις.

Circumcision is nothing and foreskin is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God. For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision has any power, nor foreskin, but faithfulness working through love.

For neither circumcision is anything, nor foreskin, but new creation.

Given the various contexts these verses come from, the different forms they take, and the different elements at the end of each verse, it seems unwise to flatten these into a single Pauline maxim before understanding them in their epistolary contexts. 28 I will now offer readings of these three texts in order to show how “neither circumcision, nor foreskin” is functioning in each instance.

26 27 28

εν γαρ Χριστω Ιησου ουτε is the variant reading in ‫ א‬A C D F G K L P 𝔐𝔐 lat and others. ισχυει appears in ‫א‬² D² K L P 𝔐𝔐 lat and others.

This is correctly noted by James D. G. Dunn, A Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; London: A & C Black, 1995), 342. He notes the differing contexts and vocabulary in each instance and argues against those who believe this was an existing maxim—either a Pauline one, or a “Jewish-Christian” one.

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 39

5. 1 Corinthians 7:19 In 1 Cor 7:17–20, Paul lays out what he says is a universal rule for all of his assemblies.

Nevertheless, 29 as the Lord assigned to each one, as God has called each one, in this way he should walk. And thus I make this rule 30 in all the assemblies. Was anyone circumcised when called? Let him not undergo epispasm. Was anyone called in foreskin? Let him not undergo circumcision. Circumcision is nothing and foreskin is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God. Each in the calling in which he was called, in this remain.

Briefly stated, this rule outlines the relevance of existing social identities in Paul’s assemblies. The central point around which Paul’s rule revolves is the imperative to walk (περιπατείτω) according to their calling in life—that is—they should live their lives in accordance with their social location at the time of their call to follow Christ. 31 Paul specifically spells this out in reference to one’s status as circumcised or foreskinned, or slave or free in the following verses. As a handful of recent interpreters have noted, it is beneficial to read Paul’s employment of circumcision and foreskin here as functioning metonymically. 32 That is, when Paul is referring to circumcision and foreskin in this section—though he is making direct reference to the status of one’s penis—this stands in the place of Jewish or non-Jewish identity. When Paul states that the circumcision should not seek epispasm and the foreskin should not seek circumcision, he is exhorting Jews and non-Jews to remain as such. They are not to remake their foreskins nor remove them.

Here, Εἰ μὴ likely refers back to the exception Paul makes in 7:15. Cf. Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1987), 334.

30 The vast majority of manuscripts contain διατάσσομαι, which is likely the original reading, but a few (D* F G latt) replace it with διδάσκω. This variant can be accounted for by looking to 4:17, where Paul writes, ἐν πάσῃ ἐκκλησίᾳ διδάσκω. Given the similar language found in 7:17, it is likely that some scribes accidentally replaced διατάσσομαι with διδάσκω due to their familiarity with 4:17 or in order to make the two texts have terminological agreement.

31 Paul typically uses περιπατέω to refer to the conduct of individuals in his assemblies (1 Thess 2:12; Gal 5:16; 1 Cor 3:3; 2 Cor 10:2–3; 12:18; Rom 6:4; 8:4; 13:13; 14:15).

32 Paul also employs these terms metonymically elsewhere: Rom 2:26–27; 3:30; 4:9; 15:8; Gal 2:7–9; Phil 3:3. On the metonymic use of circumcision and foreskin in Paul, see James D. G. Dunn, “Who Did Paul Think He Was? A Study of Jewish-Christian Identity,” NTS 45 (1999): 174–193, at 189–190; Marcus, “Circumcision and Uncircumcision,” 77–79; Livesey, Malleable Symbol, 77–122; Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 9.

29

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After commanding that they maintain the status quo, 33 Paul gives his reasoning for this: “Circumcision is nothing and foreskin is nothing, but keeping the commandments of God” (1 Cor 7:19). As many interpreters have pointed out, this statement is somewhat nonsensical. Since circumcision was one of the chief commandments for Jews (Gen 17, Lev 12:3, Jub. 15), how can Paul say that what matters is keeping the commandments of God, while saying that circumcision is nothing? A common exegetical trend is to claim that through Paul’s negation of circumcision and foreskin, he redefines what the commandments of God are. For example, N. T. Wright notes that this verse should be taken as a deliberate use of irony by Paul: “Paul knew as well as anyone that circumcision was itself one of the ‘commandments’, and here he was saying that it was irrelevant!” 34 Similarly, Daniel Boyarin comments that Paul views circumcision and foreskin as adiaphora and that literal observance of the law has become irrelevant, which constitutes a dismissal of Judaism—and presumably the law—in its entirety. 35 So too Barrett, Sanders, and Schreiner all modify the contents of the commandments of God in order to make sense of this verse. 36 These perspectives all rely on a reading of this text in which circumcision and foreskin are truly nothing, and thus the commandments of God must be different than or a modified version of those found in the Torah. 37 Does Paul, however, really think of circumcision and foreskin as nothing—or irrelevant—as so many exegetes have claimed? The main problem with taking this text at face value is the surrounding context in which Paul outlines his rule for individuals to walk in and remain in the calling to which they were called. Paul demands that both Jews and gentiles remain in their respective identities, upholding their distinctive natures. Does the language of “nothing” point to relativization, unimportance, or the removal of distinction, or is Paul doing something else here? In upholding these identities in 7:17–18, Paul demonstrates that these statuses have a continuing value and function for those Albert Schweitzer, The Mysticism of Paul the Apostle, trans. William Montgomery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 192–198.

34 N. T. Wright, Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2013), 1434.

35 Daniel Boyarin, A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 112, 290 n.10.

36 C. K. Barrett, A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians (BNTC; London: A&C Black, 1968), 169; E. P. Sanders, Paul, the Law, and the Jewish People (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1983), 103; Thomas R. Schreiner, “The Abolition and Fulfillment of the Law in Paul,” JSNT 35 (1989): 47–74, at 62.

37 Elsewhere, ἐντολή is used to refer to the contents of Torah; see Rom 7:8-12; 13:9; Matt 19:17–19; Sir 32:23–24; Josephus, Ant. 8.120.

33

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 41

in the ekklēsia. To understand what might be going on in 7:19, it is helpful to look at what Paul says elsewhere about things that are “nothing.” 1 Cor 3:5–7 is a text ripe for comparison: “What then is Apollos? What then is Paul? Agents through whom you believed, and each as the Lord gave. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything (οὔτε…ἐστίν τι οὔτε), but God who gives growth.” Does Paul here negate the value of his or Apollos’ work? Of course not; he is using the language of comparison and hyperbole to highlight how great God’s work is when compared to the work of mere men. Likewise, in 2 Cor 12:11 Paul states, “…for I am not less than the super-apostles, even though I am nothing (οὐδέν εἰμι).” Once again, is Paul really nothing, or is he using hyperbole to make a rhetorical point about the socalled “super-apostles”? Both of these texts demonstrate the possibility that Paul’s assertion that circumcision and foreskin are nothing could be hyperbole in 1 Cor 7:19. 38 David Rudolph has noted that a similar type of rhetorical device may also be at work here. He points out that Paul may be employing a “dialectical negation” to demonstrate that, “‘the not…but…’ antithesis need not be understood as an ‘either…or,’ but rather with the force of ‘more important than.’” 39 In his A Grammar of the NT Diction, G. B. Winer points out the crucial role that context plays in understanding how one should interpret this type of negation and comparison (οὐ…ἀλλά [or οὐδέν…ἀλλά in the current text]): “Or, as in other passages, an absolute negation is, on rhetorical grounds, employed instead of a conditional (relative), not for the purpose of really (logically) cancelling the first conception, but in order to direct the undivided attention to the second, so that the

Additionally, David Rudolph (A Jew to the Jews: Jewish Contours of Pauline Flexibility in 1 Corinthians 9:19–23, 2nd ed. [Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2016], 30) has noted that Hosea 6:6 could also serve as a helpful comparison: “For I desire covenant faithfulness (‫ )חסד‬and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.” Yahweh’s relationship with Israel demands sacrifice, but here the author is using hyperbole or dialectical negation to say that ‫ חסד‬is more important.

38

39

Rudolph, A Jew to the Jews, 30; quote from James D. G. Dunn, Jesus, Paul and the Law: Studies in Mark and Galatians (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1990), 51. It should be noted that Dunn does not apply this type of argument to his reading of 1 Corinthians 7:19.

The term “dialectical negation” comes from Heinz Kruse, “Die ‘dialektische Negation’ als semitisches Idiom,” VT 4 (1954): 385–400. See also Andrew H. Bartelt, “Dialectical Negation: An Exegetical Both/And,” in “Hear the Word of Yahweh”: Essays on Scripture and Archaeology in Honor of Horace D. Hummel, ed. Dean O. Wenthe, Paul L. Schrieber, and Lee A. Maxwell (St. Louis: Concordia, 2002), 57–66.

42 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

first may almost disappear.” 40 The reason for Paul’s rhetoric is not to erase the difference between circumcision and foreskin—Jewish and non-Jewish identity— nor is it to state their irrelevance, rather, it is used to highlight the importance of keeping the commandments of God. Since Paul is primarily making a legal argument about the way in which Jews and gentiles in Christ should live (περιπατείτω, 7:17), he rhetorically negates their respective identities in order to place his emphasis on necessity of keeping the commandments of God. 41 The next step in making sense of this verse is determining how the commandment of circumcision fits into the picture. Recently, a creative solution to this perplexing issue has been gaining traction among a group of scholars in the wide-ranging Paul within Judaism Schule. This view proposes that the commandments of God are not monolithic amongst all people groups; rather, there are a set of commandments applicable to Jews and a set for non-Jews. The first fully formed expression of this solution was made by Peter Tomson in his monograph, Paul and the Jewish Law. 42 Subsequently, this view has been espoused

G. B. Winer, A Grammar of the NT Diction, trans. Edward Masson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1860), 518–519.

41 Based on this rhetoric some have argued that Paul is relativizing this aspect of their previous identities, but the language of reprioritization offered by Tucker (Remain in Your Calling, 77–79) seems to capture Paul’s ideas more thoughtfully. While relativization and reprioritization may seem to be functionally equivalent language, relativizing implies that circumcision and foreskin lose their significance and “downplays the need for [Paul’s] rule” (78). Reprioritization, on the other hand, upholds the particular identities of Jews and gentiles without diminishing them. This distinction is important as it directly impacts what it means to keep the commandments of God. Although he uses the language of relativization, William S. Campbell captures the ongoing significance these various aspects of identity have: “We need to be more careful in Pauline studies in our use of words such as ‘obsolete’ or ‘abrogated’ especially in ethical contexts. This world may be passing away but even if it is, the whole of one’s Christian calling has to be lived within it… Thus whilst theologically, ethnic, gender, and sexual issues are relativized by the call of Christ, they are neither obsolete nor irrelevant when it comes to real life situations, as liberation theology and other contextual theologies have long since stressed” (The Creation of Christian Identity [LNTS 322; London: T&T Clark, 2006], 93; emphasis original). Campbell has since abandoned the language of relativization and now prefers to use reprioritization (William S. Campbell, “As Having and as Not Having: Paul, Circumcision, and Indifferent Things in 1 Corinthians 7:17–32a,” in his Unity and Diversity in Christ: Interpreting Paul in Context: Collected Essays [Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2013], 106–126, at 109).

42 Peter J. Tomson, Paul and the Jewish Law: Halakha in the Letters of the Apostle to the Gentiles (CRINT 1; Assen: Van Gorcum; Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990), 88–89, 271–274.

40

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 43

by Markus Bockmuehl, 43 Pamela Eisenbaum, 44 David Rudolph, 45 J. Brian Tucker, 46 Anders Runesson, 47 Matthew Thiessen, 48 and others. 49 While each of these scholars’ interpretations have their own nuances, the core argument they make is broadly the same: Jews in the Jesus movement are still responsible for keeping the traditional law of their ancestors, and gentiles—although not responsible for the Jewish law—must keep the commandments that pertain to them. For most of the interpreters above, 50 these commandments are represented in the apostolic decree of Acts 15:20 and 29, or are akin to—what are later referred to in rabbinic literature 51 as—the Noachide Commandments. 52 This view coheres with Paul’s rule, specifically the call to walk in the way each was assigned and called (ἑκάστῳ ὡς ἐμέρισεν ὁ κύριος, ἕκαστον ὡς κέκληκεν ὁ θεός, οὕτως περιπατείτω Markus Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches: Halakhah and the Beginning of Christian Public Ethics (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 170–172.

44 Pamela Eisenbaum, Paul Was Not a Christian (New York: Harper One, 2009), 62–63.

45 Rudolph, A Jew to the Jews, 82–85.

46 Tucker, Remain in Your Calling, 77–80.

47 Runesson, “Paul’s Rule in All the Ekklēsiai,” in Introduction to Messianic Judaism: Its Ecclesial Context and Biblical Foundations, ed. David Rudolph and Joel Willits (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2013), 214–233, at 216–219.

48 Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 8–11.

49 It is worth noting that, like scholars who identify with the New Perpective on Paul, those who position themselves within the Paul within Judaism Schule are not monolithic. On this text in particular, Paula Fredriksen’s reading is vastly different. She argues that this text only deals with gentiles—both circumcised proselytes and naturally foreskinned—and the commandments that pertain to them, not Jews (Pagans’ Apostle, 107). Here, her understanding of the commandments of God for gentiles closely aligns with the view presented by Anders Runesson in the footnote below. She emphasizes that the commandments in 7:19 refer to “community love and the standard of decent community life” (108, 111).

50 On this point, Runesson deviates (“Paul’s Rule,” 217). He refers to Rom 13:10 (“love is the fulfilling of the law”) and Rom 5:5 (“God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the holy pneuma”) to make the argument that since the condensed form of the law is love, and since Christ-followers have love through the pneuma, then all are able to obey “the commandments of God, the essence of which is love” (218). Jews in Christ, however, are still liable to obey the whole law.

51 The first explicit Rabbinic mention of the Noachide Commandments is found in t. ʿAbod. Zar. 8:4.

52 For a brief but thorough discussion of the Noachide Commandments, their antecedents in Second Temple texts, and their rabbinic development, see Bockmuehl, Jewish Law in Gentile Churches, 145–73. See also, Christine Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law? Early Perspectives (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015).

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[7:17]). If their callings are different and they are to remain in their respective callings, it plausibly follows that the commandments applicable to each are also different. When 1 Cor 7:19 is read in the context of Paul’s rule for all of his ekklēsiai, it becomes clear that circumcision and foreskin continue to have relevance for Paul and are not simply declared to be nothing.

6. Galatians 6:15 Due to the similarity in vocabulary and form between Gal 6:15 and 1 Cor 7:19, I will look at Gal 6:15 before finally turning to 5:6. In Gal 6:15, Paul makes the assertion that “neither circumcision is anything, nor foreskin, but new creation.”

Like the similar phrase in 1 Cor 7:19, many interpreters have concluded from this text that circumcision and foreskin are now nothing for Paul, and all that matters is “new creation.” 53 In this section of Galatians, Paul continues his argument against the imposition of circumcision on the Galatian men. He states that those who are compelling the Galatians to be circumcised do so to make a good showing in the flesh and to avoid persecution. Furthermore, the reason they want to have the Galatians circumcised is so that they can boast in their flesh. 54 In contrast to these individuals, Paul notes that he himself will only boast in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ, through which the cosmos has been crucified to him and he to the cosmos. Paul then makes the familiar declaration in 6:15: “For neither circumcision is anything, nor foreskin, but new creation.”

When approaching Gal 6:15, it is important to note this context in which it occurs, specifically how 6:15 is connected to what precedes it in 6:14. 55 The first thing we must do when reading 6:15 is to establish the connection Paul makes between 6:14 and 6:15 though the conjunction γάρ. It seems most likely that Paul here uses γάρ in 6:15 in its basic sense to explain the cause or reason for his statement in 6:14. 56 If Paul is using the conjunction γάρ in this manner, we must

53 54

E.g., Martyn, Galatians, 565.

James Dunn describes the fleshly boast of the opponents as a “(typically Jewish) attitude” that Paul was no longer able to share (Galatians, 340). This is unhelpful for a number of reasons, notably because the boast that Paul attributes to his opponents is not related to their own flesh (i.e., their circumcised penises or ethnic origin), but the flesh of the Galatians (“boast in your flesh”; ἐν τῇ ὑμετέρᾳ σαρκὶ καυχήσωνται; Gal 6:13) As far as I am aware, there is no evidence that points to Jews boasting in the flesh of circumcised converts.

Here, Dunn incorrectly reads his ethnocentric depiction of ancient Judaism into this text.

55 Jeff Hubing, Crucifixion and New Creation: The Strategic Purpose of Galatians 6:11–17 (LNTS 508; London: T&T Clark, 2015), 229–245.

56 BDF §452; BDAG, s.v. “γάρ.”

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 45

then determine what Paul is using 6:15 to explain in 6:14; is he using it to explain the main clause or the subordinate clause? 57 Does Paul use his negation of circumcision and foreskin, and his emphasis on new creation to explain his reason for boasting in the cross, or to explain the mutual crucifixion between the cosmos and himself? The subordinate clause, “through which the cosmos has been crucified to me and I to the cosmos,” serves to lay out one of the results that is effected by the cross of Christ, so it does not seem likely that Paul is using 6:15 to explain this sub-clause. 58 If 6:15 served to build on Paul and the cosmos’ mutual crucifixion, one would expect to find οὖν rather than γάρ in 6:15, which would read thusly: “…through which the cosmos has been crucified to me and I to the cosmos.

Therefore, neither circumcision is anything, nor foreskin…” Rather, in 6:15 we have γάρ, which serves to explain the main clause of 6:14, that is, why Paul only boasts in the cross of Christ. The reason that Paul only boasts in the cross of Christ is because circumcision and foreskin are both nothing, but new creation—full stop. While we have established the syntactic relationship between the two verses, the meaning of 6:15 is still slightly opaque.

As I have noted above, circumcision and foreskin both have a place in Paul’s worldview and in his understanding of the relevant identities of Jews and gentiles. In Galatians, it is especially clear that circumcision and foreskin are not simply nothing or irrelevant for Paul. 59 The entire letter was written to prevent foreskinned gentiles from undergoing circumcision because it would have damning consequences for them. If they undergo circumcision, then Christ will not benefit them (5:2) and they will be cut off from Christ and fall away from grace (5:4). It seems unlikely that Paul would now conclude his letter—with his own pen (6:11)—stating that circumcision and foreskin are now irrelevant, meaningless, or adiaphora; this could potentially be interpreted as undoing much of what he previously wrote. Since 6:15 serves to explain Paul’s reason for boasting in the cross of Christ—and not in flesh, like those seeking to impose circumcision (6:13)—Paul’s declaration that circumcision and foreskin are nothing should be interpreted as relating to their relevant merits as things to boast in. 60 That is,

Hubing, Crucifixion and New Creation, 237.

Pace Martyn, Galatians, 565.

59 See note 20 above.

60 So William S. Campbell, “‘I Rate All things as Loss’: Paul’s Puzzling Accounting System: Judaism as Loss or the Re-evaluation of All Things in Christ,” in his Unity and Diversity in Christ, 203–223, at 210–211. While Campbell rightly highlights the context of boasting in which this statement is made, his overall reading of this text focuses on the relative value of circumcision and foreskin in relationship to the cross and new creation.

57 58

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circumcision is nothing to boast in and neither is foreskin. 61 The inclusion of foreskin here may seem a bit unusual; who would boast in foreskin? Paul may simply have included it as the counterpart to circumcision, but there are also two other possible explanations: 1) like his rivals who desired to boast in the circumcised flesh of the Galatians, Paul too could have been tempted to boast in the preservation of their foreskins as an accomplishment of his mission; or 2) in the Greco-Roman world, foreskin was valorized and an important aspect of the ideal penis and male body. It is possible that foreskinned Galatian males could have had cultural reasons for boasting in their foreskin over circumcised Jews or Judaized gentiles. 62 Situating this verse within the context of boasting also helps us make sense of Paul’s abrupt utterance, “but new creation” (ἀλλὰ καινὴ κτίσις; 6:15). Like 1 Cor 7:19, Paul is here using the rhetoric of comparison 63 to demonstrate that— while circumcision and foreskin are not things to boast in—new creation is something to boast in. 64 This new creation corresponds to the cross of Christ and being in Christ. As Paul writes in 2 Cor 5:17, “So if anyone is in Christ—new creation!” 65 Throughout his epistles Paul describes proper and improper boasting.

In Romans, Galatians, 1 Corinthians, and Philippians—all of the Pauline epistles

61

Alternatively, one could read circumcision and foreskin as metonymically referring to Jewish and non-Jewish identity, but given the context of this passage, it seems more probable that Paul is referring specifically to the practice of circumcision.

62 On the value placed on penile aesthetics in the Greco-Roman world, see Hodges, “The Ideal Prepuce”; Blanton, “The Expressive Prepuce.”

63 Contra Martyn (Galatians, 565), who explicitly denies the possibility that Paul is speaking in comparative terms.

64 It is possible to understand Paul’s reference to new creation as representing the product of his mission. His rivals’ desire was to boast in the circumcised flesh of their Galatian proselytes, which was the product of their fleshly mission. Paul’s mission, however, resulted in new sons of Abraham being born through pneuma, which could be understood as being a new creation; at one point they were not sons of Abraham, but through their reception of the divine pneuma they have become sons of Abraham (Gal 3:3, 29; 4:6, 21–31). On this interpretation, Paul is saying that those seeking to impose circumcision wrongfully boast in what their mission produces, whereas Paul correctly boasts in what his mission produces. Though he comes to more traditional conclusions about the interpretation of Gal 6:15, John W. Yates (The Spirit and Creation in Paul [WUNT 2/251; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2008], esp. 120–121) succinctly demonstrates the important connection between the pneuma and new creation.

65 This verse also appears in a wider context related to boasting in appearances (2 Cor 5:12) and knowing individuals “according to the flesh” (κατὰ σάρκα, 2 Cor 5:16).

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 47

that deal with circumcision and foreskin in some manner—boasting in the flesh, in appearances, or in status is always excluded (Rom 2:17, 23; 4:2; 11:8; 1 Cor 1:29; 3:21; 4:7; 5:6; 13:3; Gal 6:13). In these epistles, boasting is confined to being in Christ, in God, in the Lord, in hope, in suffering, or in the faithfulness of the ekklēsia (Rom 5:2–3, 11; 15:17; 1 Cor 1:31; 9:15–16; 15:31; Gal 6:14; Phil 1:26; 2:16; 3:3; cf. 1 Thess 2:19). 66 Of these boasting passages, Phil 3:3–8 offers a close parallel to Gal 6:15. Here, Paul notes that his boast is in Christ and not in his fleshly pedigree despite it being pristine in every respect: an eighth-day circumcision, from the nation of Israel, from the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born from Hebrews, a Pharisee in regard to the law, whose zeal led to persecution of the ekklēsia, and blameless according to the righteousness from the law. Although he has confidence in his flesh (Phil 3:4), 67 Paul only boasts in Christ, and has come to consider all things as a loss in order to know and gain Christ (Phil 3:7–8). Paul’s assessment of his own pedigree and of all things is that in comparison with Christ, they are to be regarded as loss. That is not to say that they are actually worthless, but within the rhetoric of comparison, Christ is exceedingly more profitable and something to be boasted in. 68 In summary, Gal 6:15 should not be read as a standalone declaration that circumcision and foreskin are nothing; rather, read in its rhetorical and syntactical context, Gal 6:15 serves to demonstrate why Paul only boasts in the cross of Christ.

This is because circumcision and foreskin are not things to boast in, but new creation as effected by the cross of Christ is something to boast in. Paul uses this to set himself in contradistinction to his rivals based on what each party respectively boasts in. For his rivals, it is the flesh of the Galatian males, which 66

The issue of boasting in 2 Corinthians is complex and outside the scope of this current article. While boasting there does seem to follow the general schema Paul lays out in his other epistles, there are many perplexing texts as well. Notably, in a letter like 2 Corinthians where circumcision, foreskin, and the law are not issues, positive boasting is much more prevalent than his other epistles. I have also excluded Gal 6:4 from the aforementioned boasting texts. This is because positive boasting is presented here as being directed inward towards oneself and not outwardly toward others. This appears to be a different type of boasting altogether.

67 In Phil 3:4, Paul is almost universally translated as saying he has “reason for confidence in the flesh,” but the text actually says he does have confidence in the flesh (καίπερ ἐγὼ ἔχων πεποίθησιν καὶ ἐν σαρκί). The interpretive tendency to include “reason for” seems to be a way to ensure that Paul does not contradict what he said in the previous verse: “…and have no confidence in the flesh” (καὶ οὐκ ἐν σαρκὶ πεποιθότες).

68 For a judicious study of Phil 3 and its relationship to these “neither…nor” statements, see Campbell, “‘I Rate All things as Loss’.”

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seems to euphemistically refer to their foreskinned penises becoming circumcised. 69 Paul, however, states he only boasts in the cross of Christ, because circumcision and foreskin are not things to be boasted in. This type of boasting is important for Paul and he urges the Galatians to follow his model of boasting in the following verse: “And for anyone who follows this standard (τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ; i.e., boasting not in circumcision or foreskin, but in the cross and new creation), peace be upon them” (Gal 6:16a). 70 7. Galatians 5:6 Gal 5:6 follows Paul’s discussion about how the Galatians are children of the promise—like Isaac—and are incorporated into Abraham’s family through divine pneuma. The emphasis in this section of Galatians is on the existential threat that circumcision poses to the Galatians and their newly found incorporation into Abraham’s family. In Gal 4:21–31, Paul exhorts those who want to be under the law to listen to the law. He then lays out a perplexing allegorical interpretation of the Hagar and Sarah narrative to demonstrate how the Galatians were birthed into Abraham’s family through Sarah—the free woman—and are no longer enslaved to the stoicheia of the world (Gal 4:3, 7–9). Since the Galatians have been liberated from the power of the stoicheia, Paul exhorts them to not submit to circumcision, because submitting to circumcision would make them children of the slave woman and would put them back in a state of slavery (4:28–5:1). Since their sonship is rooted in their reception of divine pneuma and not in a modification of their foreskins (Gal 3:3; 4:6, 28–31), submitting to circumcision—in some mysterious way—cuts them off from Christ. 71 After stating the damning nature of circumcision for gentiles, Paul says, “For 72 we, by pneuma from faithfulness, eagerly await the hope of righteousness. For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision

69

Thus, Craig Keener writes, “Paul’s depiction of the rivals’ desire to show off in the flesh (Gal 6:12) now takes a grotesque turn: they want to boast in your flesh, i.e., the flesh of your sliced foreskins” (Galatians, 285).

70 The majority of scholars rightly interpret τῷ κανόνι τούτῳ (6:16) as referring back to the content of 6:15 (e.g., Dunn, Galatians, 343; Martyn, Galatians, 566–567).

71 For some recent discussion of Abrahamic sonship and reception of divine pneuma, see Caroline Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 67–77; Thiessen, Gentile Problem, 105– 128.

72 The γάρ (“for”) in verse 5 serves to establish a contrast between those who seek dikaiosynē in the law (Gal 5:4) and those who wait for dikaiosynē by pneuma from faithfulness; de Boer, Galatians, 315; cf. Martyn, Galatians, 472.

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 49

has any power (τι ἰσχύει), nor foreskin, but faithfulness working through love” (Gal 5:5–6).

The critical thing to note for our current investigation is Paul’s usage of ἰσχύω in 5:6 instead of the simple negations (a negative + ἐστιν) found in 1 Cor 7:19 and Gal 6:15. While some interpreters translate ἰσχύω as being related to power, 73 the majority translate it in a way the conveys value (i.e., neither circumcision nor foreskin has value/means anything/counts for anything). 74 If one turns to most modern English Bible translations, a variant of this reading is what they will find. 75 In the context of his work on ancient gift-giving, John Barclay argues that ἰσχύω should here be translated in a financial sense related to value. 76 Since—for Barclay—Paul has put aside the old Jewish system of value, he can now say that circumcision and foreskin no longer have any value in the divine economy; the only thing that now has worth is faith. 77 Barclay argues that ἰσχύω must be translated as conveying value based on syntactical and lexical grounds. He contends that ἰσχύω plus an accusative—here, τι ἰσχύει—should be translated in financial terms, and that translations conveying power are not applicable. 78 This, however, is incorrect. The only other instance in the corpus Paulinum 79 where ἰσχύω is employed is in Phil 4:13, when Paul says πάντα ἰσχύω ἐν τῷ ἐνδυναμοῦντί με, “I am able to do/have power to do all things in the one who strengthens me.” Here, Paul employs ἰσχύω plus an accusative to clearly convey power or the ability to accomplish something. 80 In a few cases, some scholars translate ἰσχύω in Gal 5:6 as conveying power, but their interpretation of the text falls back onto a reading that conveys value. For example, N. T. Wright correctly translates τι ἰσχύει as “has any power,” but in his explanation of this text he immediately reverts to language that

Notably, Martyn, Galatians, 472–473.

E.g., Dunn, Galatians, 270; Sanders, Paul, 551–552; Keener, Galatians, 235.

75 E.g., NRSV, NASB, ESV, NIV, CEB. The notable exception to this rule is the KJV. Similarly, most German, French, and Spanish translations also follow this interpretive trend.

76 Barclay, “Gentile Circumcision,” 37, 52–53.

77 For Barclay’s reading of Galatians in relationship to ancient gift-giving and systems of value, see John M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 351–446.

78 Barclay, “Gentile Circumcision,” 52 n.51; Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 393.

79 Outside of the corpus Paulinum, Matt 5:13 and Jas 5:16 also attest to idea of power or ability when ἰσχύω is paired with an accusative.

80 John Reumann, Philippians: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (AB 33B; New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008), 703; Paul A. Holloway, Philippians (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2017), 187.

73 74

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conveys value or worth without any explanation. 81 Similarly, Hans Dieter Betz states that τι ἰσχύει conveys the idea that circumcision does not have power to achieve righteousness, but when explaining the second half of the verse (ἀλλὰ πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη), he reverts to value language. 82 Further confirming a translation related to power is the context of this passage. The emphasis in 5:4–6 is on what has the ability to bring about dikaiosynē. 83 Paul denies that circumcision and the law have the ability to bring about dikaiosynē for the Galatians, rather, dikaiosynē comes to them through pistis. 84 Thus, when we read “neither circumcision has power, nor foreskin,” we should understand this statement in the context of bringing about dikaiosynē. 85 That is, neither circumcision nor foreskin have the power or ability to make one righteous/justified/rightwised, but pistis does. 86 While pistis is typically understood here as referring to an individual’s faith in Christ, the use of the verb ἐνεργέω may indicate otherwise. Elsewhere is Galatians (2:8; 3:5), Paul uses ἐνεργέω to demonstrate divine power or action. In fact, in all but one occurrence of ἐνεργέω in Paul’s epistles (2 Cor 1:6), it has a divine or supernatural power as its subject.

81

Wright, Faithfulness of God, 1140.

Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians: A Commentary on Paul’s Letter to the Churches in Galatia (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979), 263–264. Betz comments, “The symbol of circumcision (or its absence) no longer has any power,” and “It does not have the power to achieve (ἰσχύει τι [sic]) salvation and righteousness before God…” He follows this up by saying, “…what matters to those ‘in Christ Jesus’ is instead ἀλλὰ πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη (‘but faith working through love’)” (emphasis added).

83 Hung-Sik Choi, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ in Gal 5:5–6: Neglected Evidence for the Faithfulness of Christ,” JBL 124 (2005): 467–490, at 487–489; cf. Dunn, Galatians, 271; Simon Claude Mimouni, La circoncision dans le monde judéen aux époques grecque et romaine: Histoire d’un conflit interne au judaïsme (Collection de la Revue des études juives 42; Paris-Louvain: Peeters, 2007), 218.

84 Throughout Galatians—most notably in Gal 3:2–14—the concepts of dikaiosynē, pistis, and pneuma are all interrelated and linked to Abrahamic sonship. In the passage preceding our current text (Gal 4:21–31), Paul argues that the Galatians are sons of Abraham through their reception of pneuma and not through the acceptance of circumcision. When we arrive at 5:4–6, we find dikaiosynē, pistis, and pneuma once again. It is likely that Abrahamic sonship is also in view here as it pertains to those, who, by the pneuma and out of pistis wait for dikaiosynē, which is brought about by pistis and not circumcision or foreskin.

85 While circumcision does not have the power to bring about dikaiosynē, it does have the power to cut someone off from Christ and sever them from the benefits of being in Christ (Gal 5:2–4).

86 Betz (Galatians, 263) notes that pistis functioning as a power is surprising. See also, Choi, “ΠΙΣΤΙΣ in Galatians,” 482–489.

82

Collman, Just a Flesh Wound? 51

Therefore, pistis can and should be understood as referring to the faithfulness of Christ, not to an individual’s faith. This is further confirmed by Gal 1:4; 3:13; 4:4– 5; and 5:1, where the actions of Christ are depicted as having positive effect on those who are in him. Christ’s faithfulness working through love is the thing that Paul believes has power to bring about dikaiosynē, not circumcision or foreskin.

The comparison of circumcision and foreskin with pistis is not one of ontology, but dynamology. This picture of circumcision and pistis agrees with what Paul says throughout Galatians about dikaiosynē; it is not from works of the law (ἐξ ἔργων νόμου; Gal 2:16; 3:2, 5, 10–11), but it is from faithfulness (ἐκ πίστεως; Gal 2:16; 3:8–9, 11–12, 22, 24). “…and we have trusted in Christ Jesus, so that we may be righteous/justified/rightwised from faithfulness (ἐκ πίστεως) and not from works of the law (ἐξ ἔργων νόμου)” (Gal 2:16).

As was the case in Gal 6:15, the inclusion of foreskin in this text appears to be superfluous. While it could simply be the counterpart to circumcision, Paul could also be using it emphasize to the Galatians that their continuing in a state of foreskin in and of itself does not have power to bring about dikaosynē. That is, though Paul thinks it is imperative that the Galatian males do not modify their foreskins, this preservation does not have any power.

Like 1 Cor 7:19 and Gal 6:15, Paul compares circumcision and foreskin to something else to make a specific rhetorical point. Here, when commenting on what has power to bring about dikaiosynē, Paul rejects the idea that circumcision and foreskin can bring about this desired result. Rather, the only thing that can bring about dikaiosynē is pistis. As with our previous texts, this one too does not claim that circumcision and foreskin are irrelevant or indifferent things for Paul.

Paul only states that they do not have a specific type of power.

8. Conclusion In closing, this article has demonstrated that each of these texts use the pair of circumcision and foreskin in different ways to convey different messages. In 1 Cor 7:19, circumcision and foreskin are used metonymically to refer to Jews and gentiles and have ethical implications for how those in the Jesus movement should live. In Gal 6:15, to highlight that his boast is only in the cross of Christ and the new creation effected by it—and not in the flesh of the Galatians like his rivals— Paul notes that this is because circumcision and foreskin are not things to be boasted in. Lastly, in Gal 5:6, Paul notes that circumcision and foreskin do not have power to bring about dikaiosynē, but that pistis does. In all of these texts, Paul utilizes the rhetoric of comparison to make specific points in particular contexts.

Each of these instances of negation and comparison are highly contextualized and should not be flattened into a single maxim. If Paul simply said, “Neither

52 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

circumcision is anything, nor is foreskin anything”—full stop—then maybe the majority interpretation of these texts would have more textual merit, but he did not. Rather, in all of these instances, Paul does not stop at a simple negation of circumcision and foreskin, but always compares this pair to something else. Or— in the case of Gal 5:6—Paul does not discuss the value of circumcision and foreskin, but rather their lack of power to bring about dikaiosynē. So, to answer the question posed in the introduction, is circumcision—or its fleshy counterpart, foreskin—as insignificant as just a flesh wound for Paul? Not according to 1 Cor 7:19 or Gal 5:6 and 6:15. In light of these findings, what is now needed is a comprehensive, constructive account of how Paul employs circumcision and foreskin language in his epistles. 87

87

See my forthcoming PhD thesis, “The Apostle to the Foreskin: Circumcision in the Letters of Paul” (University of Edinburgh). www.jjmjs.org

Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin: The Significance of ἀκροβυστία for Paul’s Argument about Circumcision in Romans 4:9–12 Karin B. Neutel Umeå University, Sweden | karin.neutel@umu.se JJMJS No. 8 (2021): 53–74 Abstract In his discussion of Abraham’s circumcision (Rom 4:9–12), Paul uses the term ἀκροβυστία, or “foreskin,” six times, as a key part of his argument. Unfortunately, this term is something of a scholarly blind spot and is often taken as referring only to the absence of circumcision, or to a time before circumcision. However, given Paul’s usage of this term, as well as the metaphor of foreskin in the Hebrew Bible, ἀκροβυστία should be understood as a negative physical presence that marks those who do not belong to God’s people. Paul’s argument that Abraham was justified while ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ therefore specifically concerns gentiles, and does not make a point about πίστις or justification before circumcision. Moreover, awareness of the physical referent of the term shows that Paul describes Abraham’s circumcision as a sign that marks the foreskin. A consistent focus on the significance of ἀκροβυστία therefore offers an important correction to the common understanding of this crucial passage.

Keywords Circumcision, foreskin, gentiles, justification, Romans 4 1. Introduction Paul’s discussion of Abraham’s circumcision in Rom 4:9–12 accomplishes a remarkable feat: it unites Pauline scholars in an extremely rare case of near consensus. Exegetes tend to agree that the issue at stake for Paul here is one of timing: was Abraham justified “when he had already been circumcised or while he was still uncircumcised?” 1 This consensus is all the more remarkable given that 1

James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1–8 (Dallas: Word Books, 1988), 208.

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the Greek text of this passage contains no terms that refer to time or sequence; words such as “still,” “yet,” and “already” are often added in translation (see below), but have no Greek equivalent. Moreover, this dominant interpretation relies on misunderstanding or ignoring Paul’s emphatic use of the term ἀκροβυστία, or “foreskin,” which occurs six times in these four verses, but constitutes something of a scholarly blind spot. The term ἀκροβυστία is often translated as “uncircumcised,” or is reduced, due to the focus on time, to merely “before” or “previously,” in phrases such as “before or after he had been circumcised” and “the righteousness that he had previously received through faith” (emphasis in the original). 2 The invisibility of ἀκροβυστία works to support the prevalent scholarly assumption that the central issue in the passage is the significance of circumcision, and its relationship to faith. Yet Paul starts off the discussion in verse 9 with the question whether God’s blessing also falls on the ἀκροβυστία—that it is for “the circumcision” is taken as a given. The lack of serious engagement by scholars with the emphasis on ἀκροβυστία throughout the passage has further meant that Paul’s remarkable explanation that Abraham’s circumcision is a sign of the foreskin has not been recognized.

This article will challenge the consensus reading of Abraham’s circumcision in Romans, and will offer an interpretation that takes the importance of ἀκροβυστία for Paul’s argument into account. If most scholars consider the gist of the passage to roughly be: is circumcision necessary? No, look at Abraham, he was justified before he was circumcised, so circumcision is not necessary, this study will argue that it rather should be understood as: is “foreskin” a problem? No, look at Abraham, he was justified when he was “in foreskin,” so “foreskin” need not be a problem.

This might seem like a minor shift, but it is one that has important implications. If the passage is understood as specifically addressing the question of gentile circumcision, it no longer relates to circumcision in general, and does not contrast justification by faith to some other form of justification, as is often supposed. It is not a matter of what came first in the case of Abraham, his justification or his circumcision, but rather what is required of gentiles. If Abraham could be justified while “in foreskin,” then so can others who are “in foreskin,” i.e., other gentiles. The passage is then concerned only with the 2

The phrase “before or after he had been circumcised” occurs in John Ziesler’s commentary on Romans. John Ziesler, Paul’s Letter to the Romans (London: SCM Press, 1989), 127; Philip Esler refers to “the righteousness that he had previously received through faith,” in Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 189.

Neutel, Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin 55

inclusion of gentiles, and does not easily relate to aspects of Christian theology such as justification through faith, with which it has been connected.

This alternative reading not only confirms recent insights that Paul was concerned with the status of gentiles and proselyte circumcision, rather than with circumcision as a Jewish rite more generally; it also makes sense of some of the problematic aspects of the passage that plague the conventional reading, especially the second “τοῖς” in verse 12, which is often ignored or written off as a mistake.

2. Faith Before Circumcision: The Near Consensus View Before turning to the meaning of ἀκροβυστία and its role in Rom 4:9–12, I will briefly discuss the dominant scholarly view on this passage and how it differs from what I propose. 3 Of course, given the wealth of publications on these verses, it is 3

Some important exceptions to the consensus view should be noted. Nina Livesey highlights the significance of ἀκροβυστία in this passage and suggests that “Paul is driving home the point that, like circumcised Jews, foreskinned Gentiles can become righteous heirs of Abraham.” Nina E. Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 115. My interpretation here differs from Livesey’s, especially with regard to the interpretation of the two references to ἀκροβυστία in verse 11, as will be explained below.

Mark Nanos sees time as a significant factor not in relation to Abraham’s circumcision, but rather for Paul’s larger eschatological frame. He therefore argues that in Rom 3:29−4:25, Paul makes the “chronometrical gospel case that non-Jews must remain non-Jews with the arrival of the awaited age. (…) God thus becomes also the God of the ‘foreskinned,’ so they must remain representatives from the other nations and not become circumcised, that is not become Jews/Israelites.” Mark D. Nanos, “The Question of Conceptualization: Qualifying Paul’s Position on Circumcision in Dialogue with Josephus’ Advisors to King Izates,” in Paul Within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed.

Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 105–152, at 126.

While I see this passage as focused on the conditional inclusion of non-Jews into the children of Abraham, rather than as directly arguing against circumcision of gentiles, the two are closely related issues in Paul’s understanding of circumcision. Like Livesey and Nanos, Matthew Thiessen also sees this passage as focused on the position of gentiles, but he assumes nevertheless that Paul also felt the need to establish the position of Jews. In this sense, he seems closer to the consensus view, since the timing of Abraham’s circumcision is relevant to his interpretation: “Rom 4:11–12 suggests that, for Paul, if Abraham had not undergone circumcision, he would only have become the father of believing gentiles.”

According to Thiessen, Paul’s understanding of circumcision “is surprising in that it suggests that Abraham was first the father of believing gentiles and that an additional covenant and sign, circumcision, was necessary for him to become the father of Jews.”

Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 83.

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impossible to be comprehensive, but the summary given here is intended as a fair representation of current views. The NRSV can be taken as an example of the prevailing focus on time, since it renders the passage as follows: 9 Is this blessedness, then, pronounced only on the circumcised, or also on the uncircumcised? We say, “Faith was reckoned to Abraham as righteousness.” 10 How then was it reckoned to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. 11 He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the ancestor of all who believe without being circumcised and who thus have righteousness reckoned to them, 12 and likewise the ancestor of the circumcised who are not only circumcised but who also follow the example of the faith that our ancestor Abraham had before he was circumcised. (Rom 4:9–12 NRSV) 4 The words that refer to time in this translation, “before,” “after,” and “still,” do not reflect direct equivalents in Greek. In spite of this, the consensus view on Romans 4 is that the central issue in this passage is one of timing and sequence, and there does not appear to be significant debate about this. 5 A few examples can

4

The NIV has a largely similar translation to the NRSV but adds an exclamation point which highlights the temporal aspect in verse 10: “Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before!” In the KJV and NKJV the words “before” and “after” do not occur, but the words “yet” (KJV) and “still” (NKJV) are used instead. Some translations, such as the New American Standard Bible, do not include any temporal references. David Bentley Hart’s recent translation does not include references to time in verses 9–10 and translates ἀκροβυστία in verse 9 as “those of the foreskin” and ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ in verse 10 as “with a foreskin.” However, in verse 11a the word “time” is added to interpret the reference to ἀκροβυστία: “And he received a sign of circumcision, a seal of the uprightness of his faithfulness during the time when he had had a foreskin.” David Bentley Hart, The New Testament: A Translation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017), 252.

This in spite of the fact that Hart claims to have produced “an almost pitilessly literal translation,” which does not “draw a veil of delicacy over jarring words or images,” of which ἀκροβυστία is mentioned as a specific example (The New Testament, 15).

5 There is, of course, significant disagreement on the passage in other respects. On this see, e.g., Stephen Chester, who takes Romans 4 as an “exegetical test case” for reconciling Reformation views and those of the New Perspective on Paul. Stephen Chester, Reading

Neutel, Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin 57

illustrate this view. In his study on Abraham’s faith in Rom 4, Benjamin Schliesser argues that Paul is focused on the “temporal interval” between Gen 15 and Gen 17, which is “indispensable for his case of the material priority of faith and the ensuing interpretation of circumcision.” 6 Stanley Porter makes a similar point in his commentary on Romans, describing the argument as one formulated around “Biblical chronology.” Abraham’s faith (in Gen 15) precedes the story of his circumcision (in Gen 17) and is therefore “completely independent of the later command to be circumcised.” 7 For N. T. Wright, the “historical sequence” between these two Genesis chapters is “a key point” in Paul’s argument. 8 According to Robert Jewett, “Paul makes the case that circumcision was not only performed long after Abraham’s reckoning as righteous, but also that it was merely the ‘seal’ of the righteous status that he had already received.” 9 Joshua Jipp even interprets Paul’s question in verse 10, which is introduced by πῶς, as asking after time: “When then was it reckoned?” (πῶς οὖν ἐλογίσθη). 10 Paul with the Reformers: Reconciling Old and New Perspectives (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2017), 400–422.

6 See Benjamin Schliesser, Abraham's Faith in Romans 4: Paul's Concept of Faith in Light of the History of Reception of Genesis 15:6 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), 357.

7 Stanley E. Porter, The Letter to the Romans: A Linguistic and Literary Commentary (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2015), 106.

8 N. T. Wright, “Paul and the Patriarch: The Role of Abraham in Romans 4,” JSNT 35.3 (2013): 207–241, at 210.

9 Robert Jewett, Romans: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 318.

10 Joshua W. Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’ in Romans 4,” JSNT 32.2 (2009): 217–242, at 224. A similar focus on time and sequence is found in many scholars, e.g., “Paulus hat dabei im Auge, daß in der Chronologie der Schrift die Beschneidung Abrahams in Gen 17 erst nach seiner Rechtfertigung in Gen 15 folgt“ (Ulrich Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer (Röm 1-5) [Zürich: Benziger Verlag 1978], 264); “Paul focusses here upon the timing of Abraham’s justification” (Glenn N. Davies, Faith and Obedience in Romans: A Study in Romans 1–4 [Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1990], 164); “Paul asks about the time sequence: which came first, Abraham’s justification or his circumcision? ” (Joseph A. Fitzmyer, Romans: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [New York: Doubleday, 1992], 380); “The priority of Abraham's faith with respect to his circumcision is emphasized in v. 11” (Michael Cranford, “Abraham in Romans 4: The Father of All Who Believe,” NTS 41.01 [1995]: 71–88, at 84); “Paul has in mind the chronological progression of the Genesis narrative about Abraham” (Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996], 268); “Gen. 15.6 shows that Abraham being reckoned as righteous was sequentially prior to him being circumcised” (Edward Adams, “Abraham's Faith and Gentile Disobedience: Textual Links Between Romans 1 and 4,” JSNT 65.19 [1997]: 47–66, at 50); “Da in der Schrift Gen. 17,9ff.

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As these quotations show, the issue of time is for most interpreters closely bound up with the way Paul is thought to reinterpret the meaning of circumcision in verse 11. Douglas Moo, for example, makes the point that “Abraham was declared righteous while still uncircumcised. His later circumcision added nothing materially to that transaction; it simply signified and confirmed it.” 11 For Benjamin Schliesser, Paul’s argument shows that “circumcision is temporally and materially secondary, and it has a relative character.” 12 In a range of ways, scholars thus argue that Paul redefines what circumcision signifies, based on the sequence of events in Gen 15 and 17. What matters for Paul, in this view, is that Abraham’s circumcision came after he was reckoned as righteous, and therefore only confirms his status. For most scholars,

erst auf Gen. 15,6 folgt, lautet die Antwort: Abraham wurde gerechtfertigt als er noch unbeschnitten war” (Peter Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an die Römer [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998], 69); “Paulus argumentiert hier mit der zeitlichen Reihenfolge” (Klaus Haacker, Der Brief des Paulus an die Römer [Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 1999], 103); “he creates leverage by centering his discussion on the exact temporal point when Abraham was circumcised” (Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us,’” 224); “What is certain is that Paul was aware of the general time-frame, and he made a point of it, namely, that the promise to Abraham … was prior to his circumcision” (Arland J. Hultgren, Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Commentary [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2011], 183); “a saving faith already anticipated …, well before circumcision was commanded” (Jon D. Levenson, Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012], 138); “After he had been circumcised or when he was still uncircumcised? ” (Rafael Rodriguez, If You Call Yourself a Jew: Reappraising Paul's Letter to the Romans [Eugene: Cascade Books, 2014], 91); “Paulus sieht sich ganz offensichtlich genötigt zu erklären, warum Abraham überhaupt noch beschnitten wurde, nachdem Gott ihn schon vorher, noch im Zustand der Unbeschnittenheit, für gerecht erklärt hatte” (Michael Wolter, Der Brief an die Römer [Neukirchen-Vluyn: Neukirchener Verlagsgesellschaft, 2014], 289); “the context of the passage makes it clear that God credited righteousness to Abraham before he was circumcised, not when or after he was circumcised” (Richard N. Longenecker, The Epistle to the Romans: A Commentary on the Greek Text [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016], 503); “He uses the narrative about Abraham as recorded in the Judean scriptures to argue that Abraham could not have been regarded as righteous by God through circumcision, as Abraham received righteousness before being circumcised” (Andrew Kimseng Tan, The Rhetoric of Abraham’s Faith in Romans 4 [Atlanta: SBL Press, 2018], 210).

11 Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, 269.

12

Schliesser, Abraham's Faith in Romans 4, 359.

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Paul puts circumcision in its place as not a means to righteousness, but a sign of it, that comes after the fact. 13 Underlying both the temporal perspective and the assumption that the passage is primarily concerned with reinterpreting circumcision, is a largely unspoken understanding that ἀκροβυστία is quite literally a non-issue. As we have seen, it is not just understood as “uncircumcision,” but as “before circumcision” and “previously”: as a state or time characterized merely by the absence of the thing Paul is thought to be focused on. Because ἀκροβυστία is understood only as an absence, the dominant interpretation can assume that Paul explains something about justification in a general sense. The idea is that for all people justification comes through πίστις and not circumcision. There is no sense that the reference here is only about those who are ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ.

Of course, some interpreters do show awareness in discussions of Rom 4 that ἀκροβυστία has to do with gentiles, a category that certainly is not neutral or a non-issue for Paul. But the temporal reading and the insistence that Paul is commenting on how circumcision relates to justification generally, seems to push this awareness into the background. 14 If Abraham was justified ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ, this is not understood as a description of what Abraham was—“in foreskin,” a gentile—but primarily of what he was not: circumcised. Scholars here do not see “uncircumcision” as a specific quality of the religious outsider, but implicitly as a characteristic of all people, in the time before circumcision is introduced.

It is perhaps unsurprising that this type of understanding of ἀκροβυστία as merely an absence, and of circumcision as a mark that creates difference 13

See, e.g., Charles E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (London: T&T Clark, 1975), 236; Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer, 265; Dunn, Romans 1-8, 209; Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans, 189; Fitzmyer, Romans, 381; Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an die Römer, 69; Jewett, Romans, 318–319; Hultgren, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 183; Tan, The Rhetoric of Abraham’s Faith, 205.

14 Edward Adams evaluates the relative significance of temporal and ethnic aspects: “Three times over in vv. 11-12, it is emphasized that Abraham was in a state of uncircumcision— ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ—when he was accepted by God. While this means that Abraham was justified before he had submitted to the rite of circumcision, ἀκροβυστία is probably also intended to signify Abraham’s ethnic status at the time (...). In other words, Paul emphasizes that Abraham was still a Gentile when he was declared righteous through faith.” Unfortunately, Adams concludes from this that “Paul uses Abraham to make the Gentile route to God the standard and rule” (“Abraham's Faith and Gentile Disobedience,” 63), a view that will be disputed here. See also Davies, Faith and Obedience in Romans, 164–165; Jewett, Romans, 318–319; Schliesser, Abraham's Faith in Romans 4, 363; Jipp, “Rereading the Story of Abraham, Isaac, and ‘Us’,” 224.

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between otherwise undifferentiated people, has long made sense in the field of Pauline studies, given the extent to which it has relied on a Christian perspective.

The temporal interpretation is informed by and in turn has informed the idea that Paul here conveys a general message about the key issues of justification, faith, and circumcision, and their relative importance for “believers”—a category without ethnic distinction.

Yet it is doubtful that such an interpretation of ἀκροβυστία can claim to represent a credible first-century Jewish perspective, much less that of Paul, who stands out for insistently differentiating between Jew and non-Jew, between Ἰουδαῖοι and ἔθνη, between περιτομή and ἀκροβυστία. 15 It is this division that Paul discursively creates in order to confront the notion that the non-Jews are necessarily the outsiders. His message in Romans emphasizes and at the same time challenges this division in the phrase “Jew first and also Greek” (Rom 1:16; 2:9– 10; 3:9; 10:12) and in the questions posed in 3:29 and 4:9, whether it is only the Jews who belong to God and receive his blessing, or also the other group, referred to as ἔθνη and ἀκροβυστία. The term ἀκροβυστία consistently functions as a significant component within this division and to assume that it would be a way to refer to an undivided, pre-circumcised condition suggests a considerable lack of engagement with Paul’s frame of reference. In what follows, I hope to show in more detail why the consensus view constitutes a highly problematic interpretation of ἀκροβυστία and consequently of Paul’s argument about Abraham’s circumcision.

3. In Foreskin, Not in Circumcision: The Significance of ἀκροβυστία The meaning of the term ἀκροβυστία is not usually the subject of much reflection in scholarship on Romans. 16 As we have seen, it is understood in the temporal 15

On this, see Ishay Rosen-Zvi and Adi Ophir, who argue that Paul is unlike other Jewish authors in creating an undifferentiated category of the non-Jew, understood both collectively and individually, rather than recognize different non-Jewish nations (“Paul and the Invention of the Gentiles,” The Jewish Quarterly Review 105.1 [2015]: 1–41, esp. 21−41).

On the problem with assumptions about Christian “universalism,” see Anders Runesson, “Particularistic Judaism and Universalistic Christianity? : Some Critical Remarks on Terminology and Theology,” Studia Theologica 54.1 (2000): 55–75.

16 Nina Livesey is one of the few scholars to reflect on ἀκροβυστία. She describes Paul’s usage of both περιτομή and ἀκροβυστία as a combination of “literal, metonymic and metaphoric,” specifically in connection with Rom 2:25–29 (Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 108; see also Nanos, “The Question of Conceptualization,” quoted above n.3). Joel Marcus’s article “The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome” discusses the unusual character of Paul’s language and recognizes its derogatory sense. Marcus argues that

Neutel, Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin 61

sense as “previously” and “before (circumcision),” or translated as “uncircumcision” and occasionally as “gentiles.” In his monograph on Rom 4, Andrew Kimseng Tan attempts to locate Paul’s use of the term in a wider context, by suggesting that ἀκροβυστία was a term “Judeans use to refer to gentiles.” While he points to 1 Macc 1:15 as a prooftext for this interpretation, Tan concedes that ἀκροβυστία is in fact used there “to refer to Judeans who become uncircumcised and abandon the ‘holy covenant’ and join the gentiles.” 17 This passage chastises Jews who “made foreskins for themselves” (ἐποίησαν ἑαυτοῖς ἀκροβυστίας). Clearly, the claim that ἀκροβυστία is used by Judeans to refer to gentiles is not supported by a Jewish text that uses the term in connection with other Jews. Tan’s insertion of “e.g.” before the 1 Maccabees reference is misleading, since it suggests that other instances of this usage exist. Yet it is no coincidence that such an unconvincing example is given, since there simply are no other extant cases where ἀκροβυστία is used in the sense of “gentiles.” As will be discussed below, all occurrences of the term outside of Paul’s letters refer to physical, rather than metaphorical foreskin, primarily as the part that is cut in circumcision. Most dictionaries therefore list “foreskin” as the primary meaning of ἀκροβυστία, although they sometimes suggest “uncircumcision” or “gentiles,” for Paul’s use of the term. 18 περιτομή and ἀκροβυστία should in many cases be translated as “circumcised penis” and “foreskin” rather than with “the stative abstractions ‘state of being circumcised/uncircumcised.’” See Joel Marcus, “The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” NTS 35.01 (1989): 67–81, at 75. Unfortunately, Marcus makes an exception for those cases where the terms occur with the prepositions ἐν and διά, such as in Rom 4:10–11, where he believes the abstract translation is appropriate (“The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” 75). Robert Jewett builds on Marcus’s insights and translates ἀκροβυστία as “(uncircumcised) foreskin” (Romans, particularly 234). Francis Watson improbably suggests that ἀκροβυστία refers to “the Pauline Gentile Christian congregations;” Francis Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles: Beyond the New Perspective (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 267. See also Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 171–173.

17 Tan, The Rhetoric of Abraham’s Faith, 204.

18 See, e.g., LSJ, “foreskin,” “state of having the foreskin,” “uncircumcision”; “collect. the uncircumcised”; TDNT gives “foreskin” or praeputium; Bauer’s Wörterbuch lists “Vorhaut” as the first meaning but then for Paul’s uses of the word gives “Unbeschnittenheit,” “Heidenschaft,” and “Unbeschnittenen”; L&N do not mention “foreskin” but give “a collective for those who are uncircumcised”—“uncircumcised, Gentiles, the Gentile world”; Gingrich’s Shorter Lexicon of the Greek New Testament translates “foreskin, uncircumcision,” as well as “Heathendom, the Gentiles”; the Brill Dictionary of Ancient Greek gives “prepuce”; and for the New Testament “fig. noncircumcision” and “the uncircumcised.”

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3.1. ἀκροβυστία: A Negative Presence Rather Than a Neutral Absence The meaning of the term ἀκροβυστία in Paul is thus far from straightforward. His usage of the term (16 times, in Rom 2:25–27; 3:30; 4:9–12; 1 Cor 7:18–19; Gal 2:7; 5:6; 6:15) stands out in its ancient context. Apart from Paul’s letters, ἀκροβυστία occurs only in the Septuagint (Gen 17:11, 14, 24, 25; 34:14; Exod 4:25; Lev 12:3; Josh 5:3; 1 Sam 18:25, 27; 2 Sam 3:14; Jer 9:24, and, in some sources, in Jer 4:4) and once in Philo (QE 2.2). In Philo and in most of the Septuagint cases, ἀκροβυστία is used in the phrase “the flesh of your/his/their foreskin” which occurs as the object of the verb “to circumcise,” περιτέμνω (Gen 17:11, 14, 24, 25; 34:14; Lev 12:3). Other occurrences of ἀκροβυστία in the Septuagint, such as in the story of the rape of Dinah (Gen 34:14) and in Zipporah’s act of circumcision (Exod 4:25), also all refer to physical foreskin. In the case of Jer 4:4, where the Hebrew speaks of the “foreskin of the heart,” the Codex Vaticanus, the Codex Sinaiticus, and the Codex Alexandrinus all read σκληροκαρδία, but some other witnesses here read ἀκροβυστία. This is the only instance of a metaphorical reference to foreskin in Greek that possibly predates Paul, but may also be dependent on him. 19 Given the close association of ἀκροβυστία with circumcision, it is not surprising that the word does not appear in non-Jewish sources, which use terms such as ἀκροποσθία, ἀκροπόσθιον, πόσθη or ποσθία to describe penile anatomy. 20 While ἀκροβυστία is thus nearly always used in a literal, anatomical sense, the Hebrew noun ‫ ָﬠ ְר ָ ֽלה‬, “foreskin,” and the (nominal) adjective ‫ ָﬠ ֵרל‬, “foreskinned” frequently have a metaphorical sense in the Hebrew Bible. This metaphorical foreskin has a negative connotation: “foreskinned” is used as a description for people who are estranged from God and “foreskin” is something that needs to be

19

These two translations have led to different reconstructions of the text in the critical Göttingen edition (Joseph Ziegler ed., Jeremias. Baruch. Threni. Epistula Jeremiae [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht], 1976, 166) and Rahlfs edition of the Septuagint (Alfred Rahlfs ed., Septuaginta: Id est Vetus Testamentum graece iuxta LXX interpretes [Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1979], 662). Rahlfs reads σκληροκαρδία, based on the main witnesses, while Ziegler reads ἀκροβυστία based on the recensions of Origen and Lucian, on a number of minuscule manuscripts, some of which Ziegler considers to belong to the same group as these recensions (e.g., 233, 62, 26, 46, 106), as well as on commentaries

by Church Fathers (e.g., Origen, Justin Martyr, Methodius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nissa), and translations (Vetus Latina, Bohairic and Armenian translations).

20 For a discussion of these terms and their usage, see Frederick M. Hodges, “The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75 (2001): 375–405.

Neutel, Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin 63

cut away in order to enable proper functioning or a good relationship to God. 21 In cases where the Hebrew Bible uses “the foreskinned” (‫ ) ָה ֲﬠ ֵר ִלים‬as a metonym for people (e.g., Judg 14:3; 15:18; 1 Chron 10:4; 1 Sam 14:6), the Septuagint chooses forms of the word ἀπερίτμητος, “uncircumcised,” as a term for non-Jews and to denote the absence of circumcision. Thus, e.g., Isaiah’s prophecy that the “foreskinned and defiled” (‫ ) ָﬠ ֵ ֥רל וְ ָט ֵ ֽמא‬will not enter Jerusalem again, is rendered in Greek as ἀπερίτμητος καὶ ἀκάθαρτος (Isa 52:1). For other metaphorical references to foreskin, associated with hearts, ears, lips, and fruit (Exod 6:12, 30; Lev 19:23; Lev 26:41; Deut 10:16; Jer 4:4; 6:10; Ezek 44:7, 9; Hab 2:16), the Septuagint translators either used ἀπερίτμητος, “uncircumcised,” or choose a freer translation, allowing the association with circumcision to be lost entirely. 22 Given the discomfort that is suggested by the shift away from metaphorical foreskin in the Septuagint, it is possible to suppose that ἀπερίτμητος offered a way to sanitize a metaphor that was otherwise too fleshy and graphic. Scholars sometimes appear to read ἀκροβυστία in Paul as if it were ἀπερίτμητος, however the two terms have quite different usage and ἀπερίτμητος does not occur in Paul’s letters.

3.2. Paul’s Use of ἀκροβυστία as Marked Language It is of course possible, and perhaps even likely, that ἀκροβυστία was indeed used in a metaphorical sense among Greek-speaking Jews, especially in the vernacular, since we have only very partial access to this. 23 Yet as far as we can tell from extant 21

Jason S. Derouchie observes that “‘foreskin’ bore a negative and even abominable connotation within Israel” and translates ‫ ָה ֲﬠ ֵר ִלים‬as “those estranged from God.” His analysis shows that the Targum translators preserved some metaphorical references to foreskin, but transformed most of them. Jason S. Derouchie, “Circumcision in the Hebrew Bible and Targums: Theology, Rhetoric, and the Handling of Metaphor,” Bulletin for Biblical Research 14.2 (2004): 175–203, at 194.

22 The metaphor did continue to be used in Hebrew, as is evident in the Dead Sea Scrolls, see, e.g., 1QS V:5, 26; 4Q434 1 i 4; 4Q177 II:16. See Sandra Jacobs, “Expendable Signs: The Covenant of the Rainbow and Circumcision at Qumran,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls in Context: Integrating the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Study of Ancient Texts, Languages, and Cultures Volume Two, ed. Armin Lange, Emanuel Tov and Matthias Weigold (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 543–575, 571–572, as well as in Jubilees, e.g. 1:23; see Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 71.

23 Joel Marcus assumes that this was indeed the case and takes Eph 2:11 as evidence of this usage. While he acknowledges that Ephesians was most likely written “a considerable time after Paul’s death,” Marcus still maintains that this passage “sheds light on the sociological situation out of which the use of ἀκροβυστία and περιτομή as designations for groups of

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literature, which is what we have to base our assessment on, Paul uses ἀκροβυστία in a novel way. No other source divides people into περιτομή and ἀκροβυστία, no other ancient Greek author takes male genital anatomy as the signifier of ethnic or religious difference. Moreover, Paul’s own usage of the term is far from uniform. He not only uses περιτομή and ἀκροβυστία as apparent references to groups of people (Rom 3:30; 4:9; Gal 2:7), he also uses the construction δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας (Rom 4:11), to which we will return below, and talks of being ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ, both in connection with Abraham (Rom 4:10–12) and for the circumstances of someone’s calling (1 Cor 7:18). In this latter case, the reference seems to be quite directly to male anatomy, since for those who are called ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ, he advises against circumcision, and for those who are called περιτετμημένος he advises against epispasm (foreskin restoration). In Rom 2:25, as we will examine in a moment, the term is used in a similarly physical sense, since Paul states there that in a particular situation, circumcision can become foreskin (ἡ περιτομή σου ἀκροβυστία γέγονεν). A final variation in Paul’s flexible use of the term occurs in the next verses, where he personifies ἀκροβυστία and imagines that it keeps the law and judges others (Rom 2:26–27).

Paul’s language stands out, therefore, and particularly in the case of Romans, where his audience may not have been familiar with his personal idioms—or even with the term at all, outside of a Septuagint context—this is a factor to consider. In light of this varied and marked use, it is not plausible to interpret ἀκροβυστία as merely the absence of circumcision, or as “before circumcision.” Rather, given the fact that in the Septuagint and in Philo consistently, and in several cases in Paul as well, ἀκροβυστία refers directly to the part of the body that is cut in circumcision, “foreskin” seems the primary meaning and the most appropriate translation. As David Bentley Hart notes in the introduction to his recent translation of the New Testament, the “traditional and demure” rendering of ἀκροβυστία as “uncircumcision,” “singularly fails to capture the physiological bluntness of the word.” 24 The term thus refers primarily to a physical reality, and beyond that to an ethnic and religious group marked by this physical reality. 25 Moreover, since people arose in Paul's time” (“The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision in Rome,” 77).

Taking a source that post-dates Paul and depends on him as evidence that this language actually pre-dates Paul seems highly speculative.

24 Hart, The New Testament, 15.

25 For reasons of space, I leave aside here the obvious gender implications and the androcentrism evident in this term. However, these aspects do constitute an important aspect of Paul’s language, as well as of his concern with circumcision more generally.

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the occurrence of metaphorical foreskin in the Hebrew Bible appears to be the closest parallel to Paul’s usage, it is likely that the term would be assumed to have a negative connotation. The key characteristic of foreskin in this understanding is that it is something that is and should be removed through circumcision. It is a mark of those who do not belong to God, in contrast to “the circumcision.” A possible explanation for the fact that Paul, unlike the Septuagint translators, does not shy away from this fleshy metaphor, is that he does not intend to confirm the outsider status it reflects, but rather to subvert it, for those gentiles who turn to Christ. Using this unusual image serves to draw attention to his positive message for gentiles, his “good news for the foreskin” (τὸ εὐαγγέλιον τῆς ἀκροβυστίας, Gal 2:7). Paul thus sets up the division into “circumcision” and “foreskin,” but then challenges the negative understanding of ἀκροβυστία through his innovative language and imagery.

3.3. Romans 2–3: Challenging the Negative Connotation of ἀκροβυστία There is no space here to examine all occurrences of the term in detail, so I will limit myself to a brief look at how ἀκροβυστία is used in the chapters preceding Paul’s discussion of Abraham’s circumcision, in Rom 2 and 3. In Rom 2, Paul confirms the negative connotation of ἀκροβυστία, since he connects foreskin here to the violation of the law, but also subverts it: Rom 2:25 Περιτομὴ μὲν γὰρ ὠφελεῖ ἐὰν νόμον πράσσῃς· ἐὰν δὲ παραβάτης νόμου ᾖς, ἡ περιτομή σου ἀκροβυστία γέγονεν. 26 ἐὰν οὖν ἡ ἀκροβυστία τὰ δικαιώματα τοῦ νόμου φυλάσσῃ, οὐχ ἡ ἀκροβυστία αὐτοῦ εἰς περιτομὴν λογισθήσεται; 27 καὶ κρινεῖ ἡ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία τὸν νόμον τελοῦσα σὲ τὸν διὰ γράμματος καὶ περιτομῆς παραβάτην νόμου.

25 Circumcision is of value if you obey the law, but if you are a transgressor of the law, your circumcision has become foreskin. 26 So, if the foreskin keeps the requirements of the law, will not his foreskin be regarded as circumcision? 27 And the foreskin by nature that keeps the law will condemn you who through the letter and circumcision are a violator of the law.

As just noted, Paul personifies foreskin in this passage, thus conjuring up a nonJew, and imagines that it keeps the law. The first instance of the word here, however, is a more direct reference to genitals, since after confirming that circumcision is of value if you obey the law, Paul suggests that breaking the law

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causes a man’s circumcision to turn into foreskin. 26 From this he then proposes that the reverse may also occur and asks whether, if “the foreskin” keeps the law, this would not mean that “his foreskin” is regarded as circumcision. The personification shifts here, from “the foreskin” (ἡ ἀκροβυστία) to “his foreskin” (ἡ ἀκροβυστία αὐτοῦ). Another variation occurs in the final reference, to the foreskin “by nature” (ἡ ἐκ φύσεως ἀκροβυστία) who/which keeps the law and judges others.

The addition “by nature” (ἐκ φύσεως) here serves to distinguish this natural foreskin from the metaphorical one that resulted from lawbreaking in 25b. 27 The passage thus shows the varied and almost playful handling of ἀκροβυστία and confirms that Paul understands “foreskin” to be inherently problematic, since he connects it to violation of the law, and circumcision to law observance, even if he suggests that it is possible for those associated with either to do the opposite. The positive connotation of circumcision is Paul’s starting point, and the fact that circumcision is physically compromised by lawbreaking allows him to raise the question whether if “the foreskin” keeps the law, this might not be equated to circumcision.

In Rom 3:30, ἀκροβυστία is more clearly used as a term for non-Jews. Paul answers the question whether God is only the God of Jews, or also the God of the 26

This is recognized also, e.g., by John Barclay, “Paul and Philo on Circumcision: Romans 2.25-9 in Social and Cultural Context,” NTS 44.4 (1998): 536–556, at 544, and Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 108.

27 While I agree with Matthew Thiessen that Paul does not redefine Jewishness in Rom 2, nor challenge the significance of physical circumcision for Jews, and is generally focused on arguing against proselyte circumcision, I find his argument that these verses refer critically to a circumcised gentile to be unconvincing (Paul and the Gentile Problem, 43– 71; also “Paul’s Argument against Gentile Circumcision in Romans 2:17–29,” Novum Testamentum 56 [2014]: 373–391). According to Thiessen, “This gentile believes himself to be a Jew, but Paul denies him this identity, showing the interlocutor the way in which his circumcision is in reality uncircumcision” (70). Yet Paul starts off by saying that circumcision is of value if you obey the law, which, in Thiessen’s logic, must be a reference to circumcision as practiced by Jews on the eighth day, since gentile circumcision itself already constitutes a violation of the law (68). In this view then, the focus shifts between 25a and 25b, from eighth-day to proselyte circumcision, and not from keeping the law while circumcised, to violating the law while circumcised, as seems indicated. It is furthermore unclear why the fact that physical circumcision does not work for gentiles and actually does not remove foreskin, would lead Paul to infer (ἐὰν οὖν) that law-observing foreskin can be regarded as circumcision. Rather, the association of circumcision with lawobservance and of foreskin with law-breaking supports Thiessen’s overall interpretation of Paul’s message to both circumcised Jews and uncircumcised gentiles, that what pleases God is a circumcised heart (70).

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nations (ἢ Ἰουδαίων ὁ θεὸς μόνον οὐχὶ καὶ ἐθνῶν, Rom 3:29) by using synonyms for each group: “yes, also of the nations, since there is one God who will justify circumcision from faith and foreskin through the faith” (ναὶ καὶ ἐθνῶν, εἴπερ εἷς ὁ θεὸς ὃς δικαιώσει περιτομὴν ἐκ πίστεως καὶ ἀκροβυστίαν διὰ τῆς πίστεως, Rom 3:29–30).

The term ἀκροβυστία occurs here as a synonym for ἔθνη. This group ἔθνη/ἀκροβυστία are the religious outsiders, in contrast to the Ἰουδαῖοι/περιτομή, whose status as God’s people is taken as evident. That Ἰουδαῖος and περιτομή are positive categories for Paul was already confirmed at the beginning of chapter 3, where both are said to have much value (Τί οὖν τὸ περισσὸν τοῦ Ἰουδαίου ἢ τίς ἡ ὠφέλεια τῆς περιτομῆς; πολὺ κατὰ πάντα τρόπον, Rom 3:1-2). Both in positing that God will justify “foreskin” along with “circumcision” in Rom 3:30, and in assuming the association with lawbreaking yet at the same time subverting it, in Rom 2:25-17, Paul thus challenges the notion that ἀκροβυστία is a negative category, marked by distance from God. 3.4. Romans 4: Faith in ἀκροβυστία The question that opens our central passage in Rom 4 makes sense in light of the way ἀκροβυστία is used in Rom 2 and 3, and of Paul’s insistence that his message relates to “Jews first and also Greeks” (Ἰουδαίῳ τε πρῶτον καὶ Ἕλληνι, Rom 1:16, also 2:9–10; 3:9; 10:12). In asking whether the blessing from Pss 32 (LXX 31:1–2), quoted just before, is for “the circumcision,” or for “the foreskin also,” Paul rhetorically questions whether ἀκροβυστία indeed has the negative connotation that it is assumed to have. He then goes on to counter the assumption that ἀκροβυστία necessarily signifies the outsider, through the case of Abraham.

A translation that consistently—if inelegantly—translates ἀκροβυστία as foreskin shows that there is no reference here to time or sequence, but instead a strong emphasis on the fact that Abraham and his πίστις were “in (the) foreskin.”

9 Ὁ μακαρισμὸς οὖν οὗτος ἐπὶ τὴν περιτομὴν ἢ καὶ ἐπὶ τὴν ἀκροβυστίαν; λέγομεν γάρ· ἐλογίσθη τῷ Ἀβραὰμ ἡ πίστις εἰς δικαιοσύνην. 10 πῶς οὖν ἐλογίσθη; ἐν περιτομῇ ὄντι ἢ ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ; οὐκ ἐν περιτομῇ ἀλλ᾽ ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ. 11 καὶ σημεῖον ἔλαβεν περιτομῆς σφραγῖδα τῆς δικαιοσύνης τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐν τῇ ἀκροβυστίᾳ, εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πατέρα πάντων τῶν πιστευόντων δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας, εἰς τὸ λογισθῆναι [καὶ] αὐτοῖς [τὴν] δικαιοσύνην, 12 καὶ πατέρα περιτομῆς τοῖς οὐκ ἐκ περιτομῆς μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς στοιχοῦσιν τοῖς ἴχνεσιν τῆς ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ πίστεως τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἀβραάμ (Rom 4:9–12)

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9 So is this blessing for the circumcision, or for the foreskin also? We have said that the faithfulness was credited to Abraham as righteousness. 10 How was it credited? Was he in circumcision, or in foreskin? Not in circumcision, but in foreskin. 11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faithfulness that was in the foreskin. So that he would be the father of all who are faithful, through foreskin, in order that righteousness might be credited to them.

12 And father of circumcision for those not from circumcision only, but also for those who follow in the footsteps of the inforeskin-faithfulness of our father Abraham. (Rom 4:9–12) If we approach the passage with the idea that it is “foreskin” rather than “circumcision” that constitutes the problematic category for Paul, as the opening question—as well as a contextual reading of the terms—suggests, the reference to the Genesis story takes on a different meaning. It does not illustrate something about the timing of circumcision, but about the remarkable circumstances of Abraham’s faithfulness. The point of the double question in verse 10 and of the answer in both the negative and the affirmative is then to emphasize that Abraham was reckoned as righteous not while being “in circumcision,” as might be expected, but rather while being “in foreskin.” That Abraham was reckoned as righteous while “in foreskin” is presented as a surprising fact, which disrupts not what circumcision stands for, but rather what being “in foreskin” is thought to entail. The surprising possibility of being justified through πίστις while having the negative characteristic of being ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ is relevant to the larger question of who the possible recipients of God’s blessing are.

The extent to which ἀκροβυστία has been a scholarly blind spot is most evident in verse 11a, where Paul describes circumcision as a sign and a seal.

Scholars frequently note that Paul does something remarkable here, since rather than call circumcision the “sign of the covenant” (σημεῖον διαθήκης), as occurs in the Septuagint (Gen 17:11), he refers to the “sign of circumcision” (σημεῖον περιτομῆς). Apparently, circumcision itself becomes the sign, rather than being a signifier of something else. In addition, Paul calls circumcision a seal (σφραγίς), which was an imprint of something sharp and hard, onto something soft or malleable. While scholars sometimes explicitly wonder why Paul talks about circumcision in this new way, they do not, as far as I have been able to ascertain,

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reflect on any connection to the physical reality of circumcision. 28 The meaning that Paul here gives to circumcision is often described as a sign of “righteousness through faith.” 29 This common phrase completely disregards the fact that Paul’s novel explanation of the sign of circumcision includes the word “foreskin.” None of the literature surveyed here even considers what possible meaning ἀκροβυστία might have as a reference to male anatomy, even though it is exactly the term that occurs in connection with circumcision in Gen 17:11, and elsewhere, where what is circumcised is precisely the flesh of someone’s ἀκροβυστία. This oversight seems difficult to justify.

Taking ἀκροβυστία as a reference to foreskin and understanding it in light of Paul’s question about its problematic status has important implications for how verse 11a about Abraham’s circumcision is read. Here as in the previous verse, Paul uses the preposition ἐν in connection with ἀκροβυστία (with the definite article), this time not as a characterization of Abraham directly, but of his πίστις.

The sign of circumcision has to do with the righteousness of the faithfulness that was “in the foreskin” (τῆς δικαιοσύνης τῆς πίστεως τῆς ἐν τῇ ἀκροβυστίᾳ). Rather than assume that Paul’s description has reached its key point with the word πίστεως— “through faith”—and that the rest of the sentence is something of an afterthought—“while he was still uncircumcised”—the strong emphasis on ἀκροβυστία in the previous verses suggests that the crux is actually in the final words. It is the fact that Abraham’s faithfulness was “in the foreskin” which is marked by circumcision. Paul’s explanation thus indeed offers a radical—and from certain perspectives possibly even scandalous—reinterpretation of what circumcision signifies: he turns circumcision into a sign in and of the foreskin. 30

28

Even David Bentley Hart, who expressly discusses the physical nature of the term, and is committed to literalness, translates the phrase with a reference to time: “And he received a sign of circumcision, a seal of the uprightness of his faithfulness during the time when he had had a foreskin” (The New Testament, 252).

29 Jewett, Romans, 318–319. Similarly, Dunn, Romans 1–8, 209: “a sign of the righteousness Abraham received through faith”; Davies, Faith and Obedience in Romans, 164: “a seal of the righteousness by faith”; Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an die Römer, 69: “nur das Siegel und Gütezeichen der ‘Glaubensgerechtigkeit’; Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans, 189: “the righteousness that he had previously received through faith”; Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 119: “righteousness of faithfulness.”

30 For a discussion of other traditions about the circumcision of Abraham, see Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, esp. 72–79; Levenson, Inheriting Abraham, throughout; Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 105–128.

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It is difficult to know how much to make of the introduction of the idea of circumcision as a seal (σφραγίς). 31 The principal meaning of a seal as a lasting, identifying mark seems directly relevant. Circumcision described as a seal then suggests an imprint that marks the surprising fact of Abraham’s faithfulness “in the foreskin” onto his body. In addition, the term σφραγίς could also refer to the object making the imprint, which, in Greek and Roman antiquity, often took the form of a ring, sometimes with a carved gem, suggesting another physical point of comparison. Art historian Verity Platt suggests that seals “combine the beauty and expense of precious stones and metals with a specific practical function, for the seal matrix—the carved image—can be replicated ad infinitum in a variety of pliable materials which are not precious at all; they become valuable only once they have been imprinted with the original object.” 32 If this indeed reflects an ancient understanding, it is possible to suggest that Paul here interprets the seal of circumcision along similar lines, that it turns the very un-precious material of the ἀκροβυστία into a valuable image, of περιτομή.

The understanding of ἀκροβυστία and περιτομή reflected in this passage may seem paradoxical. Why would circumcision mark faithfulness in the foreskin, if it is only circumcision that makes foreskin exceptional in the first place? The logic here might be more difficult to grasp from the consensus view that “before circumcision” or “uncircumcision” is simply a neutral state, where all men are the same. Yet it is less paradoxical if we accept that ἀκροβυστία is seen through the lens of circumcision, so that its main characteristic is that it is the feature that is and should be removed through circumcision. Paul’s reasoning makes sense in a worldview in which περιτομή self-evidently belongs to God and ἀκροβυστία is a negative and problematic category, which, as we have seen, is the opposition Paul assumes. It is this opposition he is attempting to undermine, by showing, in Rom 2:25–27, that under the right circumstances, foreskin can actually also be regarded as circumcision. In Rom 4 then, in a similar way, it is through περιτομή that ἀκροβυστία becomes a positive sign, if it is associated with faithfulness.

3.5. Making Sense of διά in Verse 11 and τοῖς in Verse 12 The interpretation suggested above, that Paul understands Abraham’s circumcision as a mark of faithfulness in the foreskin, is strengthened by how it clarifies verses 11b and 12 and the two further occurrences of ἀκροβυστία there.

31

LSJ gives as the meanings of σφραγίς “seal, signet,” “gem,” and “impression of a signetring.”

32 Verity Platt, “Making an Impression: Replication and the Ontology of the Graeco-Roman Seal Stone,” Art History 29.2 (2006): 233–257, at 238.

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These verses are frequently understood as a reference to two groups who both have Abraham as their ancestor: the uncircumcised in verse 11b and the circumcised in verse 12, specifically there the circumcised who follow Abraham’s uncircumcised faith. 33 This reading rests on two problematic interpretations: it takes δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας in verse 11 as relating to “all who are faithful” and assumes that the second τοῖς in verse 12 is redundant.

In the problematic reading, the phrase δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας in verse 11b is understood as referring to τῶν πιστευόντων, so that Abraham is seen as the father of all who are faithful “while uncircumcised.” Scholars who take this position rarely reflect on how the preposition διά is used here (with a genitive, suggesting agency or means), or why Paul shifts from ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ to δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας, a phrase that does not occur anywhere else, either in Paul or more generally. Furthermore, πᾶς and the phrase “all who are faithful” are used to refer to both Jews and nonJews elsewhere in the letter (explicitly in 1:16 and 10:11–12, more implicitly in 3:22 [οὐ γάρ ἐστιν διαστολή] πᾶς occurs in connection with Jew and Greek in Rom 2:9–10 and 3:9). If δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας limits Abraham’s fatherhood to those who are uncircumcised, the use of πᾶς here contradicts this pattern and it is rather unclear why it is needed.

It makes more sense instead to understand δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας as referring not to τῶν πιστευόντων, but rather to εἰς τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πατέρα and therefore to Abraham. 34 Here as before, it is Abraham’s status with regard to circumcision that is relevant to Paul. Through foreskin, Abraham becomes the father of all who are faithful, which, as earlier, can be understood as a reference to both Jews and non-Jews.

Again, as the question in verse 9 indicates, and the previous references to περιτομή confirm, it is only the status of “the foreskin” that is in doubt, that of “the 33

So, e.g., Adams, “Abraham's Faith and Gentile Disobedience,” 63; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 210–212; Stuhlmacher, Der Brief an die Römer, 69; Hultgren, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 183–184; Levenson, Inheriting Abraham, 137–138; Wright, “Paul and the Patriarch,” 214; Wolter, Der Brief an die Römer, 288–294.

34 Benjamin Schliesser also connects δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας to Abraham, but draws a rather problematic inference from this. According to Schliesser, “Abraham’s universal fatherhood has been realized in his uncircumcised status (δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας) and not after his circumcision. According to God’s plan, therefore, he became the father of Jews and Gentiles before their differentiation into ‘circumcised’ and ‘uncircumcised.’” (Schliesser, Abraham's Faith in Romans 4, 363; emphasis in original). Schliesser here makes explicit the assumption that informs much of the consensus view on this passage, that before circumcision there existed an undifferentiated, “universal” state. Other scholars who take δι᾽ ἀκροβυστίας as a reference to Abraham include, e.g., Davies, Faith and Obedience in Romans, 165, and Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 83 n.35.

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circumcision” is a given (this is what the “Jew first and also Greek”-message underlines in this letter [Rom 1:16; 2:9–10; 3:9; 10:12]). If non-Jews are now also included in Abraham’s children “through foreskin,” then it is “through foreskin” that Abraham becomes the father of all who are faithful, because Jews were already counted as his offspring.

The second problem occurs in verse 12, if this is understood to describe Abraham as the father of only one group, made up of those Jews who follow in Abraham’s faith. This reading disregards the apparent introduction of another group in verse 12b, through the occurrence of a second τοῖς: καὶ πατέρα περιτομῆς τοῖς οὐκ ἐκ περιτομῆς μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ τοῖς στοιχοῦσιν τοῖς ἴχνεσιν τῆς ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ πίστεως τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν Ἀβραάμ. Some scholars who interpret this verse as a reference to one group only simply ignore this second τοῖς and its implications. 35 Others argue explicitly that the logic of the argument, as well as the particular form of the οὐ μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ construction, make it likely that the word is a mistake, made either

by Paul or an early copyist. 36 The idea that Abraham is not the father of those “from circumcision” generally, but only of a specific sub-group, is so compelling that τοῖς is removed from the text, even though it appears in all extant manuscripts. 37 Not all scholars assume that τοῖς can simply be ignored or crossed out. 38 James Swetnam devotes an article to this “curious crux” and argues that the οὐ 35

E.g., Ziesler, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 127–129; Esler, Conflict and Identity in Romans, 189–190; Hultgren, Paul’s Letter to the Romans, 183–184; Levenson, Inheriting Abraham, 137–138; Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 83.

36 Scholars who omit τοῖς here include Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary, 237; Wilckens, Der Brief an die Römer, 266; Dunn, Romans 1–8, 210–211; Watson, Paul, Judaism, and the Gentiles, 267 n.18. For a full history of this conjecture and its reception, see The Amsterdam Database of New Testament Conjectural Emendation (http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/nt-conjectures).

37 The critical apparatus of Nestle Aland 28 does not include any variant reading for Rom 4:12, suggesting that there are no witnesses that lack the word. Nestle Aland 27 mentions two conjectures: the substitution of αὐτοῖς for τοῖς suggested by Hort (see Brooke F. Westcott and Fenton J. A. Hort, The New Testament in the Original Greek: Introduction; Appendix [Cambridge: Macmillan, 1881], 108b) and the omission of τοῖς, a conjecture which according to The Amsterdam Database of New Testament Conjectural Emendation was first made by Erasmus (see Responsio ad collationes cuiusdam cuvenis gerontodidascali [Antwerp: Sylvius. 1529], LB IX, c. 981 B), and incorrectly attributed in NA 28 to Beza, who suggests a transposition instead (Novum D. N. Iesu Christi testamentum [Geneva: Robertus Stephanus, 1556], 180), see http://ntvmr.uni-muenster.de/nt-conjectures.

38 Brian Tucker offers an extensive discussion of the issue and concludes that Paul has two groups in view in verse 12: “non-Christ-following Jew”’ and “those who have followed in

Neutel, Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin 73 μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ construction as it occurs here is not a sufficient reason to dismiss the second τοῖς. 39 While the construction “οὐ μόνον A ἀλλὰ καὶ B” is the more common one, the pattern “A, οὐ A μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ B” also occurs. This pattern is used “for the sake of emphasis in connection with the development of some contrasting aspect or aspects.” 40 The “A, οὐ A μόνον ἀλλὰ καὶ B” pattern thus allows Paul to emphasize specifically that Abraham is the father of circumcision in a new sense: of those not from circumcision only, as it would be conventionally understood, but also of those who follow Abraham’s “in-foreskin-faithfulness,” because this is what circumcision points to, as had just been argued. Since Paul has offered a new way of understanding what Abraham’s circumcision signifies, he now clarifies the way in which Abraham’s fatherhood of circumcision is also different. It includes Jews—whose lineage was never in question—and additionally also those who walk in the footsteps of Abraham’s “in-foreskin-faithfulness,” of which circumcision is the sign. This second category is new and therefore needs specific emphasis. It is because Paul has redefined circumcision as a sign that points to the foreskin, that Abraham as the father of circumcision is also the father of those who are faithful “in foreskin.” The second τοῖς does not appear to be a mistake, but can rather be understood in light of Paul’s unusual interpretation of the circumcision of Abraham. The interpretation of διά in verse 11 and τοῖς in verse 12 proposed here still result in a parallelism between verse 11b and verse 12, since Abraham is presented as the father of Jews and faithful gentiles in both verses: in 11b through foreskin and in 12 via circumcision.

4. Conclusion As this analysis has shown, a consistent focus on the meaning and significance of ἀκροβυστία provides a plausible, if probably surprising, interpretation of the passage. There is no need to assume that Paul is concerned with time and sequence, and introduce words such as “still” and “before” to make sense of his the footsteps of Abraham’s faith, a group that is not ethnically defuse [sic] but maintains their distinctness.” Brian Tucker, Reading Romans after Supersessionism: The Continuation of Jewish Covenantal Identity (Eugene: Cascade Books, 2018), 70. Other scholars who do see τοῖς as authentic include Fitzmyer, Romans, 382; Jewett, Romans, 305, 320–321; Schliesser, Abraham's Faith in Romans 4, 363; Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 118 n.144.

39 John Swetnam, “The Curious Crux at Romans 4,12,” Biblica 61.1 (1980): 110–115.

Swetnam mentions John 11:51–52; 1 John 2:2; 5:6 as examples.

40 Swetnam, “The Curious Crux,” 114.

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reasoning. Nor is it necessary to suppose that Paul is concerned with the value or meaning of circumcision, much less with putting it in its place, as secondary to faith, and devaluing it in some sense. As argued above, the notion that ἀκροβυστία is merely an absence has informed the assumption that Paul explains something about justification in a general sense, that it comes through πίστις and not circumcision. However, a contextual understanding of ἀκροβυστία makes it unlikely that ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ can be understood as a general state, where πίστις is the distinguishing factor between otherwise similar people, who have not yet been divided into circumcised and uncircumcised.

Instead, ἐν ἀκροβυστίᾳ should be recognized as referring to an outsider state, where πίστις is an exceptional saving characteristic. Paul’s argument is thus wholly focused on the category of “the foreskin” and its inclusion into the children of Abraham, not on relegating circumcision to a secondary status. The extent to which ἀκροβυστία has been a non-issue and a blind spot in Pauline scholarship, which has allowed this passage to be read as concerned with justification through faith and as diminishing the significance of circumcision, shows that as a discipline, we are still to some extent only paying lip service to the idea that Paul should be understood within his Jewish context.

It is certainly possible to suppose that in the larger discussion about Abraham and circumcision taking place at the time, Paul’s argument for the inclusion of some of those who are “in foreskin” into Abraham’s children would have been seen as a challenge to the status of circumcision as a mark of Jews (or of Jews and proselytes). Yet this does not mean that Paul himself in any sense presents his argument as a diminishing of circumcision or as disputing the position of Jews.

The interpretation offered in this article strengthens the recent scholarly view proposed by Nina Livesey, Matthew Thiessen, Mark Nanos, and others, that Paul’s letters oppose the circumcision of gentiles who are “in Christ,” rather than circumcision more generally, let alone eighth-day circumcision of Jews. 41 Even if Paul does not argue specifically about proselyte circumcision here, as he does in Galatians, his argument that Abraham’s circumcision is a sign of his faithfulness “in the foreskin” and that gentiles can follow in the footsteps of the “in-foreskinfaithfulness” of Abraham, would support such a position. In both letters, Paul’s gospel to the ἀκροβυστία makes sense within the larger tradition of Jewish end-time expectation, in which the nations could turn to the God of Israel and worship him as gentiles, along with Jews, without becoming Jews themselves.

41

See especially Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 121; Nanos, “The Question of Conceptualization,” 121; Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 73–104. www.jjmjs.org

Re-Framing Paul’s Opposition to Erga Nomou as “Rites of a Custom” for Proselyte Conversion Completed by the Synecdoche “Circumcision” Mark D. Nanos Lund University | mark@marknanos.com JJMJS No. 8 (2021): 75–115 Abstract In Galatians, Paul challenges some Christ-followers who are not circumcised but interested in undertaking this “rite” (ἔργον) from the premise they have failed to recognize that, according to Torah, they cannot do so because the commandment of circumcision applies to Jews and to non-Jew slaves acquired by Jews, and they are neither. Non-Jews who have already heard (faithfully obeyed) the gospel, such as themselves, cannot undertake to become proselyte Jews, even if others may seek to influence them that they should or must do so to justify the gospel-based claim to have become sons of Abraham. This essay challenges the received views of Paul’s phrase ἔργα νόμου (usually “works of the law”), which is understood to indicate Paul’s opposition to Torah, or certain elements thereof. Instead, I propose that Paul’s phrase denotes “rites of a custom,” specifically the customary rites involved in proselyte religio-ethnic initiation, which are completed by the signifying rite (synecdoche) of “circumcision.” What Paul opposed was circumcision and the related initiation rites, not Torah, which he puts into tension with πίστις (faith[fulness]), in their case. Paul argues from Torah that the custom at issue, that these non-Jews undertake proselyte transformation and thus adult male circumcision, is not enjoined in Torah. In the allegory of ch. 4, he identifies the custom of proselyte conversion instead with the model for incorporating slaves by adult circumcision. This custom of promoting proselyte conversion therefore disobeys Torah, which, he argues in ch. 3, invokes a curse instead of the blessing supposed. The implications for reading Paul and extrapolating biblically based warrants for or against circumcision are many, with more than a few challenges to the prevailing Pauline discourses about this topic. Finally, in keeping with the interests of the conference on the topic of circumcision more broadly, I

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offer a hermeneutical reflection on circumcision for later “Christian” males apart from that qualification. 1 Keywords Paul, Galatians, Romans, Abraham, Sons, Heirs, Slaves, Torah, Law, Custom, Judaism, rite of circumcision, ἔργα νόμου, works of the law, rites of a custom, curse of the law, πίστις, faith(fulness), allegory of Sarah and Hagar, proselyte conversion, 4QMMT, Izates, AIDS 1. Introduction That Paul was a convert from Judaism, and concomitantly that he opposed circumcision, are cultural landmarks in Christian reasoning, equally well known to non-Christians. Without being specified, people can usually intuit that the circumcision Paul opposed was specifically the Jewish custom that applied to males, not to females. But many do not similarly qualify, or perhaps even realize, that Paul’s opposition to undertaking circumcision was expressed only toward non-Jews, not toward Jews overseeing this rite of passage for their eight-day old sons. This oversight bears witness to the habit among interpreters of Paul to universalize his rhetoric instead of carefully qualifying the contextual purpose of his arguments.

Even less well known, in fact seldom discussed even in scholarly treatments of this topic, is the fact that Paul’s opposition was expressed not toward just any non-Jews, but only those who were already Christ-followers. 2 What Paul addressed was not a choice between Christ or Torah, or in any sense an effort to achieve salvation, as usually conceptualized and expressed. These non-Jews had 1

I am grateful for responses to the original conference paper and related papers on the topic of erga nomou for a conference in Bratislava in 2018 and at the SBL Annual Meeting in 2019, and to drafts of this essay by the peer-reviewers and others who saved me from errors and made helpful suggestions to consider, including Tom Blanton, Charles Cisco, Ryan Collman, Neil Elliott, Hans Förster, Brian Robinson, Runar Thorsteinsson, Heidi Wendt, and Kent Yinger.

2 Paul’s opposition has been traditionally universalized to apply to circumcision for Jews as well, as if he simply opposes it for everyone, certainly for all who follow Christ, and for all times and situations. Recent discussions more often recognize that he opposed circumcision for Christ-followers (usually termed “Christians,” although anachronistic for Paul’s time), yet often still conceptualize the issue in terms of Christians versus Jews. To help defamiliarize and facilitate historically oriented discussion, I prefer to use “peoples,” “nations,” and “non-Jews” instead of “Gentiles” for ethnē, and “Christ-followers” rather than “Christians.”

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already chosen Christ, and they were not considering to practice Torah per se or to achieve God’s favor by human effort to do good deeds. Rather, they were considering to undertake the specific act of becoming proselytes by completing the rites involved in that process, which are summed up in the rite of circumcision.

Moreover, just as important but also just as habitually overlooked, Paul’s opposition was in response to a specific reason for these particular Christfollowing non-Jews’ interest; namely, they wanted to undertake circumcision to gain uncontested recognition as sons of Abraham by those who appeared to have the authority to confer or deny that status, at least as these non-Jews saw the case to be.

The interest of these non-Jews in circumcision was thus highly qualified.

They wanted to gain the respect of some people or groups who were otherwise contesting their expectations, expectations that arose from the gospel Paul articulated, in which he explained that they were to trust in Jesus as Messiah apart from completing the initiation rites of passage that would make them Jewish proselytes. From the point of view of those advocating the need for completing those religio-ethnic initiation rites to substantiate such claims, this interest need not have anything to do with choosing Christ; their concern was with social standing according to prevailing communal norms of their Roman Jewish subgroup’s communal context. 3

3

See my The Irony of Galatians: Paul’s Letter in First-Century Context (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2002), for a full discussion of the social setting and players in Galatia, including why and how acquiring Jewish religio-ethnic identity would be desirable to negotiate the constraints of “pagan” social life so as to avoid continuing to practice the family and civic cult that would otherwise be expected of them if they did not become proselytes, for which they would suffer serious consequences if not negotiated on the “customary” terms of social identification for the time.

Recent examinations of the way that Jewish thought and practice and thus Paul represented various, conflicting ways to negotiate Roman cultural possibilities and constraints for the people of the empire, each with the different emphases, include e.g., Neil Elliott, The Arrogance of Nations: Reading Romans in the Shadow of Empire (Paul in Critical Contexts; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008); idem, “The Question of Politics: Paul as a Diaspora Jew under Roman Rule,” in Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context to the Apostle, ed. Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2015), 203–243; Kathy Ehrensperger, Paul at the Crossroads of Cultures: Theologizing in the Space-Between (LNTS 456; London, et al: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013); Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016); Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).

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In Pauline scholarship, Paul’s opposition to circumcision, even when qualified to apply only to non-Jews in Christ, remains conflated with opposition to Torah observance. The laws or commandments Paul supposedly opposed as ἔργα νόμου (erga nomou: “works of the law” is the usual translation) are sometimes qualified as Jewish ritual commandments, and by the New Perspective on Paul (NPP) as the ritual and behavioral norms that mark Jews out from non-Jews (usually negatively valued to represent “ethnocentric boundary markers,” “nationalism”). 4 This more recent emphasis is signaled in shorthand phrases such as the one James Dunn made familiar to define the distinction between Torah per se and the “works of the law,” the latter represented by Jewish-identifying behavior like “circumcision, days, and diets.” 5 The reasons for Paul’s opposition to circumcision in the received views likely follow from the traditional conflation of circumcision with Torah observance, even when restricted in the way that Dunn’s formulation represents (for which he received enormous push-back; see note 5), which demonstrates the habit of universalizing in a way that in effect de-Judaizes Paul’s rhetoric to make it apply to everyone for all time, regardless of enormous contextual differences.

The conflation depends upon the premise that circumcision is categorically of the same kind as other Torah-based (and especially ritual) norms, at least where those distinguished Jews from other people and their laws and cultural norms. This leads to a working assumption that Paul was resisting works-righteousness or legalism or ethnically marking behavior per se, and Torah observance and Judaism more broadly, since that is where ἔργα νόμου and circumcision are (presumed to be) commanded. One of the many implications for our topic is how the traditional approach to Paul’s arguments against circumcision as well as ἔργα νόμου for those who have πίστις (pistis) in/to Christ functions in Pauline theological reasoning, not least for defining the meaning of justification by faith, as usually conceptualized and phrased. The received translations as well as interpretations based on the traditional reasoning shape not only major theological premises but 4

I will not be engaging the traditional or NPP views as much as setting out a new reading.

Cf. recent monographs that support the generalizations made about the received interpretations of this topic include Robert Keith Rapa, The Meaning of ‘Works of the Law’ in Galatians and Romans (New York, et al: Peter Lang, 2001); Stephen J. Chester, Reading Paul with the Reformers: Reconciling Old and New Perspectives (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2017); Matthew J. Thomas, Paul’s ‘Works of the Law’ in the Perspective of Second Century Reception (WUNT II 468; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018).

5 See James D. G. Dunn, ed., The New Perspective on Paul: Collected Essays (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2007), for the key essays and the development of his thought on this matter, especially “Yet Once More—‘The Works of the Law’: A Response.”

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major ways of conceptualizing ideas like faith and action in the binary contrastive terms taken up in western philosophical as well as theological reasoning. These familiar interpretations impact not only the Christian theological interests that often concern if not drive them, but because Christianity was the religion of Europe and its colonizers and to this day represents much of the world’s population, these (mis)readings have shaped and continue to shape western culture, and because of its global influence, world culture. The implications for and on Jews and Judaism can hardly be overstated. 6 I propose that the received views of Paul’s position on circumcision as well as on ἔργα νόμου and Torah, to which these are directly linked, are mistaken.

The translation “works of the law,” and others like it, misrepresent Paul’s referent in the direction of Torah observance rather than identity formation, as behaviorrather than as initiation-oriented. 7 These conflations do not allow readers to recognize that the arguments Paul mounted, including against circumcision for Christ-following non-Jews, work from the premise of the authority of Torah, not against or with qualified regard for Torah. They also do not adequately qualify the contextual, not least intra- and inter-Jewish communal, Roman, pre-Christianity concerns for those who look to these texts to do their Christian hermeneutical reasoning.

I propose instead that Paul used the phrase ἔργα νόμου to express his opposition to circumcision and related initiation rites by which a non-Jew could become a proselyte Jew, 8 a “righteous one,” a “son of Abraham.” In these 6

E.g., see Anders Gerdmar, Roots of Theological Anti-Semitism: German Biblical Interpretation and the Jews, from Herder and Semler to Kittel and Bultmann (Studies in Jewish History and Culture 20; Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009); David Nirenberg, AntiJudaism: The Western Tradition (New York and London: W. W. Norton and Company, 2013).

7 The NPP fails to make this distinction in the way that it combines the concerns with initiation into Jewish identity with observance of behavioral norms, as noted already in Dunn’s phrasing, in which circumcision is not distinguished in kind from observing Sabbaths or Jewish dietary norms.

8 The topic of how proselyte conversion arose and when it acquired that nomenclature, as we tend to understand it via the rabbis, is beyond the scope of this essay, although in some ways addressed in the excursus on circumcision below. Paul did not use this terminology; I use it etically to communicate that what is at issue is the religio-ethnic rites of transformation by which a non-Jew can become in some way a Jew that can be distinguished from identification as a non-Jew guest or fearer of God who has not undertaken this level of re-identification. Paul was concerned about that, and the argument herein is that he used circumcision and ἔργα νόμου to communicate this idea.

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arguments, his goal was not to persuade Christ-following non-Jews (all the more not to persuade Jews, whether Christ-followers or not) to disregard some or all of Torah’s commandments, or to dissuade them from seeking to achieve Jewish or other good deeds by human effort or for the wrong reasons, and so on, as usually conceptualized. Rather, Paul used ἔργα νόμου to signify the “rites” involved in initiation into Jewish religio-ethnic identification. In most of the arguments where this phrase appears it refers to the “custom” of proselyte conversion, a custom that was synecdochally represented by the concluding rite of male “circumcision.” I will explore some of the exegetical, including lexical, bases for proposing we translate the phrase “rites of a custom,” a custom completed by “circumcision,” the “rite” that serves as a synecdoche for the entire religio-ethnic initiation process, and the implications for discussing circumcision with respect to Paul’s voice. 9 To be sure, Paul regarded circumcision as a rite of passage enjoined in Torah for eight-day-old boys born to Jews (Gal 2:15–16; Phil 3:5; cf. Gen 17:9–12, 14; Lev 12:3), one that he regarded to be advantageous (Rom 3:1–2;), and required for slaves born into the households of Abraham and his descendants (Gal 4:21— 5:1; cf. Gen 17:12–14, 23–27); and by Paul’s time it also had become a custom for incorporating non-Jews into Jewish communities as proselytes (see excursus below). Paul argues that these rites of initiation for non-Jews, however customary they may have become, should not extend to the case of Christ-following nonJews, because they are already sons of Abraham miraculously, adopted by way of the spirit through their commitment to the gospel. 10 To make his case, Paul appealed to Torah! He could do so—surprising as it may seem—because Torah never enjoined circumcision or any other rites of passage (i.e., ἔργα νόμου) by which

9

In all but the case in Rom 2:15, which differs from the other cases in several ways (e.g., the phrase is not contrasted with πίστις), Paul does not include an article before either the phrase or within it. Although not material to my argument, and although the particular “rite(s)” and “custom” at issue are Jewish, and thus the addition of the article is as useful for my case as it is for those I am contesting, we ought to consider if Paul chooses not to use the article in this case, perhaps just to play with the nuance that I will highlight (that this is not enjoined in “the Custom/Torah”). As we will discuss, this grammatical distinction appears to play a role in the contrast he draws when introducing his allegory in Gal 4:21. Note also that in 3:19, the diatribal question changes the topic from the previous argument against completing ἔργα νόμου, to the relevance of “the nomos [ὁ νόμος].”

10 Rom 8:14–17; Gal 3:29—4:7. See Caroline Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs: A Study of Kinship and Ethnicity in the Letters of Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

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non-Jews (better: non-Israelites) could become Jews (Israelites/sons of Abraham). 11 The traditional view fails to recognize that Torah does not contain any such commandment regarding circumcision for non-Jews that Paul could be dismissing or breaking. When this is recognized, we can begin to read Paul’s opposition to proselyte conversion/transformation, represented in his arguments by the synecdoche circumcision and the phrase ἔργα νόμου, not in contrast to but instead based upon appealing to the fact that Torah did not provide for the religioethnic transformation that was being advocated. Paul appealed to the voice of Torah to make his case that the proposed “rites” he opposed represented disobedience rather than observance of God’s Guidance for Israel (i.e., Torah).

His arguments represent one of the many intra-Jewish debates of his time as well as before and after it, in which, as Christine Hayes explains, “the messy multidimensional biblical conception of divine law discourse” enables “readers to claim a biblical pedigree for radically different constructions of divine law.” 12 The reading proposed demonstrates how Paul within Judaism approaches, which some Pauline scholars have begun to explore in recent years, 13 can lead to new insights to pursue and test and put into conversation with the 11

Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 43, helpfully highlights this absence in Tanakh. However, I do not agree with Thiessen that Paul’s objection began from a primordial objection to the idea itself, unlike the premise from which the author of Jubilees’s rhetoric seeks to persuade. Paul had advocated the rite in the past (Gal 5:11). Paul’s objection followed from his theological reasoning of the implications of the Shema Israel in view of the revelation of Christ, discussed below. Working from that conviction, Paul then discovered and seized upon this argument from Torah to supplement the otherwise gospel-based basis for his objection, also discussed more below.

12 Christine Hayes, What’s Divine about Divine Law?: Early Perspectives (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2015), 3. Although Hayes is here emphasizing how this developed in response to Greco-Roman discourses of divine law, her argument reaches into areas such as the one I am investigating, and helpfully grounds intra-Jewish debates in their non-Jewish cultural contexts. Because the idea of circumcision for non-Jews as a part of proselyte conversion appears to arise in the Greek and Roman periods and not earlier (see excursus below), we should consider how local and empirical concerns and constraints may have shaped the interests of the influencers in Galatia, for example, to advocate the completion of proselyte rites of passage; I explore this dynamic, albeit without the benefit of Hayes’s insights and from a construction of Paul that differs from hers in some ways, in Irony of Galatians, 203–283.

13 The essays in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, explain this perspective and some of the influential scholarship from which it draws.

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received views. In addition, I hope the reading will contribute to the investigation of circumcision not only with respect to interpreting the historical Paul, and, closely related to that, for discussing Paul’s voice in matters relevant to ChristianJewish relations, but also to discussions of circumcision in contemporary cultural discourses and policy making when his voice is invoked as a factor. My reading of Paul’s opposition to ἔργα νόμου as well as circumcision destabilizes the received views on faith versus works and justification, and thereby offers a very different way to construct Paul in terms of his theology of faithfulness apart from proselyte conversion. In this article, I will focus discussion on the role of ἔργα νόμου in Paul’s reasoning with regard to the role of circumcision and proselyte conversion for the Christ-following non-Jews his letters addressed. 14 2. Defining ἔργα νόμου in terms of Circumcision and Proselyte Conversion The traditional translation of the phrase ἔργα νόμου as “works of the law” reflects the traditional premise that Paul opposes observing behavior (ἔργα as “works/deeds”) enjoined in Torah (νόμος as “the Law”), which is contrasted with what he is understood to advocate instead, πίστις (“faith”). As mentioned, prevailing New Perspective interpretations also conflate the deeds of circumcision with the deeds of observing days and diets and other specifically Jewish behavioral norms. But Paul does not raise any objection to Torah-based behavior in the contexts that this phrase appears, or anywhere else in these letters—if one does not define ἔργα νόμου to do so. Elsewhere, I have demonstrated why the few cases where Paul supposedly opposed Torah observance according to the traditional 14

There is not space to present a comprehensive examination of ἔργα νόμου and the larger theological implications that follow from my reading thereof, or put these into conversation with the many elements in the received views; some of this was covered in previously published essays, e.g., my “The Question of Conceptualization: Qualifying Paul’s Position on Circumcision in Dialogue with Josephus’s Advisors to King Izates,” in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, 105–152; and in “Paul’s Non-Jews Do Not Become ‘Jews,’ But Do They Become ‘Jewish’?: Reading Romans 2:25–29 Within Judaism, Alongside Josephus,” JJMJS 1 (2014): 26–53; updated in Reading Paul within Judaism: The Collected Essays of Mark D. Nanos, Vol. 1 (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017), 127–154; additional elements are the focus of forthcoming research adumbrated in my “For Second Temple Jewish Texts, Reading Paul’s erga nomou as ‘Works of the Law’ Does Not Work: A New Proposal,” presented at “The Message of Paul the Apostle within Second Temple Judaism” conference, Bratislava, Slovakia, Oct. 2018; and “For Paul’s Intra-Jewish Context ‘Works of Law’ Does Not Work for erga nomou, or ‘Faith [alone]’ for pistis: Why Not? What Works?” in the “Paul within Judaism” session at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, San Diego, CA, Nov. 2019.

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readings point instead to his commitment to Torah and his expectation that his readers know that to be the case; herein I will concentrate on the topics of circumcision and ἔργα νόμου. 15 For example, when we take account of the probable situation in Galatia based on how Paul makes his arguments, we find him opposing circumcision and ἔργα νόμου for his addressees because they are nonJews in Christ, but not Torah observance itself. It seems highly unlikely that the influencers there were urging Torah observance, but rather the need for these non-Jews to become circumcised. Note that he argues against trusting those proposing they should be circumcised because they are failing to emphasize the obligation to do the whole of Torah that follows after becoming under Torah (5:3; 6:12–13). Whether that accurately portrays the influencers’ objectives or not, Paul must have expected this to be a feasible enough observation about what the influencers emphasized to expect this line of argumentation to have persuasive weight. 16 In other words, Paul’s approach requires that the addressees have understood the focus of the influencers’ concern to be on them undertaking circumcision, not Torah observance per se. Galatians is a call for non-Jews in Christ to remain circumcision- or proselyte-conversion-free, if you will, but is not about them needing to become Torah-free.

In Galatians and Romans, the letters where the phrase ἔργα νόμου and most of Paul’s references to circumcision arise, he is opposing the specific signifying rites (ἔργα) involved in the process of proselyte conversion. He specifies the rite (ἔργον) of circumcision, and his opposition is directed only to non-Jews who already are faithful to the gospel—those with πίστις—undertaking this “rite.”

The specific custom to which this refers is the religio-ethnic initiation into identity as a Jew. Both the rite of circumcision and ἔργα νόμου function as metonyms for ethnic transformation rites; circumcision also functions as a synecdoche for the entire process. I will thus proceed to translate Paul’s phrase as “rites of a custom.”

A useful paraphrase to defamiliarize and clarify would be, “rites of a custom [completed by circumcision; namely, proselyte conversion].” A useful modern

15

See my “The Myth of the ‘Law-Free’ Paul Standing Between Christians and Jews,” Studies in Christian-Jewish Relations 4 (2009): 1–21; updated in Reading Paul within Judaism, 77– 107, for a survey, along with many other essays included in Reading Paul within Judaism.

See also Paula Fredriksen, “Judaizing the Nations: The Ritual Demands of Paul’s Gospel,” New Testament Studies 56 (2010): 232–252.

16 In addition, Paul’s approach would also fail to be persuasive if he, as a circumcised Jew, was not believed by the addressees to be obliged to observe the whole of Torah; otherwise, they would be expected to rejoin that, if he was not obliged thereby to do so, why should they be held to a different standard.

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language translation might be, “rites involved in completing proselyte conversion.”

Circumcision is of course only one rite, but Paul refers to ἔργα, rites. Paul employed the phrase ἔργα νόμου to refer to the entire process that we now usually refer to as proselyte conversion (better: religio-ethnic transformation). His use of circumcision as a synecdoche highlights this to be the one exemplary “rite” that demonstrates the transition to religio-ethnic identification as a proselyte Jew has been completed. This act had become a signifier of Jewish identity, albeit one that was confined to male Jews. His choice of the plural suggests there are rites besides the rite of circumcision, but he never makes them explicit. The habit of referring to rites of passage even when discussing any given rite is evident in the language used by ritual theorists: the act is accompanied by rituals and also involves more than the rites themselves in the sense that the one undertaking this passage is also learning new behavior and related cultural dynamics, although those will not by themselves function in the same way as completing the defining rites or rite. It is one thing to act like a Jew, another to become a Jew, but in the liminal process of transformation one is learning to behave in the new ways that the completion of this process will confirm as obligatory for life.

The warrant for translating ἔργα in this phrase (and surrounding contexts when used alone) as rites rather than as works or deeds, which have been understood to refer to the accomplishing of behavioral norms rather than the rites of initiation is—in addition to the contextual case that will be made for Paul’s usage—informed by the way that Josephus used this same language. Josephus’s discussion of the case of King Izates in Antiquities 20 provides a particularly relevant parallel. It is one of the few examples from Paul’s time (in this case slightly later, but discussing a case overlapping Paul’s time) that discusses the apparently by this time familiar (albeit still controversial) custom that a non-Jew can become a Jew by way of completing certain ἔργα, and the ἔργον of circumcision in particular, which Louis Feldman translated as “rites” and “rite” for the Loeb volumes. 17 Since I have explored that example in detail, a few comments should suffice here. 18 17

Note for Paul the case of ἐργαζόμενοι in 1 Cor 9:13, and for Josephus, see Ant 8.111; 12.241 (which are but a few of the many cases tracing the cultic usage by Kathy Ehrensperger in her “Imagine – No ‘Works of Law’!: Struggling with ‘Eργα νόμου’ in Changing Times and Places” (paper presented at the “Paul within Judaism” session of the SBL Annual Meeting in San Diego, Nov. 2019).

18 See my “The Question of Conceptualization,” 105–152; also my “Paul’s Non-Jews Do Not Become ‘Jews’?”

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In Ant. 20.17–48, Josephus relates that King Izates of Adiabene, a client kingdom of Parthia during Paul’s time, was a non-Jew who practiced a Jewish way of life. He was instructed in how to do so by a Jew named Ananias, although there is no mention of a Jewish community. When Izates expressed interest in actually undertaking to complete the “rites [ἔργα]” that would make him a Jew as well— circumcision being the “rite [ἔργον]” specifically discussed, and no others— Ananias and Izates’s mother (who also already practiced a Jewish way of life), were opposed to this as “improper” in his case. They feared (rightly, it turns out) that undertaking this rite would cause the people of his kingdom to rebel against his rule, for it signified the treasonous behavior of becoming beholden to another people and their god in a way that continuing to merely practice Jewish behavior apparently would not be expected to represent (41; cf. 46–48). Ananias instructed the king “to worship [σέβειν] God without circumcision; even though he by all means did resolve to be zealous for the ancestral traditions [πάτριος] of the Jews, this is superior [‘lordlier’] to being circumcised” (41). Moreover, Ananias argues that God “will have forgiveness” toward Izates for “not performing τὸ ἔργον [the rite]” of circumcision because of the constraints of his situation as the king of a people who are not Jews (42). Notice the singular and plural forms both point to circumcision in particular as a transformative religio-ethnic action for a non-Jew that is distinguished from behaving like a Jew. The story of Izates takes a turn with the introduction of another Jew’s arrival in Adiabene, Eleazar. He urges Izates “to complete the rite [τὸ ἔργον]” of circumcision (43–45). Eleazar argues that in the Mosaic Torah (τὸν Μωυσέος νόμον) Izates was reading, circumcision is commanded, so it is hypocrisy to merely behave in (other) Jewish ways as if sufficient for himself (44). Here we have an example of promoting a νόμος that is not actually enjoined in the νόμος for nonJews such as Izates, but it is presented as if it was. His provocation had the desired effect: Izates called for the physician in order to be circumcised and “complete what was commanded,” thereby accomplishing “the rite” (46). Not without interest for comparing this case to Paul’s argument, Josephus called this act “faith(fulness) [to God] alone [μόνῳ πεπιστευκόσιν]” (48); that is, instead of taking the expedient, safe path recommended by his mother and Ananias of avoiding circumcision, he was faithful to that which God instructed per Eleazar, regardless of the risk.

At issue in Josephus’s story was the practice of Judaism [a Jew’s way of life] by a non-Jew/Judean apart from becoming a Jew/Judean religio-ethnically by completing the rite of circumcision. Eleazar (per Josephus, of course) said this custom of circumcision was enjoined in the νόμος; Ananias seems to assume the same, but offers a reason that Izates ought not to apply this to himself based upon

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political expedience, given the context. Eleazar, however, argued that it would be disobedient to Torah for someone (although not a Jew) as interested in the worship of Israel’s God and the cultural way of life of Jews/Judeans (i.e., Judaism), not to complete circumcision. We thus witness, via Josephus, that there were a variety of views among Jews of Paul’s time with regard to how non-Jews who showed interest in fully practicing Jewish customs should understand the relevance of the rite of circumcision for themselves. And in this case, circumcision is understood to signify the choice for an adult male to “definitively/certainly [βεβαίως]” become “a Jew” (38).

The translation of νόμος in this phrase as custom (or convention or norm) is based both on the normal lexical 19 as well as Paul’s contextual usage of this phrase, including in some other cases when used alone but in close proximity, where it seems to connote the same rite of circumcision for religio-ethnic initiation. As will be discussed, Paul opposed a recently developed cultural custom that supposedly pertained to the non-Jews he addressed, yet the behavioral norms of Torah (“the Custom”) were not given to non-Jews. There is no νόμος (custom, norm, law) in “the νόμος” (Torah, God’s Guidance for Israel) that enjoins the rite of circumcision (or related rites) for non-Jews (non-Israelites, non-Abrahamic genealogical descendants, except for Ishmael as slave-son), by which they can become Israelites or Jews. That many supposed that it was enjoined in Scripture can be observed in the argument of Eleazar (and the implicit understanding of Izates and his mother as well as of Ananias) per Josephus, but one searches in vain in those same Scriptures, all the more the Pentateuch alone, to find non-Jews enjoined to complete circumcision, or that by doing so they became a Jew/Judean, as Izates is led by Eleazar to suppose (20.38–48). For some Jews and Jewish communities, circumcision may be becoming or already have become a or even the “customary rite” of religio-ethnic passage by which non-Jews could become Jews, but Izates, a non-Jew, would not have found anywhere in Torah (in manuscripts known to us) that it applied to himself.

To keep this distinction salient, and to defamiliarize so as not to perpetuate the habit of supposing that Paul is referring to behavioral norms rather than the rites involved in the religio-ethnic transformation process, we could use νόμος (nomos) and keep our options open, but, since many will gloss νόμος as “law,” I think it is better to use a word like “custom,” “convention,” or “norm,” or some similar word other than “law.” In addition, avoiding the use of “law” is useful to avoid the familiar habit of supposing that circumcision for non-Jews in order to become Jews is legislated by Torah, and thus that Paul is in some way opposing 19

LSJ, νομός, 1180.

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Torah when he opposes circumcision in the case of its role in proselyte conversion. Paul argues from the fact that this is not enjoined in Torah, although the received views do not appear to have even considered that Paul might be arguing for obedience to, rather than dismissal of that which is enjoined in Torah.

In summary, Paul uses the synecdoche circumcision just as he also uses the phrase ἔργα νόμου, rites of a custom [completed by circumcision], to signify the rites of passage involved in the religio-ethnic transformation by which non-Jews can become Jews, a norm that was not present in the Tanakh but had become broadly accepted and promoted in the Diaspora communities of Paul’s time, for a variety of reasons, some of which are discussed in the excursus below. Paul was not discussing or opposing the observance of Torah in principle, or observing Torah for the (wrong) reasons (such as works-righteousness or ethnocentric nationalistic boundary marking behavior), as variously argued in the traditional and New Perspective on Paul readings.

2.1. Excursus on Circumcision in Torah and Tanakh Circumcision meant and means different things to different people and groups, and often enough is understood to signify several different things to the same people and groups, depending upon the context. 20 Torah enjoined that Israelite males should be cut off from the people if not circumcised on their eighth day of life (Gen 17:9–12, 14), 21 whether the practice was always followed, or the punishment enacted. 22 Thus circumcision functioned as an ethnic marker of 20

There are many discussions of the topic of circumcision, including several recent ones that focus on the implications for interpreting Paul, although not necessarily to similar conclusions; e.g., Nina Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol (WUNT 2.295; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010); Asha K. Moorthy, “A Seal of Faith: Rereading Paul on Circumcision, Torah, and the Gentiles” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, 2014).

21 Cf. Num 15:30–31, for the broader pronouncement that would have included circumcision; see also Jub. 2:27; 15:26–29; 33–34; David A. Bernat, Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Priestly Tradition (Ancient Israel and Its Literature 3; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 70–75; Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, esp. for highlighting the element of the rite being performed on the eighth day.

22 There are many indications that neither were the case, e.g., why would circumcision be enjoined in Josh 5:1–8 for those who were to enter the land after the period of wandering if it had been practiced all along? Just when circumcision became such the central identifier of Israelite/Judean/Jewish identification that it was by the time of Paul is unclear. There are many complicating issues that the rabbis have navigated, which were presumably matters of disagreement all through the centuries. For example, even a seemingly simple issue such as determining when the child is eight days old depends on debatable decisions about when

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Israelite status for males born to Israelites. But completing circumcision was not similarly enjoined as a religio-ethnic marker by which foreskinned non-Israelites became Israelites. 23 Genealogical descent was required to be an Israelite, 24 although there are exceptions to rules, for example Ruth, for whom the topic of circumcision does not arise since she is a woman. The question of her ethnic identification as an Israelite remains unclear. 25 Abraham was also commanded to circumcise his slaves as members of his extended household, although they did not thereby become his descendants (Gen 17:12–13; 23–27; Ishmael is a different case, yet still not the line of the covenant descendants of Isaac; Gen 17:19–21); these slaves were extensions of the master’s person. 26 The Mosaic covenant also commanded the circumcision of male slaves of Israelites if they are to eat the paschal offering, but they did not thereby become Israelites (Exod 12:44); they also remained distinguishably different from the hired laborer, who could be circumcised but still would not be entitled to eat the paschal sacrifice (v. 45). 27 The male ger (resident alien living among Israelites and bound by their laws) who wanted to join the Passover meal was also required to be circumcised, but he remained identifiably a ger, not an Israelite (Exod 12:43–49; Lev 17:8, 10,

the day begins and ends, and more complicated issues involve deciding how to proceed when that day falls on a Sabbath or other holy days, and related to the health of the child on that day.

23 Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (HCS 31; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 119–125; Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 43 (cf. 63).

24 Cohen, Beginnings, 119–125, 130–132, 341–343.

25 Also, other people might be blessed or used by Israel’s God, even offer acceptable sacrifices. See Volker Haarmann, JHWH-Verehrer der Volker: Die Hinwendung von Nichtisraeliten zum Gott Israels in alttestamentlichen Überlieferungen (Abhandlungen zur Theologie des Alten und Neuen Testaments 91; Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich [TVZ], 2008).

26 Bernat, Sign, 14–20, 45–46, 75–76, 125.

27

Bernat, Sign, 43–44, 125; Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 57–60. The commandment is often understood to mean that these slaves had to become circumcised, but the wording leaves open whether they had to do so apart from partaking of the meal, such as would be natural for a house slave, but perhaps not apply to some slaves who would not necessarily be present in the home for the meal.

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13, 15; 20:2; 22:18). 28 The ger, and thus the circumcision of the ger, is not discussed in the Abraham accounts in Genesis, or by Paul in the ἔργα νόμου texts.

Israelite women were not circumcised, or the woman slave or ger; they were identified apparently by the ethnic status of the father or husband. 29 There are stories about the circumcision of non-Israelites, but they do not thereby become Israelites. Jacob’s sons trick the Shechemites into being circumcised as a part of their plot to avenge the wrong done their sister, but the ethnic distinction remained salient (Gen 34).

Later, under the Hasmoneans, some Judeans/Jews were forcibly circumcised and made to practice Jewish norms, and certain neighboring peoples were too, but it was far from clear that they had become Judeans/Jews, or instead half-Jews (used as a challenge to Herod’s authenticity), or were simply subject peoples, perhaps on the model of acquired slaves. 30 Such circumcisions did not reflect the completion of religio-ethnic rites of passage in the same way as did either the practice for eight day old males born to Israelites/Jews, or later of proselytes; these were acts forced upon subject people groups.

Moreover, and not without relevance for the distinction between circumcision and ἔργα νόμου in Paul’s argument to which I am trying to call attention, Egyptian priests and Arab descendants of Ishmael and others practiced circumcision during the writing of the Torah and Tanakh, but they were not in any way understood to be Israelites or Judeans/Jews (Herodotus, Hist. 2.36–37, 104; Jer 9:24–25). 31 Their circumcision would not have been confused with the ethnic identification rites of passage undertaken by Israelites and later 28

Bernat, Sign, 21–22, 43–48, 125; Cohen, Beginnings, 119–125; Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 60–63. The ger is discussed in Exod 12:19, 48–49; Lev 16:29; 17:8, 10–15; 18:26; 19:10, 33–34; 20:2; 22:18; 23:22; 24:16, 22; 25:35, 47; Num 9:14; 15:14–16, 26, 29–30; 19:10; 35:15.

29 Bernat, Sign, 22, 33–34, 48–50, 125; Shaye J. D. Cohen, Why Aren’t Jewish Women Circumcised?: Gender and Covenant in Judaism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005).

30 1 Macc 2:46; Josephus, Ant. 12.278 (of foreskinned Jews); 13.257–258 (of Idumeans by Hyrcanus), 318–319 (Itureans by Aristobulus); Cohen, Beginnings, 110–119. On Herod’s contested identity, see Cohen, Beginnings, 15–24; Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 87–110.

31 Jack M. Sasson, “Circumcision in the Ancient Near East,” JBL 85.4 (1996): 473–476; Cohen, Beginnings, 44–46; Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 52–57. The practice is attested among many aboriginal peoples from all over the world, many of whom would not likely be aware of any of these parallel cases, and may predate that of Abraham and the Israelites; see David L. Gollaher, Circumcision: A History of the World’s Most Controversial Surgery (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 53–71.

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Judeans/Jews, which were commanded in Torah, which is not the authority to which they looked; similarly, their circumcision would not have been confused with the dynamic of ἔργα νόμου that Paul opposed.

In short, one could say that circumcision did not function as an ethnic boundary marker per se, that is, other people were circumcised too, and the Israelite slave and stranger among them were circumcised and yet not Israelites.

At the same time, it was a necessary one for those who were ethnically identified as Israelites; a foreskinned male descendent of Abraham was to be cut off from the people: in that sense circumcision was an ethnic boundary marker for Israelites/Judeans/Jews, and the circumcision of those closely affiliated with them was also a salient indicator of the role circumcision played in Israelite/Judean/Jewish identity. 32 The specificity of circumcision of eight-day-old boys (as the ideal) may have particularly distinguished Jews from other peoples who practiced circumcision. 33 The role of circumcision as a religio-ethnic marker became highlighted in certain Second Temple Jewish groups of the Greek and Roman worlds, and later yet in rabbinic Judaism, when circumcision was understood to distinguish Jewish identification, although there remained a variety of views about converts, not least to what degree they remained identifiably distinguishable from Jews by genealogical descent. 34 32

Bernat, Sign, 48 (also 132), concludes that the fact that slaves and ger were circumcised means that “circumcision in P is not a symbol of Israelite ethnicity,” but it does seem to be an ethnic symbol if Israelites lose their standing in the covenant when not circumcised; however, it is not the case that everyone who is circumcised is an Israelite ethnically.

33 The argument of Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, who discusses the anomalous case of Paul circumcising Timothy in Acts 16 (120–123). Timothy had a Jewish mother but not father and was not circumcised as an infant, so it is unclear whether he had been born a Jew or not, and thus whether he should be circumcised to correct an oversight in his case, which was apparently a matter of debate between Jewish communities of the time.

34 Esth 8:17 LXX; Jdt 14:10; Josephus, Ant. 20.17–96 for Izates, suggests circumcision of non-Jew converts, and this became the norm in later rabbinic tradition (Sipre Num. 108); see discussion above. There are more ambiguous cases in Josephus too, see Terence L. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles: Jewish Patterns of Universalism (to 135 CE) (Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2007), 279–361; Nanos, “Paul’s Non-Jews Do Not Become Jews.’” That Antiochus Epiphanes could have professed that he would become circumcised to become a Jew by the author of 2 Macc 9:17 bears witness that by the second century BCE the undertaking of this religio-ethnic transformation was recognized as possible in some circles, and for various, including questionable reasons. Just after Paul’s time, Josephus relates that the Roman commander Metilius sought to save his life during the Revolt by promising to “judaize” to the degree of becoming circumcised (War 2.454). Philo writes

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In the few cases where ioudaizien appears, which are during the Greek period, the usage is ambiguous enough to lead to debates about whether this indicated that a non-Jew acted like a Jew (transformed religio-behavior, what we could call converting to Judaism in the sense of practicing Jewish cultural norms) or became a Jew (transformed religio-ethnic identification, what we could call converting in the sense of becoming a member of the Jewish people, at least distinguished from other people who are not Jews and have not completed the about welcoming proselytes (Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993], 295–296), but he does not mention that they undertook circumcision specifically, although spiritual circumcision is implied in QE 2.2. Philo also does not mention Abraham’s circumcision when discussing Gen 17 (Abr. 81–84), even though he identifies Abraham in terms of being the model for the proselyte convert, since he was the first to turn from idolatry to the Lord God (Virtues 212–219; Dreams 1.161); see Maren R. Niehoff, “Circumcision as a Marker of Identity: Philo, Origen and the Rabbis on Gen 17: 1—14,” Jewish Studies Quarterly 10.2 (2003): 89–123. At the same time, Philo does foreground the significance of physical circumcision, and advocates for respect toward proselytes in ways that suggest the kinds of tensions over identity that I propose were at work in Galatia, even though he does not explicitly link the undertaking of circumcision to proselytes (Spec. Laws 1.2–11, 51–53; Rewards 152; QE 2.2). Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 235–239, however, concludes from Philo’s logic in QG 3.50, 62, that Philo understood proselytes to be circumcised (266–267). Donaldson also observes that Philo’s preferred term for commenting on passages in LXX that use proselyte is to use instead ἐπηλύτων (for Donaldson’s overall and useful discussion of Philo’s views, 217–278, and of QE 2.2 in particular, where he argues, convincingly, that Philo’s logic suggests the assumption that these proselytes are circumcised in the flesh, 268–272).

That Greco-Romans regarded circumcision to be a marker of Jewish identification can be seen in comments (some negative, some simply observations about those from Judea)

by Horace, Sat. 1.9.68–74; Petronius, Sat. 68.8; 102.14; Martial, Epig. 7.30, 44, 55, 82; 11.94; Juvenal, Sat. 14.96, 99; Strabo, Geogr. 16.2.37; Celcus, De Medicina, 7.25.1; Suetonius, Dom. 12.2; Tacitus, Hist. 5.1–2; see Cohen, Beginnings, 39–49, among others who trace these developments. But circumcision of non-Jews in Jewish terms was still controversial, and not all groups recognized this transformation for making non-Jews into Jews; see Thiessen, Contested Conversion. At the same time, Paul’s rhetoric suggests that Jewish groups in Galatia and Rome with whom Paul’s assemblies operated or had contact did promote the model of proselytes, however named. For the complexity of the rabbinic period, including the conversion ritual, see Cohen, Beginnings, 198–238 (esp. helpful discussion of b.

Yevamot 47a–b and tractate Gerim 1:1), 308–340; Gary G. Porton, The Stranger within Your Gates: Converts and Conversion in Rabbinic Literature (CSHJ; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); Lawrence A. Hoffman, Covenant of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism (CSHJ; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

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rites to suppose that they are Jews). Not without significance, completing the act of circumcision in these stories of judaizing represented a distinguishably different action from merely adopting other Jewish behavior; circumcision functions as the marker of going all the way.

The way that circumcision is coupled with ioudaizien in these stories has led me to understand them to be relating early cases where non-Jews became in some way recognized as transforming into Jews, what became known as proselyte converts, rather than simply to indicate non-Jews who behaved in some ways like Jews. 35 They were being distinguished from non-Jews who were in some ways behaving Jewishly, what might be described as behaving Jewish-ish culturally rather than becoming Jewish religio-ethnically. Shaye Cohen argues that this same language instead indicates that these are non-Jews merely acted Jewishly even to the point of undertaking circumcision, but that this did not indicate that they had become Jews. The ambiguity may indicate that circumcising non-Jews as part of a religio-ethnic transformation process was a relatively new custom in development. Some people and groups understood this to indicate only adopting cultural behavior to varying degrees while others understood it to indicate transformation of ethnic identification, not unlike the current debates about this distinction.

The ambiguity around which this debate swirls among scholars today plays to the point I wish to make about the issues Paul confronted: Paul tried to expose that the undertaking of circumcision and any other rites by which it was being argued that non-Jews need to become transformed into Jews ethnically to make the claim of Abrahamic sonship they were making based upon the gospel, represented an innovative custom, an ἔργα νόμου rather than a commandment. He thereby sought to delegitimate undertaking these rites or this rite for his addressees as a proper, self-evident interpretation of Torah as it applies to themselves, since they were non-Jews rather than Jews from birth. It was only the

35

Esth 8:17 LXX; Jdt 14:10; Josephus, War 2.454; Mark D. Nanos, “What Was at Stake in Peter’s ‘Eating with Gentiles’ at Antioch?” in The Galatians Debate: Contemporary Issues in Rhetorical and Historical Interpretation, ed. Mark D. Nanos (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2002), 303–312 (282–318), explains my view in more detail, and interacts with the other major viewpoints at that time, such as by Shaye Cohen, Beginnings, and James Dunn, and remains the case, contra the later argument by Steve Mason, “Jews, Judaeans, Judaizing, Judaism: Problems of Categorization in Ancient History,” Journal for the Study of Judaism 38 (2007): 457–512. Cf. Donaldson, Judaism and the Gentiles, 30–33 on Esth 8:16–17 LXX; Philip F. Esler, “Making and Breaking an Agreement Mediterranean Style: A New Reading of Galatians 2:1–14,” in The Galatians Debate, 278 (261–281).

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latter who were enjoined to be circumcised (ideally) when infants as a rite of passage related to identification as Jews.

3. Qualifying Circumcision in the Context of Paul’s Usage of ἔργα νόμου Paul seldom uses the phrase ἔργα νόμου, and when he does so it is to argue that faithfulness for non-Jews does not consist of the same responsibility to Torah’s commandment regarding circumcision that applies to Jews. In all but one case he also uses the phrase ἔργα νόμου in a negative binary contrast to the role of πίστις for the non-Jews he addresses (Gal 3:2–5, 10, 12; Rom 3:20, 28; also relevant: Rom 2:15; 3:27; 4:9–12).

In these cases, Paul argues against non-Jews in Christ undertaking ἔργα νόμου because in their case doing so would signal that they, having remained nonJews, now sought uncontested status as sons of Abraham on prevailing local, present age customary terms (hence, “rites of a custom” or “customary rites”), which involved completing proselyte conversion. That course of initiation— according to Paul’s reasoning after his revelation—involved the denial of the gospel’s claim that they already had that status as non-Jews, as members from the other nations also (hence, the contrast to πίστις is in terms of “faithful obedience” to the gospel “heard”; see Gal 3:1–6).

Paul uses the phrase ἔργα νόμου positively several times in one argument to refer to himself and Peter as Jews (Gal 2:15–17). They experienced the initiation rites associated with circumcision as infant sons of Jews (which was a choice made by their parents to be faithful to Torah; thus not a choice they made themselves, except for their own sons, if they had any): Paul and Peter were “Jews from birth.”

Rather than a binary contrast, Paul appeals to a complimentary relationship in their case; they have the benefit of ἔργα νόμου (circumcision rites, a seal of their identity as sons of Abraham) and yet also have πίστις in the gospel claims for Jesus as Messiah. 36 Jews already had the status of Abrahamic sonship, so they did not face that problematic consideration; their experience of circumcision, if raised by observant parents, was enjoined in Torah for those identified as Israelites/Jews,

36

That Paul would argue based on the complementary nature of their experience of ἔργα

νόμου and πίστις as Jews is so universally incomprehensible that translators and

commentators continue to render ἐὰν μὴ in v. 16 as “but,” even when noting that this refers to “except”; that is, Paul is referring to their experience as Jews who express trust in Christ although circumcised in contrast to the non-Jews in Christ being discussed, who have not experienced circumcision because they have not undertaken ἔργα νόμου.

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and completed independent of their own initiative. 37 The argumentative point is that since they have made the same choice to trust the gospel’s truth claim about Jesus as Messiah that the non-Jews in their Jewish subgroup assemblies have made, it is illogical—even harmful—to teach or behave so as to suggest that these non-Jews are not equal members of the righteous ones with themselves as Jews, and thus “compel” these non-Jews to suppose that they must become Jews to gain uncontested equal status in these assemblies. 38 Paul’s arguments, in context, involve insisting that these non-Jews already in Christ resist the social pressure to gain normative, uncontested status as sons of Abraham (already enjoyed by Jews/Israelites through genealogical descent and confirmed by circumcision of infant sons) by way of the prevailing custom of completing proselyte conversion. Their resistance would bear witness to the gospel’s chronometrical claim, that is, that the age to come had dawned, and that they were already, miraculously, by way of the spirit, also sons of Abraham from the nations rather than from Israel. This claim would be made manifest by the way that they mixed in their Jewish subgroup assemblies, wherein those from the nations (foreskinned) joined alongside of Israelites (circumcised) to worship the One God and await God’s restoration of all humankind. Proselyte conversion (completed by circumcision) would compromise the claim of the gospel that this awaited time had begun. The differences between Jew and nonJew must remain for the demonstration of age-to-come shalom to be highlighted by their Shema-based commitment to non-discrimination as they assembled

37

The infant’s circumcision is a feature of ἔργα νόμου in the traditional and NPP views (and ought to be, the Antioch Incident revolves around non-Jews in Christ resisting “those from circumcision”)—even if not confined to the rites of initiation as I propose ἔργα νόμου should be—but the circumcision of Jews as infants undermines their premise that Paul was opposing prideful human achievement, whether categorized in traditional terms as “worksrighteousness” or “legalism,” or in NPP terms as “ethnocentric nationalism”; the child never chose to become circumcised, and thus to perform ἔργα νόμου versus πίστις.

38 My interpretation of the Antioch Incident along these lines has been argued in several essays; the most recent are “How Could Paul Accuse Peter of ‘Living Ethné-ishly’ in Antioch (Gal 2:11–21) If Peter Was Eating according to Jewish Dietary Norms?” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 6, no. 2 (2016): 199–223; and “Reading the Antioch Incident (Gal 2:11–21) as a Subversive Banquet Narrative,” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 7, no. 1–2 (2017): 26–52. Both will be updated for inclusion in my Reading Galatians within Judaism: The Collected Essays of Mark D. Nanos, Vol. 3 (Eugene: Cascade Books, forthcoming).

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together within the still present evil age (characterized, among other things, by social discrimination based on hierarchical social rank). 39 To undermine the normative appeal of proselyte conversion as rites (ἔργα) of initiation for non-Jews enjoined in Torah, Paul plays off the fact that this represented an innovative custom (νόμος) developed during the Greek and Roman periods. Paul apparently “invented” the phrase ἔργα νόμου to make this argument. 40 The phrase corresponds to his synecdochal use of circumcision, because it was the 39

Mark D. Nanos, The Mystery of Romans: The Jewish Context of Paul’s Letter (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 179–201; idem, “Paul and the Jewish Tradition: The Ideology of the Shema,” in Celebrating Paul: Festschrift in Honor of Jerome MurphyO’Connor, O.P., and Joseph A. Fitzmyer, S.J., ed. Peter Spitaler (Washington D.C.: Catholic Biblical Association of America, 2012), 62–80; revised in my Reading Paul within Judaism, 108–126.

40 Of course, I do not know if anyone before Paul used the phrase, but there is no evidence of it, especially in the way that Paul used it. Some argue that the Hebrew phrase, miqsat ma’ase ha-torah (“some works of the Torah”) in the Qumran letter, 4QMMT C 27, represents a parallel that precedes Paul’s usage, and should inform how to best interpret Paul’s usage. The likelihood that Paul (or anyone else outside of the specific parties involved in the dispute) read that particular letter is low, but that is not the primary problem with this proposition. This phrase is used very differently in 4QMMT to address a conflict between Jews regarding rival interpretations of halakha for defining the behavior of Jews, not of non-Jews, and does not address circumcision or rites associated with initiation of non-Jews, or even how non-Jews should behave. Moreover, the matters addressed concern priestly administration of Temple cult. Paul, in contrast, is specifically dealing with the question of circumcising adult male non-Jews (and related initiation rites), not about priestly duties or related to Temple cult. Also, the phrase was not used in contrast with πίστις, unlike Paul’s cases. This distinction is relevant, because the issue was not about whether what was faithful for a non-Jew was the same as what was faithful for a Jew with respect to the matters at dispute, and thus the question of πίστις in connection with ἔργα νόμου for non-Jews does not arise.

The contextual if not also the semantic differences disqualify much of what has been made of this ostensible parallel, because, well, it is not a parallel usage even if a similar phrasing of words (the article in the Hebrew phrase but not in Paul’s Greek phrase should not be ignored, but is easily overlooked because the familiar translations of Paul’s usage add the article). The supposed similarities are not that similar and depend upon defining Paul’s usage in the prevailing ways that I am contesting, which exposes the circularity upon which the usual positive comparisons depend (attributing the traditional construction of Paul’s usage to the concerns of the earlier Qumran case); cf. the interesting interaction with Dunn by Martin G. Abegg, Jr., “4QMMT C 27, 31 and ‘Works Righteousness,’” Dead Sea Discoveries 6.2 (1999): 139–147; and James D. G. Dunn, “4QMMT and Galatians,” NTS 43 (1997): 143–157.

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rite (ἔργον) most representative of the rites being promoted to ensure the change of religio-ethnic status at issue for non-Jews. At the same time, circumcision also functioned for Paul as a synecdoche for the ethnic standing of Jews (Israel), but in that case the rite was enjoined in Torah, and his own circumcised identification was a point of pride for himself and other Christ-following Jews (Phil 3:4–6; 41 Gal 2:15–17). In the case of non-Jews, however, undertaking circumcision signaled what would come to be known as proselyte conversion, which was not enjoined in Torah.

Therefore, it was not circumcision per se but the religio-ethnic initiation rites of passage for non-Jews this rite signaled that he so vehemently opposed in the case of these particular non-Jews, because they already had, through Christ, what completing those rites offered. For them, therefore, undertaking these ἔργα νόμου, completed by circumcision, would undermine the gospel claim that they had become sons of Abraham in Christ already. I suspect the familiar assumption that Paul considered the role of Torah inferior and completed and thus passe at best, if not also the binary opposite choice to believing in Jesus Christ, has led to lack of consideration that Paul’s arguments in Galatians (and Romans, as well as in other letters) are actually based on appeals to Torah and Tanakh as the ultimate authority for the positions he advocates, in this case against the undertaking of circumcision by non-Jews already in Christ.

Paul opposed Christ-following non-Jews undertaking this rite or these rites of initiation to proselyte standing for at least three reasons. The initial reason came from his revelation (Gal 1:10–17). Although Paul’s description is short on details, his change of view about Jesus as Messiah was connected to his change of view about the nations. This had nothing to do with converting from as in leaving Judaism (i.e., a Jewish way of life developed by Jews for Jews), as usually conceptualized, but with the conviction that how he should live as a Jew now, and how the Jewish community should live now, had changed in view of the arrival of the awaited age to come of reconciliation of the nations through Jesus. 42 41

I explain why Paul is neither comparing circumcision to mutilation nor spiritualizing it in Phil 3:2–4, in “Paul’s Polemic in Philippians 3 as Jewish-Subgroup Vilification of Local Non-Jewish Cultic and Philosophical Alternatives,” Journal for the Study of Paul and his Letters 3, no. 1 (2013): 47–92; updated in my Reading Corinthians and Philippians within Judaism: The Collected Essays of Mark D. Nanos, Vol. 4 (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2017), 142– 191.

42 I have examined this in more detail in “Paul and Judaism: Why Not Paul’s Judaism?,” in Paul Unbound: Other Perspectives on the Apostle, ed. Mark Douglas Given (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2010), 141–150 (117–160); updated in Reading Paul within Judaism, 29–40 (3–59).

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Apparently, he became convinced that the way he should practice Judaism (a Jewish way of life) was not to be quite the same as he had practiced Judaism formerly, especially with respect to Israel’s role as heralds of God’s oracles to the nations (Rom 3:1–2). He concluded, according to the gospel’s chronometrical claim, that is, that the awaited end of the ages had begun, thus he should no longer advocate circumcision (proselyte conversion) of non-Jews (Gal 5:11). Instead, they were to be recognized, in Messiah, as fellow participants in the people of God (2:15–17, passim). This was a theology of the Shema, as noted above.

As Paul made that case in the following years, it appears that he began to develop a second argument against the custom of proselyte conversion, which he had formerly advocated (5:11); namely, that this custom was not enjoined in Torah, or even present in written Scripture. He used the language of circumcision and ἔργα νόμου to make this case. The potentially new emphasis, if not entirely new idea that this was contra Torah, could suggest Paul had not yet considered this particular angle when he was in Galatia—although maybe, when present, he just did not emphasize it as much as he felt would be useful to do now in the letter he wrote in response to developments after he left. His rhetorical approach implies that he did not expect his non-Jew target addressees to be as concerned as they should be that, for themselves, circumcision was not enjoined in Torah, or to be as aware of the concomitant relationship to guard Torah entirely that this created for those who completed the rites, since he exploited this dynamic to undermine trust in those who promoted these rites of passage (esp. Gal 5:2–12; 6:12–13). 43 In other words, at some point Paul discovered that Torah did not enjoin proselyte circumcision of non-Jews in order to make them Jews, members of Israel, which may have been some years later than his revelatory understanding of the chronometrical gospel proposition that non-Jews turning to God in Messiah Jesus must remain non-Jews. Whatever the case may have been, in Galatians we witness Paul offering a second way to make the case against non-Jews in Christ who apparently feel compelled to consider undertaking these initiation rites.

Paul developed yet a third approach to the matter in the allegory in Gal 4:21—5:1, to which we will return again below. Here he argued that the rites of proselyte conversion they were considering to undertake fell under the model of circumcision for the inclusion for “slave” sons of Abraham rather than “free” sons.

In other words, there is a case in Torah where circumcision is enjoined for adult male non-Jews, but it is not the model for becoming sons like Isaac, which the gospel claims they have become through the spirit they already received when they 43

Argued differently, but compatible with this point, see Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015), 91–95.

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turned to God through Jesus. Paul’s ironic rebuke turns on the implicit rhetorical question: Did you want to choose to become circumcised like slave sons of Abraham through Hagar when you have experienced being born as adult sons miraculously, like the miraculous birth of the free son Isaac through Sarah, which is according to the blessing that in Abraham’s seed all the nations would be blessed also? That claim is proven instead by them having already experienced God’s spirit apart from becoming proselytes (rites of passage completed by circumcision in order to be qualified to receive the spirit, but modeled on the way to initiate non-Jew slaves).

To put this in broader terms, when Paul’s rhetoric is approached from the hypothesis that he practiced and promoted a Torah-based Judaism, and that this was what he expected his audiences to assume to understand his arguments, his comments on circumcision and ἔργα νόμου read very differently, in a way that some of us now refer to as reading Paul within Judaism, even if we may nevertheless still do so to different conclusions.

4. Survey of Paul’s use of ἔργα νόμου in Romans and Galatians The phrase ἔργα νόμου, which is contrasted with πίστις, only arises in Galatians and Romans where Paul discusses whether it is legitimate (justified) for non-Jews in Christ to conclude that they are those promised to Abraham from the other nations apart from circumcision. The phrase appears six times in Galatians (2:16, 3 times; 3:2, 5, 10), and twice in Romans (3:20, 28).

Romans 3:28 is exemplary: “For we consider a man is legitimated [justified] by faithfulness without ἔργων νόμου [λογιζόμεθα γὰρ δικαιοῦσθαι πίστει ἄνθρωπον χωρὶς ἔργων νόμου].” 44 The argument in the surrounding verses concerns Jews (3:27—4:25), who are signified as “the circumcision,” while non-Jews are signified as “the foreskinned.” Paul explains how the latter, by faithfulness to the gospel apart from becoming members of Israel by undertaking circumcision, represent those promised to Abraham also (the former are self-evidently understood to be so). We have already discussed how Paul theologized from the Shema as part of his argument here.

In both letters ἔργα νόμου signifies the rite of circumcision associated with the claim to Abraham as father and to being counted among the righteous ones, which in the case of non-Jews would likely include other rites for completing the

44

I use man here because the phrase has to do with circumcision; otherwise, I am in agreement with gender-neutral choices when appropriate to the context. NRSV translates, “For we hold that a person is justified by faith apart from works prescribed by the law.”

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ethnic transformation by which they become in some way what is referred to as proselytes by the rabbis. Most of Paul’s arguments regarding ἔργα νόμου are designed to uphold the claim that the non-Jews in Christ are already the legitimate children promised from the other nations, and that they must remain such; but for Jews that is assumed. He instead argues from that settled premise to how their allegiance to Jesus as Messiah nevertheless attests that they now, although Jews, should view themselves on equal terms with these non-Jews (Gal 2:15–17). In Galatia, that means the non-Jews in Messiah must be confident and resist the temptation to become circumcised, and the Jews in Messiah must live so as to support that conviction, regardless of the social risk that runs. In Rome, that means these non-Jews must not become resentful toward any Jews who contest that claim, but instead be confident and generous toward the circumcised who do not share (yet) their gospel-based convictions about what is appropriate now.

4.1. Romans The texts in Romans that weave together the elements of Abraham, circumcision, and use the phrase ἔργα νόμου, are concentrated in Rom 3:27—4:25. Paul argues that the non-Jews who trust (πίστις) Christ are those promised to Abraham in Gen 17:1–14. The covenant with Abraham includes the promise that “You shall be the ancestor of a multitude of nations” (v. 4 NRSV, also 5–6), but also distinguishes his offspring who will inherit the land, who are to circumcise their eight-day-old sons or be cut off from the people (v. 14). Paul also appeals to Gen 15:6 to define Abraham’s πίστις while still foreskinned to argue that this occurred without ἔργα νόμου: “And he believed the LORD; and the LORD reckoned it to him as righteousness” (NRSV).

The current translations and most interpretations Rom 3:27—4:25 proceed from the premise that Paul is problematizing the “work” of doing the Torah—although they may emphasize different elements of Torah, such as certain rituals, or that the problem is more the motives for observing a certain given commandment or commandments. I suggest we read this passage very differently.

At issue is not observing Torah, but whether one is circumcised or foreskinned.

Paul does not refer to Torah-based norms except regarding the matter of circumcision, and then only with respect to non-Jews in Christ, to whom circumcision does not apply in Torah.

Paul explains why these non-Jews should be confident that they are those promised to Abraham from many nations by their “faithfulness” without ἔργα νόμου (“rites of a custom [of proselyte conversion].”) One reason, already discussed, is based on the Shema Israel. His argument presupposes that God is the God of Jews, the circumcision, to argue that “our God” is also the “only” or “one”

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God, and thus the God of those from the foreskinned from other nations who turn to worship our God as their God too, through faithfulness to the gospel (3:23–30).

Another reason is that they are, like Abraham was when he trusted God, foreskinned, which they were when trusting God’s message to them (πίστις), and which they have remained. 45 This point is made throughout the passage, but see especially 4:1–3, 9–12. If we read 4:1 graphically, it depicts Abraham looking down to discover that he is foreskinned when he trusted God’s promise. 46 This demonstrates that the foreskinned Abraham (who was later circumcised) is the model for Christ-following non-Jews who have become his sons by πίστις apart from circumcision, which here functions as a synecdoche for ἔργα νόμου. 47 In 4:16–18, we can see that Paul is still arguing from the premise that the circumcised Jew has Abraham as father, but the question is whether these foreskinned non-Jews who trust the gospel do too: “in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants (i.e., ‘seed’),” not only the one circumcised according to Torah (the Jew)... “(for he is the father of all of us, as it is written, ‘I have made you the father of many nations’)” (16b–17b NRSV).

I propose that νόμος is generally referring to the convention of circumcision throughout this argument, not to Torah. Moreover, ἐξ ἔργων, for example in v. 2, 45

Pauline theologizing is reflected in the traditional habit of translating the Greek word for “foreskinned,” ἀκροβυστία, as “uncircumcised,” as the not-Jewish way of being that is privileged for Christ-followers. This approach empties the distinction of its original contextual salience, as Karin Neutal highlights in her paper too: foreskinnedness is not theologized as much as lack of circumcisedness is. That habit inhibits recognition of the dynamic, at least as it is being argued herein. See Karin B. Neutel, “Restoring Abraham’s Foreskin: The Significance of ἀκροβυστία for Paul’s Argument about Circumcision in Romans 4:9–12,” in this volume: JJMJS 8 (2021): 53–75; also Nina Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol (WUNT 2.295; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2010), 108–110, 118–120, although I disagree with her conclusion that Paul is allegorizing circumcision in Rom 4 so that “circumcision is not a sign of the covenant (Gen 17:11), but instead a sign and seal of the righteousness of faithfulness” (119). Although not focused on circumcision, Pamela Eisenbaum’s reading of Romans is useful for this discussion (“A Remedy for Having Been Born of Woman: Jesus, Gentiles, and Genealogy in Romans,” JBL 123, no. 4 [2004]: 671– 702).

46 I am grateful to an unnamed peer-reviewer for pointing out that Ambrosiaster, Romans on 4.1, states: “In saying the flesh, Paul meant circumcision,” as well as supportive observation that “nowhere in the Abraham Narrative is basar/sarx used for anything other than a reference to the penis”; cf. Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 206 n. 34.

47 In Rom 2:25–3:2, I understand Paul’s argument about circumcision of the heart to apply to those who are already circumcised in the flesh, i.e., Israel/Jews, not to the foreskinned Christ-followers he is addressing directly; see my “Paul’s Non-Jews Do Not Become Jews.”

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is referring to the rites involving circumcision, not to the doing of Torah-based deeds, which would not apply to Abraham anyway, since he preceded the giving of Torah (the rabbis later argued that he already had Torah too, but Paul does not seem to engage that argument, so perhaps it was not yet made in his Pharisaic subgroup or expected to be made in his addressees’ Roman Jewish circles). The case of David is raised because his declaration, although made by a circumcised Israelite, is broad enough to include anyone who recognizes the need for God’s mercy, as do the foreskinned non-Jews to whom Paul writes—Jews have long known this to be the case, as exemplified by David (Ps 32:1–2), to which Paul appeals in 4:6–9.

4.2. Galatians In Galatians 3 Paul similarly weaves together the topics of circumcision and Abrahamic family status with the theme of πίστις apart from undertaking to complete ἔργα νόμου. Paul is not confronting the observance of Torah but whether or not the non-circumcised addressees should now—after their trust in Christ through the gospel—also become circumcised in order to confidently consider themselves those from the nations promised to Abraham. The language in 3:1–5, which is followed by direct reference to Abraham’s receipt of righteousness for trusting what God promised in v. 6 (citing Gen 15:6), delivers Paul’s rebuke for considering ἔργα νόμου as if “you now can complete by flesh [what] you began by spirit?” (v. 3). Paul almost certainly refers to completing the rites of passage at issue by undertaking circumcision. Circumcision is highlighted if one reads ἔργα νόμου as I propose, as rites of a custom that, if completed, offers uncontested status as “sons of Abraham” (v. 7). For the Scripture, Paul next reveals, “foreseeing that God would justify [legitimate] the Gentiles [nations] by faith[fulness], declared the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, ‘All the Gentiles [nations] shall be blessed in you” (vv. 8–9 NRSV with my glosses in brackets; Gen 13:3). The issue is not, as usually supposed, between two as of yet unmade choices between Christ and Torah, or about “being saved”; rather, the issue is whether to add circumcision to the choice already made to trust Christ; that is, according to Paul, an inappropriate additional choice for them to undertake.

In vv. 10–14 Paul continues the argument, but it is quite difficult to navigate, with many enigmatic statements and decisions that to date have been shaped by the certainty Paul is opposing the observation of Torah. We will return to this after discussing other texts in the letter wherein Paul is dealing with circumcision and the question of whether these non-Jews have the right to understand themselves as those promised to Abraham.

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At the end of chapter 3, in vv. 25–29, Paul argues that both Jew and nonJew are one in Christ by their shared πίστις, “but if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, heirs according to promise” (29). The concern is still the same, to communicate their legitimate claim to be the recipients of the promise made to Abraham regarding the nations. 48 In 4:1–7 the argument continues, making this an unfortunate chapter break. Although we must forgo examination of the diatribal nature of Paul’s personal pronoun shifts, which the familiar translations tend to ignore, the conclusion focuses on this same central concern, which my bracketed comments draw out (and bring into conversation with Paul’s allegorical argument that follows; see that below): “Now because you [i.e., non-Jews in Christ] are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts [i.e., as Jews in Christ], we [i.e., together in Christ as Jews and non-Jews] cry out, αββα! ὁ πατήρ!’ 49 Because you [i.e., as non-Jew in Christ] are no longer a slave [i.e., of other gods or of the need to become a proselyte on the slave model for Ishmael] but a son [i.e., of Abraham, like Isaac], but if a son then also an heir through God [i.e., by God’s miraculous agency, like Isaac, not by way of completing a custom designed for slaves/proselytes]” (vv. 6–7).

Following the allegory of 4:21–5:1, Paul writes in 5:2 that he will now state plainly its implications. The issue he addresses in 5:2–6 is only his opposition to circumcision—or better, why these non-Jews must not become circumcised because they are already in Christ, and thus for them to seek to gain what they have already is to deny that they have it. In vv. 7–12 the topic remains circumcision, but Paul’s focus is to undermine the intentions of those who are influencing them to consider undertaking the rite: in effect, Paul communicates, “they should not be trusted, certainly not more than me, for they serve their own interests, not yours, as I do” (a major point of 4:12–20, preceding the allegory).

Paul makes the interesting claim that if he “still” promoted circumcision (i.e., like they do), he would not be suffering the persecution ([διώκω] better: contestation/prosecution) he is currently experiencing on their behalf, and he also 48

That Paul is not here expressing that identification distinctions between Jews as circumcised or non-Jews as foreskinned do not matter, but rather that they should not create hierarchical superiority among Christ-followers, and for other rhetorical purposes, see Ryan D. Collman, “Just A Flesh Wound? Reassessing Paul’s Supposed Indifference Toward Circumcision and Foreskin in 1 Cor 7:19, Gal 5:6, and 6:15,” in this volume: JJMJS 8 (2021): 30–52. Paul’s adamant objection to circumcision for the addressees who want to undertake the rite in Galatia (“you cannot”) does not square with the common assertion that he was indifferent (or, “you don’t have to”); if indifferent, he would argue that it was not necessary or important, etc., not that it was prohibited for them.

49 “Father,” in their respective native tongues, whether Aramaic or Greek.

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makes a sarcastic remark about these influencers in circumcision-based terms (vv.

11–12). 50 Although Abraham is not mentioned, Paul calls them to be steadfast in their hope of righteousness rather than to try to escape their present contested status by undertaking circumcision, and he begins the transition to the next part of the letter that calls them, in social rivalry terms, to serve each other rather than to seek their own gain because “faithfulness works through love” (v. 6). In other words, they ought to worry about upholding each other in their shared marginal state as foreskinned followers of Christ rather than to seek to gain uncontested status by becoming circumcised, or, alternatively, considering themselves to be but “pagan” guests, and thus still to understand themselves in the various ways that Paul proscribes as fleshly (foreskinnedly) rather than spiritual (righteous ones, representing the foreskinned peoples in Christ). That remains the message, as I read it, from here through 6:10.

The closing section of 6:11–18—which likely expresses Paul’s summary concerns by his own hand rather than that of the secretary—tersely restates Paul’s opposition to these non-Jews undertaking circumcision under the influence of whoever is promoting this rite for them. He repeats that the influencers should not be trusted, that their interests are self-serving rather than toward the addressees, unlike Paul’s. Paul accuses the influencers of not “guarding” νόμος because “they want you to be circumcised so that they may boast about your flesh” (v. 13). This may signal, as Paul sees the matter anyway, that by putting their interests ahead of those of the addressees they fail to live according to Torah, which guides toward love. Their goal is to be able to report to whomever they answer that they have brought a problematic development (non-Jews seeking to claim more than guest status apart from undertaking to become proselytes) in certain subgroups into compliance with the larger community’s norms (and of those of the non-Jews to whom the Jewish communal leaders must report) more so than to serve the best interests of these non-Jews, as Paul sees the case from his chronometrical perspective; 51 alternatively, Paul may be drawing from his argument that Torah does not prescribe a “custom” of circumcision for them, 52 thus to advocate proselyte conversion provokes a curse instead of a blessing.

Having traced that Paul’s rhetoric throughout the letter revolves around the issue of Paul’s resistance to these non-Jews undertaking circumcision, and that 50

See Mark D. Nanos and Heidi Wendt, “Galatians: An Epistolary Microbiography.”

Forthcoming in T&T Clark Handbook of the Historical Paul, ed. Heidi Wendt and Ryan S. Schellenberg.

51 See my Irony of Galatians, 226–233, 270–283.

52

Drawing from Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 95–96.

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this is directly related to whether they have a legitimate claim to understand themselves to be those promised to Abraham from the nations by faithfulness to the gospel apart from undertaking “rites of a custom” by which non-Jews can rightfully do so as proselytes, according to the influencers, we can now return to the allegory in 4:21—5:1.

4.2.1. The Allegory of Gal 4:21—5:1 In the allegory of Gal 4:21—5:1, Paul analogizes circumcision for these non-Jews (because they are Christ-followers who already have the spirit, so this may not be his opinion about other non-Jews undertaking these rites of passage), with choosing the model for slaves of Abraham’s household, like Ishmael, after they have already been incorporated like Isaac instead, as miraculously free-born sons by way of πίστις in the gospel proclaimed to them, and to Abraham on their behalf (3:6–9). This mirrors the argument all along against them undertaking circumcision to gain that which the gospel proclaims they have already, thus doing so would undermine the claim to be sons of Abraham through the promise of the gospel he received, to which they had declared loyalty (πίστις) (5:2–6).

Paul introduces the allegory with a rebuke delivered in ironic style: “Tell me, you who want to be under [a] νόμος, do you not hear the νόμος? ” (v. 21). I suggest his message is: “Tell me, you who want to be under [a] custom [i.e., for becoming proselytes, which is completed by circumcision], do you not hear the Torah [i.e., The Custom given to Israel, which guides about—or better, does not guide about circumcision of non-Jews in the manner proposed by the influencers, all the more when the awaited age to come arrives]?” He then presents an allegory to demonstrate that it would be foolish for them to pursue the circumcision model that applied to Abraham’s slaves, since they are free-born sons. He does so by way of appealing to what Torah teaches rather than the custom that they are being persuaded by to suppose otherwise. I recognize that this is not how the allegory has been interpreted, 53 so I need to briefly explain why I make this claim; a more detailed treatment is forthcoming. 54 53

E.g., Richard B. Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), 112, representatively begins his reading of the allegory from traditional assumption that Paul here claims Torah “warrants the rejection of lawkeeping.”

54 I presented this reading of the allegory in several papers; e.g., “What Does ‘Present Jerusalem’ (Gal 4:25) in Paul’s Allegory Have to Do with the Jerusalem of Paul’s Time, or the Concerns of the Galatians?” at the Central States Society of Biblical Literature Meeting, St. Louis, 2004; and “Reading Paul’s Allegory (Gal 4:21—5:1) as Haftarah: A Jewish Liturgical Explanation for Paul’s Characterization of ‘Jerusalem Presently in Slavery with

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The allegory begins by introducing two lines of descendants for Abraham through sons born to two women, Sarah and Hagar, the latter being Sarah’s slave, by appealing to the well-known storyline in Gen 16–17 and 21. Paul refers to each woman representing a covenant, although he otherwise uses the allegory to highlight the sons of Abraham born to each. Traditionally, these covenants have been understood to be the old as in Mosaic and new as in Christ based (Christian) or even Abrahamic, and there are some other proposals, but all of them basically work from the idea that Paul is referring to Jews versus Christians, however named. This has naturally led to the conclusion (or been driven by the a priori) that Paul is arguing that the Jews are sons of Hagar and Law and no longer the sons of promise, superseded and replaced by the Christians as the sons of Sarah.

As I read this, the covenant with Sarah is the covenant of “promise,” the covenant that God provides for those faithful to the promises made (God working miracles); the covenant with Hagar is the covenant of “custom,” one by which a slave can have a slave son in Abraham’s household (human innovation to achieve the promised outcome). 55 God makes different covenantal agreements in each case, one for free born and one for slave born; both are blessings, but one is certainly more prized than the other. 56 The covenant with Abraham and Sarah includes all Jews (faithful to that covenant), Christ-believers or not: they descend through Sarah by way of Isaac (not just “like Isaac,” but through Isaac), who was born miraculously to a barren woman by the spirit of God according to promise.

That Jews are sons in Paul’s argument is implied in the premise from which Paul argues for the inclusion of these non-Jews also, because of their miraculous birth Her Children,’” at the Society of Biblical Literature Annual Meeting, San Antonio, TX, 2016. I am in the process of revising this research for publication.

55 There is not space to examine many complicated elements in the allegory, including how Paul plays on the word Hagar, and many manuscript variants with very different grammatical implications, esp. for v. 25, where Mt. Sinai is connected to Hagar and present Jerusalem and is understood in the received view to indicate that Paul is devaluing Mosaic Torah as enslaving (or Jews who observe Torah as children of Hagar), whereas I see the link is with exilic suffering. It would be highly illogical for an allegory Paul introduces to demonstrate the correct way to hear (interpret) Torah to then dismiss Torah as enslaving by definition, or obsolete.

56 The indifferent and unjust attitude shown toward Hagar and her descendants in Paul’s reading and in the Torah stories to which he appeals, and to slaves more generally, as well as the inequality it involves toward both (all) women and their roles, all of which have had harmful impacts on “others,” and still do, should also be considered in a fuller treatment of the allegory.

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apart from being members of Abraham’s genealogical descendants (thus, unlike Jews) through the spirit by way of the gospel. These non-Jews are thus born “like Isaac,” but not born sons of Isaac genealogically, which applies only to Jews. At the same time, these non-Jews are “in Messiah,” Abraham’s genealogical seed, so this creates ambiguity, to say the least, which may account in part for Paul’s appeal to the metaphor of adoption. 57 In this argument, Isaac is the model for free-born sons of Abraham who will inherit the promises made to him, whether they are from Israel or from the nations through his descendant Jesus, according to what he (and Sarah) was (were) promised.

Paul analogizes an interpretive tradition prescribing that adult male nonJews undertake circumcision to gain Jewish/Israelite status (ἔργα νόμου/proselyte conversion) with the covenant model articulated in the Torah for slave born sons.

The innovative νόμος of circumcising non-Jews to make them Jews is based on the model for incorporating slaves of Abraham’s household, and thus for slaves of Israelites, and, in Paul’s time, slaves of Jews. Paul thereby aligns Christ-following non-Jews with Jews as sons of Sarah, and proselytes with sons of Hagar. Thus, the slave son model is not a legitimate ethnic transformation rite for non-Jews in Christ; Jews, however, are circumcised as infants according to the Torah, whether Christ-followers or not.

One wonders, however, about a natural question that would still arise: Since Isaac was circumcised, and Torah teaches the need for circumcision to be declared sons of Abraham, and Abraham was circumcised as an adult, do not we non-Jews now in Christ need to be circumcised, like Isaac was, albeit as an infant, or at least like Abraham was as an adult? Paul does not address these questions directly. 58 He appears to reason that, in their case, since they are unlike Isaac, not newborns who can be circumcised according to what Torah prescribes for Isaac and his descendants on the eighth day, but adults, they cannot be circumcised except on the slave model. 59 The topic of the ger does not arise directly (see excursus).

57

See Johnson Hodge, If Sons, Then Heirs.

It is also not the concern of the author of Gen 17 or Jub. 15:12–14; see Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 77–84; Moorthy, “A Seal of Faith,” poses the question slightly differently, but answers that the Galatians could be circumcised as long as it was a “sign or seal of the righteousness of faith” and not “for justification and spiritual perfection,” among other similar mistaken theological reasons for doing so that logically competed with solely “looking to Christ” (241) for righteousness.

59 Paul also does not indicate the distinction between the specific case of Ishmael, which occurred at puberty, representing an Arab custom, and the case of adult household slaves of Israelites/Jews, although, presumably, Paul was addressing adult males in Galatians.

58

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In a fuller treatment of this allegory I examine the very interesting intertextual case Paul makes by way of citing the prophet Isaiah in 54:1, which resembles the haftarah liturgical tradition linking the reading of the story of Sarah and Hagar in Genesis with this text in Isaiah. 60 Isaiah analogized Hagar with her many sons to the way things appeared presently to the exiles returning to Jerusalem, where other sons occupied the land, with the ostensibly barren Sarah promised more sons in due time but currently in lament. Paul did so to call his non-Jew addressees to trust that things would turn out as God promised from God’s point of view, the view from above Jerusalem that Isaiah articulated, which was that the returnees would succeed in the end by God’s miraculous help if they remained faithful in spite of contested rights to the land by those who had occupied it, just as Sarah did eventually have the promised heir, even when contested by the slave son and his mother. So too the addressees must steadfastly resist the path of becoming proselytes even though it presently appears the better choice from their vantage point; it is not from God’s (per Paul’s own).

To the degree that Paul could make the case that the model available to warrant the circumcision of these adult male non-Jews in terms of the Abrahamic household is that of the slave son, Ishmael, and associated with choosing exile (in Sinai for Hagar and her sons; in Babylon for Jerusalem’s sons “now” in Isaiah’s time) over enjoyment of the promise (in Israel for Sarah with her eventual, promised sons; in Jerusalem restored for Isaiah, as seen from “above,” from God’s point of view rather than as things appear “now”), Paul’s attack depends on the implied ironic rebuke, “How attractive is the influencers’ proposed model for you?” “Will you escape the marginality you now experience by submitting to the model for marginalized slave-born sons?” Paul argues instead that they already have the spirit bearing witness they are sons according to the promise to Abraham Furthermore, Paul does not engage the idea that Abraham could be regarded as the standard for proselytes, if he knew of the argument (which is likely, I think), unlike his older contemporary in Alexandria (Philo, Virt. 217–219), and later rabbis (Genesis Rabbah 46.2), who do; see Moorthy, “A Seal of Faith,” 108–118. The case of Timothy per Acts 16 also raises awareness that there was a question (at least some decades after Paul, but almost certainly earlier than Paul too) whether someone identified as a Jew or Israelite from birth who had not been circumcised should be as an adult, and how that identification would be determined, including whether matrilineal or patrilineal descent, or both, were required.

60 In the papers noted above on this allegory, I argue that Paul uses συστοιχέω in 4:25 not to denote columns of opposites, as is commonly argued, but rather to “connect” as in link the Torah passages in Genesis to the Prophetic passage in Isaiah that he uses to explain “what they should hear from Torah” on this matter in a way familiar for creating homilies in later rabbinic haftarah traditions.

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that he would be the father of the nations—the premise from which he has argued throughout the letter and to which he would presumably have oriented them initially when in Galatia—it can hardly be appropriate or desirable for them, therefore, to now seek to be incorporated by the model for slaves. Things are not as they may appear; the proselytes may appear to be heirs from the other nations now, like Hagar’s Ishmael (the product of resorting to a custom of expedience) appeared to be when Isaac was born, like those who possessed Jerusalem appeared to be upon the return of the exiles from Babylon. But in the end, those who steadfastly trust in God’s promise to bless Abraham with many sons miraculously through Sarah will be his heirs, and possess Jerusalem when freed from the constraints of life under enslaving, foreign lords, which proselyte conversion serves to negotiate in their Roman era. Or, as Paul puts the matter in 5:5 in his summary explanation following the allegory: “for we, out of faithfulness to spirit, eagerly await hope of justice.”

Paul even uses the Christ-following non-Jews’ suffering of “contested” identification as Abraham’s foreskinned heirs—which may imply that the influencers are themselves former non-Jews who believe they have the legitimate claim because they have become circumcised proselytes; that is, sons of Abraham on the model for slaves, according to Paul’s argument—to make his case. He analogizes the addressees’ present contested right to consider themselves legitimate heirs of Abraham to the suffering that Isaac experienced from his older brother Ishmael regarding Isaac’s right to inherit as the younger son. Thus, Paul writes: “But just as at that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted [contested] the child who was born according to the spirit, so it is now” (v. 29). Although the text in Genesis does not specify that Ishmael persecuted Isaac, it does indicate that the right of the second and younger son to inherit was a central problem to be solved, and the change from “playing” with Isaac to “persecuting” him as in Ishmael “contesting” Isaac’s right to Abraham’s inheritance because he is the older son, is attested in the Targums. 61 If Paul considers the rite of proselyte conversion a νόμος not actually authorized by the νόμος of written Scripture, which appears to be the message in 3:10–14 (see below) 61

Gen 21:7–10; e.g., Tg. Ps.-J. Gen 22.1. The theme of Ishmael’s persecution of Isaac is developed in later rabbinic literature (e.g., Pesiq. Rab. 48.2; Pirqe R. El. 30). Parallels in rabbinic literature in addition to the targums are well enough known in traditional Pauline interpretation, yet do not lead to the observation that Paul was still promoting Judaism, but rather, are used to argue that these were things he had learned before he converted from Judaism; see esp. Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC 41; Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 200–206. I explore these and other parallels in the aforementioned unpublished papers on this allegory.

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as well as here, then the influencers are probably proselytes whom Paul is accusing of reacting to the claims of the non-Jews Paul addresses with Johnny-come-lately envy. Whether they have envied the addressees or not—an historical question that cannot be answered from Paul’s rhetoric—if the influencers are former non-Jews who have been willing to undertake the rites to make the claims at issue, unlike the addressees, Paul can draw from the believable cultural assumption that the addressees’ suffering of status discrimination might represent being “evil eyed,” a begrudging rather than welcoming response to the addressees’ receipt of a new good (the spirit and miracles) 62 without paying the same dues the influencers had.

Thus, he accuses the addressees of having naively failed to consider the influencer’s begrudging designs to put them in their place as the cause of their heightened interest in completing the rites at issue, in order to undermine trust in them and enhance trust in his concern for their best interests, even if this includes a call to continue to suffer for a while longer (cf. 3:1; 6:12–13). 63 The theme of resisting because they are suffering contested identification is also the concern of the conclusion in 5:1, where the call to grasp hold of the freedom that comes with free son identity and concomitantly to resist returning to a “yoke of slavery” is not a call to resist observing Torah, as traditionally supposed. After all, since they were not under obligation to Torah in the past, it makes no sense to call them to resist to return to such behavior “again,” as traditionally interpreted. Rather, they are being called to resist returning to understanding the options for gaining Abrahamic sonship in terms of the prevailing norm to which the influencers appeal; that is, either considering themselves still “pagan guests” or else candidates preparing to undertake proselyte transformation. Note that Acts 15:10 refers to the same custom of circumcising non-Jews as a burdensome “yoke” Jews have had to bear, thereby approaching the custom from the opposite side of this cultural constraint on Jews from a Jew’s perspective. 64 Paul uses this allegorical analogy to instruct the addressees from Torah that they should remain steadfastly faithful to the gospel and avoid the custom on offer, although it seems like it would provide resolution. In spite of how things appear now in Galatia, just as had been the case in Jerusalem now then, when 62

See now Jennifer Eyl, Signs, Wonders and Gifts: Divination in the Letters of Paul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

63 I have argued that is the case throughout the letter, in Irony of Galatians.

64 Additionally, Livesey, Circumcision as a Malleable Symbol, 89, observes that the word “‘yoke’ conjures a visual association with the rite of circumcision. It is a ring-shaped object and fits over a body part....”

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Isaiah prophesied, and now then, when Sarah was not the one who had begotten the heir to Abraham, so too will they receive the desired outcome in due time—if they remain steadfastly faithful. Interpreting Paul’s allegory as the way that nonJews in Christ should hear and interpret Torah correctly according to Paul, represents a Jewish way of appealing to a prophetic text in order to create a homily (attested in Philo already, and later in the Targums and rabbinic Haftarah). It thereby provides an alternative to the usual habit of understanding Paul to be disparaging Judaism and the role of Torah for Christ-followers, as well as Jerusalem, and instead reads the allegory “within Judaism,” if you will.

Before we leave this topic, we ought to consider what this allegory, as well as other language throughout the letter about slaves and slavery, might have meant to the addressees if they were actually slaves, all the more if they were slaves of Jewish households. If many or even some of these non-Jew Christ-followers were actually slaves, then the relevance of Paul’s rhetorical move is enhanced, for they presumably would not “want” to choose to be slaves if not required, and Paul’s rhetorical identification of his own choice of being a slave to Christ, as well as Paul’s rhetorical arguments throughout the letter that they have moved from being slaves to being sons, might register on several levels worth consideration, including for the themes on which this essay is focused.

4.2.2. Gal 3:10–14 In the argument in 3:10–14, the phrase ἔργα νόμου is also used in v. 10, which remains relevant to the argument through v. 14. Translations of the phrase ἔργα νόμου, as well as the rest of the language in v. 10 and following, reflect the received view that Paul is referring to observing Torah to oppose his addressees doing so.

But I submit that he is still referring to the rite of circumcision, and associated rites involved in this religio-ethnic transformation. This text introduces many complicated elements, but for our purpose, notice that with respect to ἔργα νόμου and the topic of circumcision, Paul appeals to written Torah (the νόμος) against the convention of proselyte conversion (a νόμος).

The argument of this section concerns certainty of Abrahamic sonship for non-Jews: it begins in 3:6–9 with reference to the promise “gospeled” to Abraham that “all the nations will be blessed in you,” and concludes in v. 14 a diatribal voice declares the outcome of the argument that apart from becoming members of Israel through undertaking circumcision, the blessing of Abraham has come to members of the other nations in Messiah Jesus, “in order that we might receive the promise of the spirit through the faithfulness.” The tension is

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not between belief and action; at issue is which action represents faithfulness by which non-Jews gain Abrahamic sonship in view of the gospel’s claims for Jesus.

The received interpretations proceed from the premise that Paul is resisting a commandment in Torah, but we have already traced the fact that no such commandment is present in Torah, or in the written Scripture’s to which Paul appeals. Although the νόμος of circumcising non-Jews to make them proselyte Jews was an innovation, it had apparently become familiar enough even in Paul’s time that, as we saw in the Izates’ example as well, arguments were made then as they are today on the (mistaken) basis that circumcision was self-evidently enjoined in Torah for non-Jews who wanted to complete the process of becoming Jews. If we approach Paul’s argument aware of this anomaly, his argument in this section appears to work from very different premises than the commentary tradition understands it to proceed.

Paul’s argument appeals to the fact that this “custom” adds to Torah in a way that is proscribed in written Torah in the very text that he cites. According to Deut 27:26 LXX in its context, which Paul cites to justify his argument, adding to Torah creates a curse: “‘Cursed be anyone who does not uphold all the words of this custom/law [τοῦ νόμου] by observing them.’ All the people shall say, ‘Amen!’”

Gal 3:10 reads: “For as many as are [accounted as righteous] by means of rites of a custom [ἐξ ἔργων νόμου; i.e., proselyte conversion, completed by circumcision] are under a curse, for it is written that, ‘everyone is cursed who does not remain steadfast in all that is written in the scroll of the custom [i.e., Torah], to do [practice] them.’” The received view interprets this as a case where Paul negatively values Torah, but Paul is citing Torah, the written νόμος, against a developing tradition that has created the custom (νόμος) of proselyte conversion rites [ἔργα], within which the central rite of circumcision is often used synecdochally.

In v. 11, Paul continues the argument by appealing to what is written in Hab 2:4 in order to claim that no one is legitimated by God through a νόμος, for “the righteous will live from faithfulness.” The issue still is “rites of a custom,” the rite of circumcision in particular. In v. 12 Paul cites Lev 18:5 to argue that “the νόμος [at issue, circumcision of non-Jews] is not from faithfulness [to the written νόμος], rather, the one who practices [or: makes] them [i.e., additional customs] will live by them.” Lev 18:5 LXX reads, “And you shall keep all my ordinances and all my judgments, and you shall do them; as for the things a person does, he shall live by them...” 65 A central element of the argument in Lev 18:1–15 is that Israelites must not add to Torah but faithfully guard and practice the Torah given by Moses.

65

Albert Pietersma and Benjamin G. Wright, eds., New English Translation of the Septuagint (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

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Of course, there were different, even strongly oppositional interpretations of the written commandments and how they were to be lived, and these differences are frequent topics in Second Temple Jewish texts, not least those of the Dead Sea Scrolls’ authors. Paul is not interested in describing the alternatives on offer. He communicates his interpretation in the enigmatic statement that follows in 3:13–14, which he builds around the citation of Deut 21:23: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the νόμος [custom], becoming a curse for us, because it has been written [i.e., in the Torah scrolls]: ‘cursed is everyone who hangs upon a tree,’ [which took place] in order that the blessing of Abraham for the nations might come in Christ Jesus, in order that we might receive the promise of the spirit through the faithfulness.” Among the many complicated elements in this passage we do not have space to engage here is the sequence of first person plurals that indicate its diatribal character. Nevertheless, it is relatively clear that at issue is whether the blessing of Abraham for those from the nations, which is linked to the receipt of the spirit, is thereby legitimated apart from undertaking circumcision.

In summary, in Paul’s arguments in chapters 3 and 4, as is the case throughout Galatians, we witness Paul challenging proselyte conversion as an innovation that does not guard what Torah teaches about circumcision. This way of reasoning may be related to the way he learned to reason in the specific Pharisaic (sub)group within which he had been a member previously, in which he claims to have been the most zealous advocate that non-Jews seeking full group affiliation as sons of Abraham—such as the Christ-following non-Jews to whom he writes Galatians claim—should complete this rite of circumcision in order to become Jews (1:10–17; 5:11). But that is no longer how he views this “rite” and the “custom” it signifies. 66 The revelation of Messiah he experienced led him to the chronometrical realization of the gospel that non-Jews in Messiah remain nonJews in Messiah to demonstrate that the arrival of the awaited age had begun. That he does not subject this revelation-based conviction to the consensus of his peers, whom he refers to as “flesh and blood” (1:17), and as “human agents or human agencies” whom he does not seek to please (1:1, 10–11), may refer, albeit ambiguously, to the Pharisaic subgroup in which he had excelled (1:12–16), 67 66

Hayes, What’s Divine About Divine Law?, 214–218, discusses developments in the rabbinic period on the topic of proselyte conversion that demonstrate the kind of issues Paul’s arguments may suggest were already in play.

67 See my, “Intruding ‘Spies’ and ‘Pseudo-brethren’: The Jewish Intra-Group Politics of Paul’s Jerusalem Meeting (Gal 2:1–10),” in Paul and His Opponents, ed. Stanley E. Porter (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2005), 59–97.

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which (apparently) promoted proselyte conversion (5:11). Paul develops the case that the righteous live according to what is faithful to Torah for themselves; for Jews, that includes circumcising their infant sons, but for non-Jews in Christ, faithfulness to Torah does not include circumcision, at least not as an initiation rite by which to become Jews.

5. Conclusion Paul wasn’t against circumcision. Paul wasn’t against Torah. Paul wasn’t against practicing or promoting Judaism, a Jewish way of life; instead, he advocated circumcision (he even boasted of his own to warrant his authority, Phil 3:4–6), he practiced and promoted Torah and a Jewish way of life, even for Christ-following non-Jews. They were to behave Jewish-ishly. 68 What Paul was against, adamantly so, was non-Jews already faithful to the gospel of Christ undertaking the rites by which they also could gain un- or less-contested status related to the claims they were making for themselves. That rite signaled that male non-Jews had completed the religio-ethnic transformation ritual by which they could become one of the circumcised, sons of Abraham, members of Israel, what the rabbis later called proselytes. Paul argued that is not who Torah guided to become circumcised, or why. The development of that custom, that ἔργα νόμου, added to Torah in the way Torah pronounced accursed. In his view, his opposition to undertaking these rites, signaled by the rite of circumcision, constituted his commitment to πίστις to/of Messiah Jesus, to the faithful guarding of Torah, to which the Messiah was faithful even if cursed therein for being hung upon a tree. That is the πίστις to which these non-Jews also must remain faithful, regardless of the price they may pay presently to do so: they must, “out of faithfulness to spirit, eagerly await hope of justice.”

6. Afterword: Some Implications for Contemporary Debates about Circumcision It is my hope that many of the points made in this essay might be attractive to Christians who want to find ways to conceptualize and discuss the rites and identity and behavior as well as motivations of the Jewish other in more respectful ways, theological and practical. Pauline interpreters should respect the fact that the Jewish custom of providing a course for religio-ethnic transformation for nonJews is an inclusive, Torah based interpretation no less than Paul’s own innovative interpretive moves, which are based on his Jesus as Messiah particularistic way of reasoning for how to include non-Jews in Abraham’s promised blessing for the

68

Nanos, “Paul’s Non-Jews Do Not Become ‘Jews.’”

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nations. The aims of this essay, however, are not limited to these and related Christian and Pauline matters.

Throughout the development of this essay, which was initially presented as a paper for a conference entitled, “Expert Meeting on Male Circumcision: Ancient Attitudes in Light of Contemporary Questions,” I have had in view implications that extend to reasoning about circumcision where it arises in contemporary debates and policies among those who are not for the most part Jews or circumcised, or considering to complete rites of passage to become proselytes. For if Paul’s contextual concern with circumcision is approached as a part of rites involved in proselyte conversion rather than treated as a Torah commandment that applies to everyone, the consideration of circumcision unrelated to becoming Jews can be addressed, for example, as a purely medical procedure, not a theologically loaded one. When Paul’s opposition is qualified with respect to Christ-following non-Jews within the nascent Christ-following Judaism of which he was a leader, the relevance for Christians today, who are not considering circumcision as part of a proselyte conversion ritual, can be dismissed as unrelated, even irrelevant. For them, Christianity is not a movement within Judaism, unlike the case was for Paul and his audiences.

This can have important practical implications. For example, I learned from the husband of a member of the medical team in Africa advocating male circumcision to fight the spread of AIDS, that they encounter resistance from Christians based upon their unqualified universalistic understanding of Paul’s opposition. However, if these Christians are not considering to undertake circumcision as a rite whereby they become in some way affiliated with Abraham and Jewish communal identity in addition to that which they already claim as Christians—which represent the kinds of qualifications I have articulated for understanding Paul’s opposition to circumcision as a part of ἔργα νόμου—then I question the appeal to Paul’s opposition to warrant resistance to the medical advice on the basis of being Christians loyal to Paul’s teaching. For the medical advocates, it seems to me there is a hermeneutical gap that they could usefully explore to make a convincing case to Christians in the Pauline cultural (theological as well as historical-critical) terms to which the resistance appeals, whether the advocates share those theological convictions or not.

I am not trying to weigh in on the merits of this medical advice. What interests me is that to the degree Paul’s voice is invoked, perhaps even accepted on those interpretive terms by medical personal who may or not be Christians or that familiar with Pauline theology, there is a theoretical basis for changing the discourse. The books on circumcision I consulted that focused on medical interests, pro and con, showed no awareness that Paul’s rhetoric could and should

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be historically qualified—including particularized rather than universalized—in the directions proposed herein, and thus of the very different meanings that might be made. 69

69

Not surprisingly, since these ideas have not been discussed in the Pauline scholarship that could have made them aware of these considerations; even the focus on the particularity of Paul’s positions is a relatively recent development in this scholarship. For medically oriented discussions, see e.g., Gollaher, Circumcision; Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005). www.jjmjs.org

The Bestial Glans: Gentile Christ Followers and the Monstrous Nudity of Ancient Circumcision Isaac T. Soon Crandall University | isaac.soon@crandallu.ca JJMJS No. 8 (2021): 116–130 Abstract This article takes seriously the stigmatization of circumcision by non-Jews in order to suggest a new frame of reference for understanding how circumcision was received in early Pauline communities, specifically the Galatians. I argue that the internal evidence of Galatians suggests that the majority of the Galatian assemblies did not want to be circumcised at all. From Paul’s perspective, they were being coerced against their will, and coercion implies force. Thus, the burden of proof lies with those who argue that the community was ready and willing to circumcise instead of being forced to circumcise against their will. When we turn to the reception of circumcision by non-Jews outside of Galatians, it becomes clear that Paul’s gentile audiences, by social and cultural default, would not have wanted to be circumcised. In ancient visual culture, circumcision was associated with Mischwesen (sub-human creatures), centaurs in particular. The phallic synonymity Jewish circumcision shared with ancient, circumcised centaurs coloured it with sexual dysfunction and aesthetic deformity.

Keywords circumcision, Jews, Mischwesen, centaurs, gentiles, Paul, Galatians 1. Introduction Scholars of ancient Judaism(s) have long known about the negative attitudes toward circumcision expressed in non-Jewish literature. 1 Despite the wealth of E.g., Louis H. Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993), 155–158; Peter Schäfer, Judeophobia: Attitudes toward the Jews in the Ancient World (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 93–105; John M. G. Barclay, Jews in the Mediterranean Diaspora: From Alexander to Trajan (323 BCE–117 CE) (Edinburgh: T&T

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research done on the reception of circumcision in the ancient world, only a handful of NT scholars have brought the stigma of circumcision in the GraecoRoman world to bear on the NT itself. 2 Using the pagan attitude toward circumcision as a foundation, Troy Martin argues that Paul’s circumcision was the “weakness of the flesh” (ἀσθένεια τῆς σαρκός) mentioned in Gal 4:13. 3 Unfortunately, Martin’s argument is not convincing because he provides no explicit textual connection to circumcision in Gal 4:13. Although Martin may be incorrect about the relevance of circumcision for Paul’s “weakness of the flesh,” he may not be wrong about the general attitude the Galatians had toward circumcision.

As traditional scholarship holds, circumcision was enough of a problem among non-Jews in Paul’s communities that he felt he needed to write against it, first with Galatians and then briefly in passing with Philippians (Phil 3:2). But the way Paul describes the Galatian predicament, along with the stigma concerning circumcision among non-Jews, should give us pause about whether Paul’s rhetoric against circumcision should be understood as proportionate to the desire among some gentile Christ-followers to actually be circumcised.

In this essay I want to take seriously the stigmatization of circumcision by non-Jews in order to suggest a new frame of reference for understanding how circumcision was understood in early Pauline communities, specifically the Clark, 1999), 438–439; Martin Goodman, “Trajan and the Origins of Roman Hostility to the Jews,” Past & Present 182 (2004): 12; Erich S. Gruen, “Roman Perspectives on the Jews in the Age of the Great Revolt,” in The First Jewish Revolt: Archaeology, History, and Ideology, ed. Andrea M. Berlin and J. Andrew Overman (London: Routledge, 2002), 28; Benjamin Isaac, The Invention of Racism in Classical Antiquity (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2004), 472–474; Zvi Yavetz, “Judeophobia in Classical Antiquity: A Different Approach,” JJS 44 (1993): 14; Louis H. Feldman, “Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World,” in History and Hate: The Dimensions of Anti-Semitism, ed. David Berger (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1986), 31; John G. Gager, The Origins of Anti-Semitism: Attitudes toward Judaism in Pagan and Christian Antiquity (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 56; Ben Witherington III, Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 455–456; J. N. Sevenster, The Roots of Pagan Anti-Semitism in the Ancient World (NovTSup 41; Leiden: Brill, 1975), 134.

2 For example, Ben Witherington makes note of how circumcision was received in the ancient world, but it does not affect his interpretation of Galatians. Witherington III, Grace in Galatia: A Commentary on St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians, 446, 455–456. Cf. also James D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians (BNTC; London: Continuum, 1993), 336.

3 Troy W. Martin, “Whose Flesh? What Temptation? (Gal 4.13–14),” JSNT 74 (1999): 87– 90.

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Galatians. Did gentiles in Paul’s assemblies really want to be circumcised? What evidence do we have that Paul’s Galatian audience actually wanted to be circumcised? Put another way, were early gentile Christ-followers, such as those found in Pauline communities like Galatia, really so willing to accept circumcision in light of the stigma attached to it? The intention here is not to give an exhaustive answer, but to raise the question about whether scholarship has correctly discerned the stance of Paul’s Galatian audience toward circumcision.

I find both the internal evidence of Galatians and the external evidence, which dehumanizes circumcision, to suggest that the majority of the Galatian assemblies did not want to be circumcised. From Paul’s perspective, they were being coerced against their will, and coercion implies force. Thus, the burden of proof lies with those who argue that the community was ready and willing to circumcise instead of being forced to circumcise against their desire.

2. Forcing the Galatians to Circumcise Much of the internal textual evidence that might contribute to our understanding of the Galatians’ desire to circumcise is ambiguous, and tells us little beyond Paul’s own rhetoric about the situation. For example, in the first chapter of Galatians, Paul repeatedly speaks about how they are turning away to a different gospel (Gal 1:6, 9). He later contends that they have turned to observing special days again (4:10), an indication they are already well on their way to observing circumcision as well. In light of such evidence, the Galatians could be construed as a rebellious community who are eager to abandon Paul’s circumcision-free gospel for gentiles.

But no matter how hard we try to mirror-read Paul’s rhetoric in passages such as these, they do not reveal anything substantial about the motivations of the Galatian community or the attitude with which they are apparently seeking out circumcision. 4 However, there is one key passage that reveals a willingness to circumcise. In Gal 4:21 Paul asks: “Tell me, those who wish to be under the law, do you not hear the law? ” (Λέγετέ μοι, οἱ ὑπὸ νόμον θέλοντες εἶναι, τὸν νόμον οὐκ ἀκούετε;). Gal 4:21 appears to support the claim that the Galatians wanted to circumcise, since Paul directly addresses “those who wish to be under the law” (οἱ ὑπὸ νόμον θέλοντες εἶναι). The expression “under the law” in 4:21 includes circumcision, since later in the letter Paul says the Galatians will be “obligated to

On the dangers of mirror-reading in Galatians, see the now classic article by John M. G. Barclay, “Mirror-Reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case,” JSNT 31 (1987): 73– 93.

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do the whole law” (Gal 5:3) if they circumcise. 5 Circumcision and submission to the law are intertwined. Alternatively, it may be significant that Paul does not address the Galatians as “those who wish to be circumcised.” The Galatians might wish to be “under the law”—that is, to be faithful observers of God’s commands— while at the same time not wishing to be circumcised.

In any case, even if we take Gal 4:21 as a reference to a Galatian desire to circumcise, it is not immediately clear who Paul’s addressees are. We know that Paul does not address the agitators in 4:21 because any other time he refers to those who are “disturbing” the Galatians, he refers to them without addressing them directly (e.g., 5:7, 10, 12; 6:12, 13). Therefore, he must be speaking to the Galatian community.

Most interpreters understand Paul in 4:21 to be addressing the whole Galatian assembly, with some citing the direct address of the Galatians in 3:1 (Ὦ ἀνόητοι Γαλάται) as evidence for this position. 6 The whole Galatian community desires to be “under the law.” However, there is evidence that in Gal 4:21 Paul only references a sub-section of the community. Longenecker argues that if Paul had intended to address only a portion of the Galatian assemblies “he would probably have used the pronoun ὑμεῖς (“you”) to identify them more precisely.” 7 However, this is precisely the opposite of how Paul uses second person pronouns throughout the letter. In almost all of the instances where the second person pronoun appears in Galatians, Paul openly addresses the entire community (Gal 1:6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 20; 2:5; 3:1, 2, 5, 28, 29; 4:11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20; 5:2, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 21; 6:1, 12, 13, 18). To be sure, second person addressees are implied in the two verbs Paul uses in Gal 4:21 (λέγετε and ἀκούετε). But he specifies exactly whom he is addressing; in this case, the portion of the community who actually wants to be 5

Even if one accepts Todd Wilson’s argument that the expression “under the law” (ὑπὸ

νόμον) is a shorthand for being “under the curse of the law,” the ironic use in 4:21 does not

negate circumcision. Todd A. Wilson, “‘Under Law’ in Galatians: A Pauline Theological Abbreviation,” JTS 56.2 (2005): 378–382.

6 Hans-Dieter Betz, Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1979), 241, n.25; Richard N. Longenecker, Galatians (WBC 41; Dallas: Word Books, 1990), 206; Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians, 245; Martinus C. de Boer, Galatians: A Commentary (NTL; Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 290; Ernest de Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1921), 252; Heinrich Schlier, Der Brief an die Galater (KEK; Göttingen: Vandehoeck & Ruprecht, 1971), 216; Jürgen Becker, Der Brief an die Galater (NTD 8; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1976), 56; Franz Mußner, Der Galaterbrief (HThKNT 9; Frieburg: Herder, 1974), 317.

7 Longenecker, Galatians, 206.

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circumcised. This same pattern is found in Gal 5:4: “You have been released from Christ, those who are being justified in the law, you lost grace” (κατηργήθητε ἀπὸ Χριστοῦ, οἵτινες ἐν νόμῳ δικαιοῦσθε, τῆς χάριτος ἐξεπέσατε). The phrase Paul uses, οἵτινες ἐν νόμῳ δικαιοῦσθε, does not refer to the whole of the Galatian congregation but the antecedent in Gal 5:3, “any man who circumcises” (παντὶ ἀνθρώπῳ περιτεμνομένῳ). 8 Paul’s use of masculine plural subjects in Galatians actually serves as evidence that Paul refers to only a portion of the Galatian community in 4:21. Every time Paul specifies a grammatical subject with a masculine plural substantival expression (e.g., a noun, prepositional phrase, or verb), he spotlights a particular group of people:  the brothers who are with him (οἱ σὺν ἐμοὶ πάντες ἀδελφοὶ, Gal 1:2)  those who are confusing (οἱ ταράσσοντες, Gal 1:7)  the acknowledged [leaders in Jerusalem] (οἱ δοκοῦντες, Gal 2:6).  the acknowledged pillars [e.g., James, Cephas, John] (οἱ δοκοῦντες στῦλοι εἶναι, Gal 2:9)  the rest of the Jews/Judeans (οἱ λοιποὶ Ἰουδαῖοι, Gal 2:13)  those out of faith (οἱ ἐκ πίστεως, Gal 3:9)  those who are disturbing (οἱ ἀναστατοῦντες, Gal 5:12)  those who do [the works of the flesh] (οἱ τὰ τοιαῦτα πράσσοντες, Gal 5:21)  those who are of Christ Jesus (οἱ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ, Gal 5:24)  those who are pneumatic (spiritual) (οἱ πνευματικοὶ, Gal 6:1)  those who are circumcising (οἱ περιτεμνόμενοι, Gal 6:13).

Given this letter-wide pattern, it is better to understand οἱ ὑπὸ νόμον θέλοντες εἶναι in Gal 4:21 as a specification of a particular group within the Galatians rather than a general description of whole community.

Longenecker also argues that Paul’s use of inclusive personal pronouns in 4:21–5:1 indicates that the whole Galatian community is in view in Gal 4:21. 9 However, this argument is circular, and depends on the presumption that Gal 4:21 refers to the whole community. If Gal 4:21 refers to only a section of the community, then Paul’s inclusive personal pronouns still make sense in context, since Paul is trying to make the case from Torah that the desire of this group to be under the law jeopardizes their status as children of the free woman in Gal 4.

The relative clause οἵτινες ἐν νόμῳ δικαιοῦσθε is clearly restrictive since the other two clauses in Gal 5:3 depend on it for the sentence to make sense.

9 Longenecker, Galatians, 206.

8

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The multiplicity of Galatian assemblies (Gal 1:1) further complicates Gal 4:21 as a portrayal of the desires of the whole Galatian community. Paul worries about the internal health of the community, warning them to love one another and not devour one another (Gal 5:14–15), and later, that each should examine themselves (Gal 6:4–5) and care for the household of God (6:10). This implies intra-communal conflict. It is therefore more plausible that one particular assembly or a subset of a particular assembly had an interest in being under the law, rather than the whole Galatian community. We should then understand Gal 4:21 as addressing only those among the Galatian assemblies who wanted to take up circumcision. 10 We cannot assume that the desires of the Galatian assemblies were homogenous.

Paul’s own perspective on the wider Galatian desire for circumcision is that the community were being forced against their will through coercion. The Galatians (less those who “want to be under the law”) do not want to be circumcised. In Gal 6:12, Paul describes the opponents as “those who are forcing [the Galatians] to circumcise (οὗτοι ἀναγκάζουσιν ὑμᾶς περιτέμνεσθαι). 11 Many of the major English translations add a modal verb like “trying” (NRSV, NLT, NIV, NASB) or “attempting” (LEB) in order to weaken the coercive force of the verb ἀναγκάζω in Gal 6:12. The ESV translates the verb with a conditional modification: “those...who would force you to be circumcised.” These modifications reflect a trend in Galatians scholarship to treat ἀναγκάζω as having “conative force,” i.e., an attempt to compel circumcision. 12 However, there are a number of a problems with this interpretation.

Wilhelm Lütgert also argued for a similar understanding of Gal 4:21: “Diese Anrede wird nur dann verständlich, wenn Paulus sich nicht an die ganze Gemeinde wendet, sondern an einen Teil derselben, an diejenigen, welche sich der judaistischen Verführung hingegeben haben” (This address can only be understood if Paul himself does not turn to the entire community, but rather to a part of it, to those who have handed themselves over to judaizing temptation). Wilhelm Lütgert, Gesetz und Geist: Eine Untersuchung zur Vorgeschichte des Galaterbriefes (BFCT 22/6; Gütersloch: Evangelischer Verlag, 1918), 11 (481), and noted in Betz, Galatians, 241 n.25.

11 Barclay understands Gal 6:12 as a Pauline caricature (Barclay, “Mirror-Reading a Polemical Letter: Galatians as a Test Case,” 75, 86). The opponents are not literally forcing Galatians’ foreskin off. Nevertheless, if we understand Paul’s language as a characterization of Galatian attitude toward this circumcision, then we need not read it as a caricature.

12 E.g., Betz, Galatians, 315; Longenecker, Galatians, 291; Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians, 336; F. F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982), 268–269; J. Louis Martyn, Galatians (AB 33A; New York: Doubleday, 1997), 560; Frank J. Matera, Galatians (SP 9; Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1992), 225; 10

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Commentators make a distinction in use between the present/imperfect use of the verb ἀναγκάζω (Gal 2:14, Acts 26:11), which is supposed to be conative in force (according to BDF §319), and the aorist use of the verb (e.g., Mt 14:22; Mk 6:45; Lk 14:23; Acts 28:19), which supposedly refers to coercion that has been successful. However, the semantic difference between the present/imperfect conative and aorist resultative meanings of ἀναγκάζω is not consistent with the examples often cited. In Gal 2:14—a supposed conative present—Paul accuses Peter of “forcing gentiles to live like Jews” (πῶς τὰ ἔθνη ἀναγκάζεις Ἰουδαΐζειν). It is not an attempt, however, as they are successful. In Gal 2:12 the Jews separate themselves from the gentiles, thus enforcing mealtime segregation. 13 Paul interprets Peter’s action as coercive, since in order for the gentiles to eat with their Jewish brothers they would have to live Jewishly. In Acts 26:1—another instance of an alleged conative imperfect tense-form—Paul gives witness to his previous life before King Agrippa and how he forced followers of Jesus to blaspheme (καὶ κατὰ πάσας τὰς συναγωγὰς πολλάκις τιμωρῶν αὐτοὺς ἠνάγκαζον βλασφημεῖν). The portrayal of Paul in Acts, however, depicts Paul using violence against believers (7:48, 8:1–3), something he even admits to in Acts 26:11! He did not attempt to force believers to blaspheme. He coerced them through physical violence. The present and imperfect tense-forms of ἀναγκάζω can refer to successful coercive acts just as much as the aorist tense-form of the verb.

English translations and commentators who focus on an illusory conative use of ἀναγκάζω also ignore the lexical semantics of ἀναγκάζω in relation to the verb περιτέμνω in other ancient sources. 14 The use of ἀναγκάζω + περιτέμνω has repeatedly been understood as coercive, a circumcision that is done against

François Vouga, An die Galater (HNT 10; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998), 155; Schlier, Der Brief an die Galater, 280; Mußner, Der Galaterbrief, 411. On the conative nuance, see Heinrich von Siebenthal, Ancient Greek Grammar for the Study of the New Testament (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2019), 310 (194d), 318 (197a).

13 It is unclear why exactly this mealtime segregation occurs. Various ancient sources do reinforce that Jews ate separately (Jub. 22:16; Jos. Asen. 7:1; Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist.

34.1.2; Tacitus, Hist. 5.5.2). Still, many proposals have been put forward (e.g., the recent proposal by Paula Fredriksen that it was because they were eating in gentile households: Paula Fredriksen, Paul: The Pagans’ Apostle [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017], 97– 99) but the text does not provide enough evidence to make a firm judgment.

14 John Anthony Dunne, Persecution and Participation in Galatians (WUNT 2/454; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 56–57, is an exception, although he portrays the situation as both conative and coercive.

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the will of the person being circumcised. 15 For example, the historian Ptolemy (1st century BCE) describes the forced circumcision of the Idumeans after they had been subjected by the Jews during the time of Hyrcanus (κρατηθέντες δὲ ὑπ’ αὐτῶν καὶ ἀναγκασθέντες περιτέμνεσθαι). 16 Josephus (Vita 113) also describes instances where he stopped other Jews in Judaea from forcing non-Jewish political refugees to be circumcised (τούτους περιτέμνεσθαι τῶν Ἰουδαίων ἀναγκαζόντων). 17 Because of this established use, the phrase οὗτοι ἀναγκάζουσιν ὑμᾶς περιτέμνεσθαι in Gal 6:12 should not be translated with any modal or conditional additions, but simply as: “those who are forcing you to be circumcised.” Although the “action” of circumcision has not yet happened, the “action” of coercion has been achieved. 18 In no way is this “compelling” an attempt “to get the Gentile Christians ready to accept circumcision voluntarily,” as Betz strangely argues, as though if the Galatians chose to take up circumcision such a choice would have been voluntary and not against their will. 19 An act that is done because of coercion is not a voluntary act. 20 From Paul’s perspective in Gal 6:12, the Galatians did not actually want to be circumcised but were being forced to do so.

Another indication that most of the Galatian community had no desire to circumcise arises from the issue of social pressure. Paul alludes to the pressure faced by the Galatians in three places. In Gal 5:12 Paul describes the influencers as “those who are disturbing” (οἱ ἀναστατοῦντες) the Galatians. 21 According to Paul Scholars have understood the expression ἐν ἰσχύι in 1 Macc 2:46 as evidence of forced circumcision, but I have recently shown that this expression does not refer to coercion. See Isaac T. Soon, “‘In strength’ not ‘by force’: Re-reading the Circumcision of the Uncircumcised ἐν ἰσχύι in 1 Macc 2:46,” JSP 23.3 (2020): 149–167.

16 See Menahem Stern, Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism. Volume One: From Herodotus to Plutarch (Jerusalem: The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1976), 1.356. Cf. Josephus, A.J. 18.257; 15.254.

17 Coercion is explicit in this passage: Simon Claude Mimouni, La circoncision dans le monde judéen aux époques greque et romaine: Histoire d’un conflit interne au judaïsme (Collection de la Revue des Études juives; Leuven: Peeters, 2007), 93–94. For Josephus, consent to circumcision is expressed with the auxiliary verb θέλω (A.J. 20.139).

18 Cf. von Siebenthal, Ancient Greek Grammar for the Study of the New Testament, 318 (197a).

19 Betz, Galatians, 315.

20 Bruce’s comment is typical: “If the trouble-makers insisted that circumcision was necessary to salvation, this was a form of pressure approaching compulsion.” Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians, 269, emphasis mine.

21 Although it does not matter to my present argument, I understand the influencers to be judaizing gentiles, a position numerous scholars have argued in a variety of different forms since at least the beginning of the twentieth century: James Hardy Ropes, The Singular 15

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in Gal 4:17, the persecution involves some form of exclusion, since he indicates that, “They [the opponents] desire you for no good, but in order to exclude you so that you desire them” (ζηλοῦσιν ὑμᾶς οὐ καλῶς, ἀλλ’ ἐκκλεῖσαι ὑμᾶς θέλουσιν, ἵνα αὐτοὺς ζηλοῦτε). Another reference to the social situation can be found in Gal 4:29.

John Dunne reads “the child born of flesh persecuting the child born of spirit” (ὁ κατὰ σάρκα γεννηθεὶς ἐδίωκεν τὸν κατὰ πνεῦμα) as an allusion to the persecution the Galatians now face. 22 The nature of this pressure on the Galatians is not clear. The agitators may expect the gentiles to observe the whole Jewish law including circumcision (e.g., Acts 15:1, 5). On the other hand, Paul’s remark in Gal 6:12 that the Galatians are being forced to circumcise so that the agitators themselves avoid persecution suggests otherwise. Martin Goodman argues that we should understand the origin of their social pressure in non-Jewish concerns, particularly the hostility toward the early Jesus movement as an illegitimate religion. 23 By attaching themselves to Judaism, gentile Jesus followers who were circumcised might be able to pass as Jewish in their social environment and thus avoid exclusion from their wider community.

Regardless of the specific circumstances, if we understand the Galatian predicament to be the result of social pressure, then we cannot say that the Galatians voluntarily chose to take up circumcision. None of the evidence in Problem of the Epistle to the Galatians (HTS 14; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1929); Hans Lietzmann, An die Galater (HNT 10; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1932); Emanuel Hirsch, “Zwei Fragen zu Galater 6,” ZNW 29 (1930): 192–197; Wilhelm Michaelis, “Judaïstische Heidenchristen,” ZNW 30 (1931): 83–89; Johannes Munck, Paul and the Salvation of Mankind (Richmond, VA: John Knox Press, 1959); A. E. Harvey, “The Opposition to Paul,” in Studia Evangelica IV. Papers presented to the Third International Congress on New Testament Studies held at Christ Church, Oxford, 1965. Part I: The New Testament Scriptures, ed. F. L. Cross (Texte und Untersuchungen zu Geschichte der altchristlichen Literature, 102; Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968), 319–332; Peter Richardson, Israel in the Apostolic Church (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969); Michele Murray, Playing a Jewish Game: Gentile Christian Judaizing in the First and Second Centuries CE (Studies in Christianity and Judaism 13; Waterloo, ON: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 2004); Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

22 John A. Dunne, “‘Cast Out the Aggressive Agitators’: Suffering, Identity, and the Ethics of Expulsion in Paul’s Mission to the Galatians,” in Sensitivity to Outsiders: Exploring the Dynamic Relationship between Mission and Ethics in the New Testament and Early Christianity, ed. Jacobus Kok, et al. (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2017), 253–255.

23 Martin Goodman, “The politics of Judaea in the 50s CE: The Use of the New Testament,” JJS 70.2 (2019): 231–232.

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Galatians betrays an intent to circumcise for circumcision itself, only an intent to circumcise in order to avoid persecution or negative social consequences. Would the influencers require the Galatians’ permission to circumcise? Absolutely. But permission through coercion is not consent but constraint. If the Galatians are attempting to circumcise under constraint, then they do not want to be circumcised. What they actually want is to avoid social liminality.

3. The Bestial Glans: Circumcision as an Animalistic Practice Scholarship on Galatians assumes that non-Jews would have been equally willing to circumcise as much as they would be equally willing not to circumcise. This is not to say that gentiles never got circumcised. Certainly, we have evidence that some gentiles gladly and willingly took up circumcision, like Achior the Ammonite (Judith 14:10) and Izates of Adiabene (Josephus, A.J. 20.34–48). But we also have an equal, if not greater, number of sources that show gentiles declining circumcision, like Epiphanes, son of Antiochus, who declined to marry Herod Agrippa’s sister Drusilla because he did not want to be circumcised (Josephus, A.J. 20.139). There was also Polemo, king of Cilicia, who was married to Bernice, sister to Agrippa, for only a short time before forsaking his marriage and circumcision (A.J. 20.145). The previous analysis of evidence internal to Galatians showed that the Galatians fall within the latter camp. When we turn to the reception of circumcision outside of Galatians, it becomes clear that Paul’s gentile audiences, by social and cultural default, would not have wanted to be circumcised.

In this section, I analyze the negative reception of circumcision from a previously unrecognised category of evidence, ancient Mischwesen (hybrid beings) as depicted in ancient visual culture. Representation in visual media, whether plastic or digital, is ideological. What is represented and how it is represented tell us a lot about the values a society imputes toward a particular image, especially when it comes to human bodies. Images of circumcision in the ancient world are rare. But where circumcision does occur, it manifests the values ancient Greeks and Romans held toward it. When ancient visual evidence is allowed to speak, it furthers our understanding of why ancient circumcision was received in the way it was by non-Jews. There are only a few scholars who have innovated in this area, namely Frederick Hodges and most recently Thomas Blanton. 24 Here, I build on the work of Hodges and Blanton and extend our Frederick M. Hodges, “The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme,” The Bulletin of the History of Medicine 75.3 (2001): 375–405. Recently,

24

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analysis of circumcision to the domain of the monstrous. The phallic synonymity that some ancient Mischwesen shared with circumcised peoples like ancients Jews suggests that Greeks and Romans would have associated Jewish circumcision with the animalistic and the sub-human. 25 A number of years ago, Jeffrey Hurwit drew attention to the nudity of the male Mischwesen (hybrid beings) in ancient Greek sculpture and how they directly contrast the Greek heroic foreskinned ideal. 26 These hybrid beings, like the Minotaur or satyrs/silenoi, were theriomorphic—that is, they that all had animal traits and were only partly human. Rosemary Barrow notes that, “In a mythological world where metamorphosis from mortal to animal, or anthropomorphic god to animal, was common, Greek and Roman audiences were used to negotiating blurred boundaries between human and non-human.” 27 Surprisingly, some of these creatures were also often portrayed as being circumcised. Here I examine one type of Mischwesen that has not, to my knowledge, been considered in connection with circumcision: centaurs.

In a Roman marble copy (1st–2nd century CE) after Pergamene original (ca. 200 BCE), an elderly centaur is tortured by the god of desire, Eros. 28 It appears to be modeled after a similar motif to the Furietti centaurs found at Hadrian’s villa in Tivoli, now housed in the Capitoline museum. The centaur is being tortured by Thomas R. Blanton has focused specifically on the depiction of circumcision in the ancient iconographic evidence in relation to Philo’s defense of the rite: Thomas R. Blanton IV, “The Expressive Prepuce: Philo’s Defense of Judaic Circumcision in Greek and Roman Contexts,” The Studia Philonica Annual 31 (2019): 127–162. Other studies that do not concentrate on circumcision in visual culture but feature it include: Margaret C. Miller, “The Myth of Bousiris: Ethnicity and Art,” in Not the Classical Ideal: Athens and the Construction of the Other in Greek art, ed. Beth Cohen (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 413–442; Claude Bérard, “The Image of the Other and the Foreign Herm,” in Cohen, Not the Classical Ideal, 390–412. Surprisingly, Martin does not discuss any visual evidence: Troy W. Martin, “Paul and Circumcision,” in World: A Handbook, in Paul in the Greco-Roman, ed. J. Paul Sampley (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 113–142.

25 Some scholars have already noted that circumcision was considered a “deformity” or “pathological disfigurement,” though without tracing the specific process by which circumcision was othered in the ancient world. See e.g., Feldman, Jew and Gentile in the Ancient World: Attitudes and Interactions from Alexander to Justinian, 155; Hodges, “The Ideal Prepuce,” 400, 404.

26 Jeffrey M. Hurwit, “The Problem with Dexileos: Heroic and Other Nudities in Greek Art,” AJA 111.1 (2007): 53. On the foreskin as an ideal, see Hodges, “The Ideal Prepuce.”

27 R. J. Barrow, Gender, Identity and the Body in Greek and Roman Sculpture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018), 153.

28 Now at the Louvre Museum, Paris MA 562 (MR 122).

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Eros, his hands tied behind his back and the god reaching up to his head, perhaps a gesture that signifies he is filling his head with lustful desire. Unusually the glans of the centaur is exposed, but although the body of the centaur is of a horse, the phallus is not unnecessarily large or particularly “equine-like” as is usually the case. 29 In fact, the penis itself looks flaccid. If this is correct, then the centaur appears circumcised. There is a convergence here of torturous sexual desire, animalistic nature, and circumcision.

This is not the only example of a centaur with his glans exposed. In a 1st century CE encaustic on white marble with red outlines from Herculaneum we find a depiction of the Centauromachy, the battle between centaurs and the Lapiths, a legendary group of people who resided in Thessaly. 30 (CW: rape, violence) According to the myth, the Lapith king Pirithous invited the centaurs to a banquet in celebration of his marriage to Hippodameia (see Ovid, Metam.

12.219–224; 12.346–349; Homer, Od. 21.295–304; Pausanias, Descr. 1.17.2, 5.10.8; Strabo, Georg. 939; Horace, Carm. 1.18.5; Pliny, Nat. 8.15.36.5,4). Unfortunately, the centaurs became intoxicated, and according to Ovid the wildest of the wildest centaur, Eurytus, grabbed Hippodameia by the hair, trying to kidnap her. The rest of the centaurs began to rape the women and the boys, inciting a battle between them and the Greeks, among whom Theseus was present. The encaustic from Herculaneum depicts this tale closely, with a woman being grasped by her hair, probably Hippodameia, the centaur grabbing her, possibly Eurytus, and a young Greek warrior grabbing him by the hair, possibly Theseus. What is alarming is that the centaur’s glans is exposed, the slight line of his foreskin retracted back, even while his phallus is flaccid. The centaur has been depicted as being circumcised or at least in a way that is completely negligible from circumcision.

In contrast to the centaur, Theseus is depicted in the heroic nude with the ideal foreskin.

For example, a seventh-century BCE frieze from the Attic black-figure volute famously known as the Francois Vase, now housed at the Museo Archaeologico Nazionale in Florence, depicts Hephaistos returning to Olympus riding on a mule followed by a silenos.

The mule’s penis is noticeably club-shaped as opposed to the human-like shape of the silenos’s penis next to it.

30 Museo Archaeologico Nazionale di Napoli 9560. It is also possible but less likely that what is depicted is Herakles, Nessos, and Deianira. For a clear overview of scholarship and the centaur primary source traditions see Jan N. Bremmer, “Greek Demons of the Wilderness: the case of the Centaurs,” in Wilderness Mythologies, ed. Wil L. Felt (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2012), 25–53. An image of the encaustic can be found on the Digital LIMC: https://weblimc.org/page/monument/2074217.

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Although some were known for their wisdom (e.g., Cheiron), centaurs in general were known in the ancient world for their propensity for lust, as the Centauromachy, the centaur tormented by Eros, and this Herculaneum encaustic show. This desire was a part of their innate nature. In one of the origin stories, the founder of the centaurs, Kentaurus, mated with Magnesian mares on mount Pelion (Pindar, Pyth. 2.42-48; Philostratus, Imag. 2.3). 31 Additionally, centaurs and satyrs were also closely aligned in ancient sources, since they had so many shared characteristics including an unbridled sexual drive. 32 “Civilized” Greeks wanted little to do with such men. 33 It is not as though this encaustic is an outlier in its depiction of a circumcised centaur. A search through the Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae (LIMC) provides at least seven other examples of circumcised centaurs (LIMC Kentauroi et Kentaurides 180, 186, 191, 194a, 258, 268; Kenturoi in Etruria 12) depicted on ancient Greek pottery. Some of these examples share the same Centauromachy context as the Herculaneum encaustic (e.g., LIMC Kentauroi et Kentaurides 186 and 191). 34 Here, we have found a previously unrecognized pattern of circumcision among ancient Greek and Roman depictions of centaurs, portrayals that explicitly associate circumcision with the hypersexual and the bestial.

Circumcision was not the only feature that barbarians shared with ancient Mischwesen. Hybrid beings, such as the Lystrygonians (man-eating giants), Polyphemous the Cyclops, and the Minotaur from Minos in ancient Greek mythology were associated with cannibalism. Even Cheiron, the wisest centaur and mentor to Achilles, was at one point linked with human sacrifices. 35 In the ancient world, human sacrifices, animal sacrifices, and eating meat could not be so easily separated. 36 When human sacrifices are mentioned it is therefore Another origin account of the centaurs begins with a group of men raised by nymphs, cf.

Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist. 4.70.1. Often the myths account of the origins of particular centaurs rather than all centaurs together. William F. Hansen, Handbook of Classical Mythology (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004), 135.

32 Robin Osborne, “Framing the centaur: reading fifth-century architectural sculpture,” in Art and Text in Ancient Greek Culture, eds. Simon Goldhill and Robin Osborne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 54, 56.

33 Bremmer, “Greek Demons of the Wilderness: the case of the Centaurs,” 20.

34 Images of LIMC 186 can be found here: https://weblimc.org/page/monument/2073490.

Images of LIMC 191 can be found here: https://weblimc.org/page/monument/2073466.

35 This is the argument based on Monimus (4th century BCE) apud Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 3.42 by Bremmer, “Greek Demons of the Wilderness: the case of the Centaurs,” 34.

36 Dennis D. Hughes, Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece (London: Routledge, 1991), 188.

31

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likely that cannibalism is implied. Ancient Greeks knew of cannibalistic barbarian tribes like the Androphagi (Herodotus, Hist. 4.18). But cannibalism was also associated with peoples who practiced circumcision, such as the Egyptians. For example, King Busiris was known to sacrifice (and therefore eat the flesh of) foreigners, hence his attempt to capture Herakles and make an offering of him (Herodotus, Hist. 2.45; Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibl. 2.5.11). Cassius Dio also records a certain group of people called the Bucoli who led a revolt in Egypt, eventually sacrificing and eating a Roman centurion (Dio Cassius, Hist. rom.

72.4).

In addition to the Egyptians, however, Jews too were associated with cannibalism. One of our earliest extant anti-Jewish claims was that they celebrated annual cannibalistic rites. Josephus records Apion’s claim (in C. Ap. 2.91–96) that Antiochus stumbled upon a Greek in the Jerusalem temple who was being fattened up for sacrifice whom the Jews would then eat according to an “unmentionable law” (2.94). 37 At the climax of Apion’s cannibalistic narrative is the antipathy the Jews swear toward the Greeks each year during the ritual (2.95). 38 In numerous instances, authors argued cannibalism was regressive behavior that reflected pre-civilization (Plato, [Epin.] 975a–b; Pausanias, Descr.

8.42.6; Plutarch, Is. Os. 13 [356A]; Diodorus Siculus, Bib. hist. 1.14). Pieter van der Horst has shown, based on a close reading of the sources, how the cannibalistic behavior of humans was depicted using animalistic language, terms like θηριώδης and ἀγριώδης. 39 When Apion associated cannibalism with Jews, the connotation was that somehow these barbarian peoples never developed past their uncivilised and thus animalistic tendencies. As van der Horst argues, in these anti-barbarian polemics, “Jews were ‘Untermenschen’ [sub-human]. They did have laws, but those laws commanded them to perform rituals that make clear that they still lived the lives of animals, thêriôdeis bioi. As cannibals they were in fact lawless, primitive, immoral, and violent creatures.” 40 The circumcision of hybrid beings created a correspondence with cannibalistic barbarians, giving the bodies of circumcised Jewish men animalistic overtones, distorting both them and their laws which command them to mutilate their bodies and devour civilized men. It is no surprise, then, that the Galatians would have been reluctant to take on John M. G. Barclay, Against Apion (Flavius Josephus: Translation and Commentary; Leiden: Brill, 2007), 220.

38 For full comments see Barclay, Against Apion, 219–220.

39 Pieter W. van der Horst, Studies in Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 87; Leiden: Brill, 2014), 184.

40 van der Horst, Studies in Ancient Judaism, 185.

37

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circumcision. While circumcision was a sign of the covenant for Jews, to the Greek and Romans it was a monstrous nudity.

4. Conclusion Rather than finding evidence that the Galatians embraced circumcision, I have found that the opposite is the case. While there were some who wanted to be under the law (Gal 4:21), the wider Galatian community had no actual desire for circumcision. Circumcision was being thrust upon the Galatians against their will.

It is not surprising given the stigma in ancient Greek and Roman cultures attached to circumcision that the Galatians would have had to be coerced to be circumcised. From a non-Jewish perspective, the visual correspondence with circumcised centaurs infused circumcision with hypersexual and bestial qualities.

Circumcision connoted the subhuman, the hybrid, the uncivilized, and the deformed. It is from this Graeco-Roman default that scholars should understand the relationship between Paul’s non-Jewish audience and circumcision.

The underlying principle behind the assumption that the Galatians wanted to be circumcised is that the burden of proof lies with those who want to argue the opposite. However, Paul’s portrayal of the Galatian circumcision as coercion, along with the social pressure he argues both the Galatians and the agitators face, suggest otherwise. Indeed, the wider Graeco-Roman stigma attached to circumcision indicates that the burden of proof is on those who argue that gentiles would be amicably inclined to be circumcised. While there are some examples of gentiles who took on circumcision willingly without being coerced, there are just as many instances of gentiles who refused or declined circumcision.

The baseline assumption with which interpreters should approach Galatians should be that a majority of the Galatian community did not want to be circumcised at all and not that Paul combats some assembly-wide desire for the practice.

There is another way of conceiving the Galatian attitude toward circumcision that might take seriously the antipathy non-Jews had toward the Jewish rite. Perhaps the Galatians feigned an interest in becoming circumcised due to the pressure they were facing, when in reality they knew it conflicted with their bodily ideals but did not have the apostolic authority themselves to fully exclude it. Perhaps Paul’s polemical letter was exactly what the Galatians were looking for. Perhaps his anti-circumcision gospel for gentile believers was precisely what they wanted to hear.

www.jjmjs.org

Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement: The Contributions of Simon Claude Mimouni, “Paul within Judaism” and “Lived Ancient Religion” Thomas R. Blanton IV University of Erfurt | trbiv@mac.com JJMJS No. 8 (2021): 131–157 Abstract Simon Claude Mimouni (1949–), director of the Department of Religious Studies (Section de Sciences Religieuses) at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris from 1995 until 2017 1, is the author of La circoncision dans le monde judéen aux époques grecque et romaine (Circumcision in the Judean World in the Greek and Roman Periods) 2. Alongside Andreas Blaschke’s Beschneidung: Zeugnisse der Bibel und verwandter Texte (Circumcision: Testimonies of the Bible and Related Texts) 3, La Circoncision is one of two most wide-ranging reference volumes on circumcision within biblical studies and cognate fields 4. Since Mimouni’s work is often overlooked in English-language scholarship, 5 I have been invited to

* I am most grateful to Barry C. Hopkins, Interim Director and Public Services Librarian at JKM Library, Chicago, for providing research material during the long period of library closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

1 Simon Mimouni,” École Pratique des Hautes Études, https://www.ephe.psl.eu/en/ecole/ nos-enseignants-chercheurs/simon-mimouni.

2 Simon Claude Mimouni, La circoncision dans le monde judéen aux époques grecque et romaine: Histoire d’un conflit interne au judaïsme (Leuven: Peeters, 2007).

3 Andreas Blaschke, Beschneidung: Zeugnisse der Bibel und verwandter Texte (Tübingen: Francke, 1998).

4 All translations are those of the author unless otherwise noted. Translations of biblical texts, however, are those of the NRSV unless otherwise noted 5 Exceptions to this trend include Matthew Thiessen, “Conversion, Jewish,” in Oxford Classical Dictionary, 27 July 2017, https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/ acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e8130?rskey=dyBA3F&result=1; Isaac W. Oliver, Torah Praxis after 70 CE: Reading Matthew and Luke-Acts as Jewish Texts (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2013); Thomas R.

132 JJMJS No. 8 (2021)

introduce and summarize its discussion pertaining to the Jesus movement during the first century CE. In order to enhance the utility of this survey, I relate Mimouni’s work to more recent developments in the field, particularly those associated with the “Paul within Judaism” perspective; and introduce two methodological approaches that, I suggest, hold the potential to enhance research in this area; namely the “processing approach” and “lived ancient religion.” Lastly, a case study demonstrates the utility of the latter two approaches.

Keywords Simon Claude Mimouni, Mark D. Nanos, circumcision, ritual, Paul of Tarsus, Second Temple Judaism, lived ancient religion, religious studies methods 1. Simon Claude Mimouni on Circumcision Mimouni’s work surveys material including, but not limited to, the Hebrew Bible, Philo, Josephus, the Dead Sea scrolls, the Mishnah, the Babylonian Talmud, the New Testament, patristic literature, and a selection of Greek and Roman writers.

I briefly summarize the chapter of Mimouni’s study that is most relevant to the topic of the present special issue; namely, “The Christian Movement of the First Century and the Question of Circumcision.” 6 At the outset, two caveats must be registered. First, Mimouni uses Acts to provide the “historical” and chronological frameworks of his discussion, an approach that has been called into question by Ryan Schellenberg and others who emphasize the role of the author of Luke-Acts as a creative writer who utilized novelistic techniques to serve his own literary and theological agendas. 7 Second, Mimouni includes Colossians and Ephesians, arguably deutero-Pauline epistles, in his reconstruction of “Paul’s” attitude toward circumcision. Both issues lead to a distorted view of the “historical” Paul’s perspectives. We proceed with these caveats in mind.

The narrative of the “conversion” of Cornelius in Acts 10:1–11:18, which Mimouni takes to refer to a historical event that occurred around 43 or 44 CE, occupies an important place in his reconstruction. Acts 10:11–13 describes Blanton IV, “The Expressive Prepuce: Philo’s Defense of Judaic Circumcision in Greek and Roman Contexts,” SPhiloA 31 (2019): 127–162.

6 Mimouni, Circoncision, 159–246.

7 Ryan S. Schellenberg, “The First Pauline Chronologist? Paul’s Itinerary in the Letters and in Acts,” JBL 134 (2015): 193–213; Cavan Concannon, “Economic Aspects of Intercity Travel among the Pauline Assemblies,” in Paul and Economics: A Handbook, ed. Thomas R. Blanton IV and Raymond Pickett (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 333–360.

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 133

Cornelius as a centurion of the “Italic” cohort who “feared God” and donated to a group of local Judeans resident in Joppa. Noting that the ritual is prescribed specifically for Judeans in Acts 2:37–42, Mimouni reasons that the baptism of Cornelius and other non-Judeans in Acts 10:48 therefore represents “a rite of adherence to Judaism for non-Judeans.” He takes baptism to represent the established ritual practice by which non-Judeans adhered to Judaism in the diaspora. Thus Cornelius and his baptized household held the status of “proselytes.” 8 It is this “community of life, and without doubt, of table,” that allowed Peter, a Judean, to lodge with Cornelius (Acts 10:48). 9 Mimouni takes the episode to establish a precedent for the admission of non-Jews into the Jewish “messianic community” without circumcision. 10 Gal 2 and Acts 15 independently attest to a subsequent stage in the Jesus movement in which the question was raised whether, or to what extent, nonJudeans ought to follow the “law of Moses,” including circumcision. 11 Both sources, Mimouni argues, refer to the same set of events: a conflict in Antioch and a subsequent “council” that convened in Jerusalem. Drawing from Paul’s statements in Galatians, Mimouni argues that the Antioch conflict concerned a “doctrinal” issue that is summed up in Acts 15:1: “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Mimouni opines that both Paul and Luke agree on the doctrinal issue at stake: “since God granted salvation to the Greeks who do not completely (totalement) observe the Law of Moses, it is understood that ‘the grace (grâce) of the Lord Jesus’ (Acts 15:11) is enough to be saved.” 12 This position was adopted to resolve the doctrinal dispute.

The resolution of the “doctrinal” issue in turn gave rise to a practical question: which dietary prescriptions should be followed to facilitate “relations” (rapports) between “Christians” of Greek and Judean origin?13 Acts 15:20 recounts the solution, proposed by James, the brother of Jesus, at the Jerusalem meeting, which took place circa 49 or 50 CE: non-Judean members of early Christian groups should “abstain only from things polluted by idols and from fornication 8 9

Mimouni, Circoncision, 168–169, 173–174; diaspora practice: 132–157.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 166.

10

Mimouni, Circoncision, 171, 174.

Two independent attestations to the same event: Mimouni, Circoncision, 200. On the contrary: Schellenberg (“First Pauline Chronologist”) argues that the author of Acts used a collection of Pauline epistles as a source, in which case the notion of multiple, independent attestation evaporates.

12 Mimouni, Circoncision, 192.

11

13

Mimouni, Circoncision, 193.

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and from whatever has been strangled and from blood.” James’s proposal is related to the “Noachide precepts” outlined in Lev 17–18, which pertain not only to native Judeans but to the “resident aliens” (‫ )גרים‬living in the land. 14 Mimouni concludes: “The observance of these rules thus makes possible coexistence and relations between Judeans and non-Judeans.” 15 Moving from corporate decisions to individual matters, Mimouni discusses an apparent contradiction in Paul’s relations with Timothy and Titus: Paul insisted that the non-Judean Titus was not compelled to be circumcised during the meeting with James and Peter in Jerusalem (Gal 2:3); conversely, in Acts 16:3 Paul urged the non-Judean Timothy to be circumcised in Lycaonia.

While Titus’s non-circumcision coheres with Paul’s general policy regarding nonJudeans, Mimouni notes that Timothy’s circumcision has occasioned embarrassment among some (Christian) interpreters. 16 Assuming the historicity of Acts’s report, Mimouni resolves the apparent contradiction by arguing that although Timothy’s father was “Greek,” his mother was Judean, as Acts 16:1 indicates; therefore his circumcision, although belated, was not improper.

Although Shaye Cohen found no evidence that matrilineal descent was observed in Judaism in the first century CE, 17 Mimouni suggests that since “in the Iranian world the status of the infant is given by the mother and not by the father,” therefore “it is possible to think that matrilinearity was a rule in force in the diaspora while patrilinearity was in Palestine.” 18 Thus he is in basic agreement with a view proposed by Ambrosiaster in the fourth century CE: Paul prevailed upon the properly Judean Timothy to perform only belatedly a ritual that should have been carried out during his infancy. 19 It is worth noting that Richard Pervo judges the episode to be “probably without historical basis”; it was rather a literary invention that “admirably serves the Lucan program of ‘Jew first,’ and demonstrates Paul’s loyalty to the traditional faith.” 20 Following his historical reconstruction, Mimouni discusses “Pauline” texts (including Colossians and Ephesians) in which circumcision is at issue. In 308 F

309F

14 15

Mimouni, Circoncision, 192–193; for the date of the Jerusalem meeting, see 171, 201.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 193.

16

Mimouni, Circoncision, 203.

Shaye J. D. Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness: Boundaries, Varieties, Uncertainties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 263–307.

18 Mimouni, Circoncision, 209 (quotations), 212–213.

19 Mimouni, Circoncision, 205.

17

20

Richard I. Pervo, Acts: A Commentary (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2009), 388.

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 135

what follows, we examine a few salient passages, following Mimouni’s arrangement.

1 Cor 7:18: Paul’s advice μὴ ἐπισπάσθω, literally “let him not undergo epispasm,” refers to a surgical procedure by which the skin of the shaft of the penis is drawn over the glans to create an artificial prepuce, as Mimouni rightly notes. 21 Greeks and Romans interpreted the circumcised phallus as a marker of uncontrolled sexual desire and barbarity; consequently some Judeans underwent epispasm in an effort to appear more “Greco-Roman”—an issue that could arise in contexts where nudity was customary, especially in the gymnasium and at the baths. 22 Paul advises all males to maintain the status of their foreskins—whether intact or ablated—in the state that pertained when they were admitted into the assembly of Jesus-devotees in Corinth.

1 Cor 7:19: “Circumcision is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing; but obeying the commandments of God is everything.” Mimouni understands “the commandments” here to refer to “the rules of conduct in the Decalogue, among which circumcision does not appear.” 23 He opines that “circumcision and uncircumcision have no bearing on the belief [la croyance] in the messiahship of Jesus.” 24 Paul was no revolutionary who sought to overturn “established social values”; the status of “believers” as either Judeans or “Greeks”—a synecdoche referring to all non-Judeans—is retained. Paul, however, “wanted to reduce the differences in identity in the name of sole observance of the divine commandments: briefly, in the name of this observance, which for him is a belief [croyance], circumcised Judeans and uncircumcised Greeks were identical [identiques]” 25 in the sense of “messianic belief having to be superimposed [devant se surimposer] on the condition of origin of each one.” 26 Gal 5–6: Mimouni understands Galatians to be an attack on the position of “Jacobians”—people associated with James, the brother of Jesus—who advocated that non-Judean devotees of Jesus should submit to the “yoke” of the

21

Mimouni, Circoncision, 119–120. The surgical procedure is described in Celsus, Med. 7.25. See also Troy W. Martin, “Paul and Circumcision,” in Paul in the Greco-Roman World: A Handbook, ed. J. Paul Sampley, 2nd ed., 2 vols. (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 113–142 (122); Blaschke, Beschneidung, 350–353.

22 See Cohen, Beginnings of Jewishness, 47–48.

23 Mimouni, Circoncision, 215.

24 25 26

Mimouni, Circoncision, 216.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 216.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 120.

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law, including circumcision. 27 Commenting on Gal 5:3, he notes that Paul “attests that those who are circumcised have to practice the law in its totality—and consequently risk not being justified in case of transgression.” 28 However, the options for removing guilt associated with intentional or inadvertent transgressions were more numerous and varied that Paul’s “either/or” scenario— either follow the law in toto or receive “grace” (χάρις) through Christ—indicates.

Both Paul and Mimouni fail to mention the broad palette of mechanisms for removing the guilt incurred through transgressing halakic (legal) precepts during the Second Temple period, including the Day of Atonement, repentance, almsgiving, and offering specified sacrifices at the Jerusalem Temple. 29 Mimouni sees in Gal 5:11 “an allusion to a time when Paul would have still recommended circumcision, either as a Pharisaic missionary or as a Christian missionary—so his thought would have varied on that point.” 30 Commenting on Gal 6:15 (“For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!”), Mimouni indicates that “the apostle to the gentiles lets the person of the believers envision a cosmic perspective: Judeans as well as Greeks, without distinction, are called to renew the world in joining with the faithful of Jesus the Messiah—all ethnic and religious differences here lose their importance.” 31 Rom 2:25–29: Mimouni explains: “Circumcision is useful in the framework of observance of the law, but, for the transgressor, it gives no guarantee.… There is … a sort of divorce between being and appearing, which affects not only the behavior of the man but finally his very identity: the true Judean is not the one who appears so.… In short, for Paul, if sinful Israel has an uncircumcised heart, the nations can have circumcised hearts.” 32 The motif of “circumcision of the heart” appears also in Deut 10:16 and Jer 9:24–25. Paul indicates that non-Judeans who “keep the requirements of the law” (Rom 2:26) will be “regarded” (λογισθήσεται) by God as if they were circumcised. We note that he stops short of saying that non-Judeans could be regarded as Judeans, however.

Rom 3:1–2: “Then what advantage [τò περισσὸν] has the Judean? Or what is the benefit [ἡ ὠφέλεια] of circumcision?” (NRSV, modified). Immediately after 27

Mimouni, Circoncision, 216–221.

28

Mimouni, Circoncision, 217.

See, e.g., E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief; 63 BCE–66 CE (London: SCM; Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press International, 1994), 103–118, 141–143.

30 Mimouni, Circoncision, 218.

31 Mimouni, Circoncision, 219–220.

29

32

Mimouni, Circoncision, 226–227.

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 137

arguing that non-Judeans were not placed at a disadvantage relative to Judeans on account of their intact foreskins, Paul indicates that Judeans do have an “advantage,” and circumcision provides a “benefit” denied others. Mimouni writes: “Paul seems to respond that circumcision is ‘great in all respects.’ But one can understand also that it is Judean superiority that is ‘great in all respects,’ all the more so as he justifies his point of view by motivating it, specifying that the Judeans are the recipients of divine revelations.” 33 We return to the issue of Paul’s marking of his ethnicity below.

Phil 3:2–11: “Beware of the dogs, beware of the evil workers, beware of those who mutilate the flesh!” Mimouni understands Paul to be arguing either against “itinerant preachers, Christians of Judean origin of the tendency of James the Just” or against “Judeo-Greek ‘superapostles’” such as Paul had encountered in Corinth (2 Cor 11:22). 34 Mimouni opines that the opposing group is maligned as “dogs” because circumcised Judeans supposedly used the term to express their contempt for uncircumcised Greeks. 35 Although without referring to Mimouni’s work, Mark Nanos has since contested the position that he espouses, which is widespread in commentaries. 36 Paul’s response to this competing group is to claim, “it is we who are the circumcision” (Phil 3:3). This is “not to render circumcision null and void but to consider that it consists not of an incision or mutilation [terms referring to circumcision, in Mimouni’s view] but of a profound change of attitude: a transformation that is not possible but by the Spirit of God. So in this perspective true circumcision represents the Christian community in which incision or mutilation does not represent anything,” a position that he finds also in Rom 2:25–29 and Col 2:11–13. Mimouni understands the first person plural pronoun “we” in Phil 3:3 to refer both to Paul and his “Christian” addressees in Philippi.

Despite flaws in Mimouni’s methods, his discussions are informative, and to my knowledge no other volume save Blaschke’s Beschneidung covers a comparably vast range of sources. Mimouni’s conclusion, moreover, is sound and worth repeating: “In the first century [CE], Christians adopted in a relatively clear manner a double attitude with regard to circumcision: (1) for those of Judean

33 34 35

Mimouni, Circoncision, 223.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 229.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 228–229.

Mark D. Nanos, “Paul’s Polemic in Philippians 3 as Jewish-Subgroup Vilification of Local Non-Jewish Cultic and Philosophical Alternatives,” Journal for the Study of Paul and His Letters 3, no. 1 (2013): 47–91.

36

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origin, there is no cause to suppress it; (2) for those of Greek origin, there is no cause to impose it.” 37 2. “Paul within Judaism” In order to render this brief survey of Mimouni’s contributions more useful to researchers and students, in what follows I assess some of his views in light of more recent developments, largely those stemming from the “Paul within Judaism” approach.

The “Paul within Judaism” approach resists a long-entrenched tradition of theological historiography that has roots growing through the Protestant Reformation of the 1500s back to its origins in the second century CE, in which both Jesus and Paul are understood as Jews who “transcended” or “overcame” Judaism to establish a new religion, “Christianity.” 38 This new religion is supposed to display characteristics diametrically opposed to those of Judaism: universalism instead of nationalism, “grace” rather than “law,” and “faith” rather than “works” (i.e., “salvation” cannot be “merited” or “earned” by human effort). As William Bousset, a major figure in the early Religionsgeschichtliche Schule (History of Religion School) of Göttingen in the 1890s, put it, “Jesus freed religion from nationality: Judaism spells fetters, Christianity freedom.…” Moreover, “Paul accomplished the external deliverance from nationality,” writing, “There can be neither Jew nor Greek” (Gal 3:28). 39 The “fetters” that Bousset refers to connote “ceremony,” “ritual observance,” and “law”; all of which are opposed to the “freedom” supposed to inhere in Christianity, a religion of “grace” in which God freely bestows “salvation” on sinners by virtue of their “faith” (cp. Mimouni’s

37 38

Mimouni, Circoncision, 242.

For overviews of the approach, see Mark D. Nanos, introduction to Paul within Judaism: Restoring the First-Century Context of the Apostle, ed. Mark D. Nanos and Magnus Zetterholm (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2015), 1–30; Magnus Zetterholm, “Paul within Judaism: The State of the Questions,” in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, 31– 52; William S. Campbell, The Nations in the Divine Economy: Paul’s Covenantal Hermeneutics and Participation in Christ (Lanham, MD: Lexington/Fortress Academic, 2018), 51–77.

39 Wilhelm Bousset, Das Wesen der Religion, dargestellt an ihrer Geschichte (Halle: Gebauer-Schwetschke, 1900); Eng. trans.: What Is Religion?, trans. F. B. Low (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1907), 218–219.

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 139

croyance: “belief”): the Christian is imagined to be unfettered by the obligation to observe ritual or legal prescriptions. 40 As Jonathan Z. Smith observed, the same narrative was utilized by Protestants to delegitimize both Catholicism and Judaism, both of which were associated with the negative characteristics of legalism and ceremony. 41 This polemical narrative generates perceptions that are historically inaccurate and that misrepresent both Judaism and Christianity. Magnus Zetterholm writes that as the result of E. P. Sanders’s classic work Paul and Palestinian Judaism, which debunked many of the narrative’s presuppositions, “it now seemed apparent that previous scholarship on Paul was based, not on an adequate description of ancient Judaism, but on a Christian caricature.” 42 Mark Nanos points to this entrenched exegetical tradition, which further posits that Paul “opposed the value of Jewish identity as well as Torah-defined behavior when practiced by [Paul himself and] other followers of Jesus.” 43 On the contrary, proponents of the “Paul within Judaism” approach assume that “the writing and community building of the apostle Paul took place within late Second Temple Judaism, within which he remained a representative after his change of conviction about Jesus being the Messiah (Christ).” 44 The approach thus counters what William Campbell identifies as “the tenacious continuity that emerges in the anti-Jewish reception of his [i.e., Paul’s] thought and actions.” 45 The “Paul within Judaism” approach is compatible with Mimouni’s assertion that devotees of Jesus, both Judeans and Greco-Romans, were understood to belong to a “party” within Judaism and not to a separate entity, “the Church” or “Christianity.” 46 The integration of Judeans and non-Judeans within particular assemblies, however, raised practical questions about how differences in ethnic identity should be navigated.

40

On Bousset and the History of Religion School, see Thomas R. Blanton IV, “The Continuing Influence of the Religionsgeschichtliche Schule,” in The Oxford History of Modern German Theology, ed. Johannes Zachhuber, Judith Wolfe, and David Lincicum, 3 vols. (Oxford: Oxford University Press), forthcoming.

41 Jonathan Z. Smith, Drudgery Divine: On the Comparison of Early Christianities and the Religions of Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).

42 Zetterholm, “Paul within Judaism,” 6; E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977).

43 Nanos, introduction, 5.

44 45 46

Nanos, introduction, 9.

Campbell, Nations in the Divine Economy, 51.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 195–196.

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We have already seen how in Mimouni’s interpretation of 1 Cor 7:19, he opines that Paul “wanted to reduce the differences in identity [between Judeans and non-Judeans]”; “messianic belief” was “superimposed on the condition of origin of each one.” Similarly, in Gal 5:11, “ethnic and religious differences … lose their importance.” More recently, Campbell has adopted a more nuanced position. Rather than simply trying to reduce differences by superimposing “messianic belief” as a new identity marker, “Paul affirmed the differing but related identities of Jews and ethnē [i.e., ‘nations’ or ‘gentiles’] in Christ,” entailing a “recognition of ethnic difference,” difference that is, however, reconciled (at least in theory) on the basis of “mutual dependence through the reconciling work of Jesus Christ.” 47 Further: “Paul regards Christ as making the ethnē who follow him acceptable to God as ethnē, yet without becoming part of the covenant of circumcision.” 48 Mutual dependence and reconciliation, however, took place within a social context in which different ethnic groups were ranked hierarchically in terms of political rights, citizenship, and rates of taxation. 49 Jan Bremmer notes that in first-century CE Alexandria, inhabitants were hierarchically ranked in terms of political rights and access; in descending order: Romans, Greeks, Judeans, and Egyptians. 50 Greek and Roman artistic and literary depictions of Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Judeans indicate that circumcision was viewed as a salient part of the ethnic ranking system: it was coded as a barbaric practice associated with those deemed ethnically inferior. 51 Philip Harland shows how Paul recalibrates the normally operative ranking system, placing Judeans at the pinnacle of the sociopolitical hierarchy, taking Paul’s phrase “to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom 1:16; 2:9–11) to imply not just a temporal but also a hierarchical rank. 52

47

Campbell, Nations in the Divine Economy, 105–152 (quotations: 145–146).

Campbell, Nations in the Divine Economy, 234.

49 On taxation, see G. Anthony Keddie, “Roman Provincial Censuses as Sociopolitical Regulation: Implications for Interpreting the Synoptic Gospels and Acts,” in Taxation and Revolt: Case Studies in the Economies of Ancient Rome, Galilee, and Egypt, ed. Thomas R. Blanton IV, Agnes Choi, and Jinyu Liu (London: Routledge), forthcoming.

50 Jan N. Bremmer, “The First Pogrom? Religious Violence in Alexandria in 38 CE?,” in Alexandria: Hub of the Hellenistic World, ed. Benjamin Schliesser, Jan Rüggemeier, Thomas J. Kraus, and Jörg Frey (WUNT 2/460; Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2021), 245–260.

51 See Blanton, “Expressive Prepuce.”

52 Philip A. Harland, “Climbing the Ethnic Ladder: Ethnic Hierarchies and Judean Responses,” JBL 138 (2019): 665–686.

48

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 141

Similarly, Jennifer Eyl observes how Paul adduces his ethnic credentials—including the fact of his circumcision—to demonstrate his authority as an exponent of the “good news” concerning Jesus. Particularly in comparisons he makes with other “apostles” or similar groups construed as competitors, Paul utilized “changes in terminology [to] capitalize on reverence for the distant past while simultaneously asserting his innate, hereditary connection to that past.”

This was an “active, constructive, and strategic” procedure in which Paul chose not do designate himself using the term Ioudaios [“Judean”], “which, according to Josephus, came into usage after the Babylonian exile,” but instead used terms that connoted antiquity and privileged lineage, “Hebrew” and “Israelite.” 53 Thus when Paul boasts that he is “circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee,” “the catalogue of his ethnic qualifications anchors his authority.” 54 Eyl’s observations are complemented by the work of Heidi Wendt, who identifies a category of “freelance religious experts” among whom Paul was a salient example. Freelance religious experts representing Persia, Babylonia, Gallia, Egypt, Syria, and Judea proliferated during the Roman imperial period, offering services including healing, exorcism, “dream interpretation, prophecy, revelation, interpretation of oracles, revelations linked with literary prophecies, law instruction,” and other services. 55 Claimed connections to a “foreign” land bore the potential to enhance the authority and legitimacy of those religious experts.

Paul’s appeals to ethnicity, including the ethnically coded practice of circumcision, thus grounded his authority among Greeks and Romans. The work of Harland, Eyl, and Wendt implies that Paul hardly rejected nationalism (we would rather now say “ethnic identity”), ceremony, and ritual observance, as Bousset supposed. Nor, as James Dunn imagines, did he consider “badges of covenant membership” to be “superfluous.” 56 On the contrary, Paul understood 53

Jennifer Eyl, “‘I Myself Am an Israelite’: Paul, Authenticity and Authority,” JSNT 40.2 (2017): 148–168 (quotations: 149; referring to Josephus, Ant. 11.173).

54 Eyl, “I Myself,” 151.

55 Heidi Wendt, At the Temple Gates: The Religion of Freelance Experts in the Roman Empire (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 74–113 (quotation: 94).

56 James D. G. Dunn, The New Perspective on Paul, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 28 n.107; 109, 111, 115, 117, 472; “Faith in Jesus as Christ becomes the primary identity marker which renders the others superfluous” (Dunn, New Perspective, 113). For a critique of Dunn’s position, see Kathy Ehrensperger, “The New Perspective and Beyond,” in Modern Interpretations of Romans: Tracking Their Hermeneutical/Theological Trajectory, ed. Daniel Patte and Cristina Grenholm (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013), 189–220.

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them as points worth boasting about, strategically, when his “apostolic” credentials needed to be reasserted.

Katell Berthelot points to a number of Jewish practices that non-Jews attracted to Judaism adopted in antiquity, including studying and observing the laws of Moses, and, conversely, failing to uphold the laws of Rome; fasting; keeping the Sabbath; lighting lamps for the Sabbath; abstaining from pork; ritual immersion; and circumcision. 57 Thus we would expect non-Jews attracted to the Jesus movement to adopt some Judean practices, but which ones? As we have seen, based on 1 Cor 7:19, Mimouni infers that Paul advocated that non-Jewish devotees of Jesus should follow the Decalogue (Exod 20:1–17; Deut 5:6–21).

Similarly, Paula Fredriksen proposes that Paul advocated that non-Jews adopt the Ten Commandments, albeit sans Sabbath observance. 58 What then of circumcision, which, as Berthelot notes, “was a decisive step equivalent to joining the Judean ethnos”? 59 As Michael Bachmann and others have pointed out, in Paul’s view, non-Jews joined as “full members” of God’s people, but not by becoming “Israelites” or “Jews/Judeans.” 60 Paul developed various narratives to justify this incorporation: non-Jews were “adopted” as children of God (e.g., Rom 8:15), or incorporated into Abraham’s lineage as the pneumatic “seed” of Christ (Gal 3:16, 29), as Caroline Johnson Hodge, Gitte BuchHansen, and Matthew Thiessen have demonstrated. 61 57

Katell Berthelot, “To Convert or Not to Convert: The Appropriation of Jewish Rituals, Customs and Beliefs by Non-Jews,” in Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World: Approaching Religious Transformations from Archaeology, History and Classics, ed.

Valentino Gasparini et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2020), 493–515.

58 Paula Fredriksen, “Paul’s Letter to the Romans, the Ten Commandments, and Pagan ‘Justification by Faith,’” JBL 133 (2014): 801–808.

59 Bertelot, “To Convert,” 497.

60

Michael Bachmann, “Paul, Israel, and the Gentiles: Hermeneutical and Exegetical Notes,” in Paul and Judaism: Crosscurrents in Pauline Exegesis and the Study of Jewish-Christian Relations, ed. Reimund Bieringer and Didier Pollefeyt (London: T&T Clark, 2012), 72–105; Campbell, Nations in the Divine Economy, 234; Mark D. Nanos, “The Question of Conceptualization: Qualifying Paul’s Position on Circumcision in Dialogue with Josephus’s Advisors to King Izates,” in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, 105– 152.

61 Carolyn Johnson Hodge, “The Question of Identity: Gentiles as Gentiles—but also Not— in Pauline Communities,” in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, 153–174; Gitte Buch-Hansen, “Paulus i Aristoteles’ hønsegård Dåb og genealogi i Galaterbrevet,” Dansk Teologisk Tidsskrift 77 (2014): 9–26; Matthew Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 105–170.

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 143

Thiessen makes a related argument that Paul thought it was impossible for non-Jews to become members of God’s people by circumcision because proselytes could only perform the ritual as adults, and not on the eighth day after birth as prescribed in Gen 17 and Jub. 15. 62 Shaye Cohen, however, points out that “not a single ancient Jewish text says that a gentile cannot convert to Judaism because of missing eighth-day circumcision. All passages (including those in Jubilees) that highlight eighth-day circumcision are talking about Israelites (Jews).” 63 Thiessen reads Gen 17 and Jub. 15, texts in which the issue of gentile conversion to Judaism are not addressed, as if they were meant to exclude the possibility of such conversion. But the legal status of an issue cannot be decided by texts in which that issue is never once mentioned. The reasons why Paul did not advocate circumcision for non-Judean devotees of Jesus must be sought elsewhere.

Karin Neutel offers a more compelling solution. She points out that Paul frequently argued against competitors who advocated for the circumcision of non-Judean devotees of Christ to incorporate them into the lineage of Abraham as Jews. But in Paul’s view, non-Jewish devotees of Jesus were already “insiders” in the Abrahamic lineage, for “if gentiles are in Christ, they are Abraham’s seed and heirs to God’s promise to him (Gal 3:27–29).… Paul then proposes an alternative form of kinship with Abraham for gentiles, through Christ.” Thus attempting to join Abraham’s lineage by another means—circumcision as a rite of passage into Judaism—amounted to a rejection of the “free gift” (χάρις; or, “grace”) of incorporation as Christ’s pneumatic “seed.” If they should opt to be circumcised, Paul reasons, his addressees would have “fallen away from grace [τῆς χάριτος]” and nullified the gift (Gal 5:4). 64 As these recent studies demonstrate, the discussion has become considerably more nuanced since La Circoncision was published.

3. The “Processing” Approach and “Lived Ancient Religion” Although Mimouni and the subsequent “Paul within Judaism” perspective have made significant progress in overcoming the entrenched tradition of 62

Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion: Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Thiessen, Paul and the Gentile Problem, 14, 73–104.

63 Shaye J. D. Cohen, review of Contesting Conversion (by Thiessen), CBQ 75 (2013): 379– 381 (quotation: 380).

64 Karin B. Neutel, “Circumcision Gone Wrong: Paul’s Message as a Case of Ritual Disruption,” Neot 50.2 (2016): 373–396 (quotation: 383).

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supersessionist and anti-Jewish readings of Paul’s letters, I submit that discussions of circumcision in the early Jesus movement would benefit from interacting with two additional methodological perspectives: the “processing approach” and “lived ancient religion.” After brief introductions, I present a case study to illustrate ways in which these approaches might usefully be employed by researchers in this area.

The processing approach was introduced in a volume edited by Staf Hellemans and Gerard Rouwhorst in 2020, The Making of Christianities in History: A Processing Approach. 65 Hellemans developed the approach in an effort to clarify the ways in which the Western Catholic Church adapted to “modernity” as expressed in nineteenth-century European societies. 66 The approach was inspired by sociological theories that attend to the relationship between structures; that is, social, political, religious, and economic systems understood to provide patterns by which societies are shaped; and agents, that is, individual actors and groups who actively select, arrange, revise, or reject structural elements of a given society in efforts to serve perceived individual or group interests. Structures themselves are not seen to be singular or monolithic, but composed of diverse elements that are continually evolving and changing.

The processing of structures by agents consists of six components: (1) agents select particular elements and options presented by their environments, while neglecting or overlooking others; (2) the objects and opportunities thus selected are modified to meet the situation-specific needs of the individual or group: “affordances, opportunities, resources (personnel, goods, other things), and ideas that an agent finds interesting for processing are tailored for re-use in his or her lifeworld”; 67 (3) the modification of objects and opportunities selected from the structuring environment require assembly into a “new, often fragile unity.” Thus: “the twin processes of modification and assembling … are a complex and iterative affair.” 68 (4) Cultural elements thus selected, modified, and reassembled into new unities are subsequently expressed in cultural performances, which may either succeed or fail, be accepted or rejected by other constituencies, both individual and corporate, within the cultural milieu in which the performance takes place. (5) Performances may subsequently be integrated into the agent’s repertoire of action, which may in turn lead to (6) modifications of the 65

Staf Hellemans and Gerard Rouwhorst, eds., The Making of Christianities in History: A Processing Approach (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020).

66 Staf Hellemans, “Turning ‘Society’ into Religion: A Processing Approach,” in Hellemans and Rouwhorst, Making of Christianities, 23–58.

67 Hellemans, “Turning ‘Society’ into Religion,” 42.

68

Hellemans, “Turning ‘Society’ into Religion,” 44.

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structuring environment, referred to as resonances. “Resonances, in their turn, can be the start of another round of processing.” 69 Thus the agency of individuals and groups is linked to structural elements of society in a circular, mutually generative process. As Hellemans and Rouwhorst point out, “innovation stands at the heart of every case of processing, since all the material involved in the processing, both old and new, is continually modified and re-assembled in the process.” 70 History, from this perspective, has an “anarchic” character; it is not governed by abstract principles, laws, or controlling institutions, but instead results from the myriad decisions, selections, omissions, and transformations of innumerable agents within overlapping fields of cultural (re)production. 71 Complementing the processing approach of Hellemans and Rouwhorst is the lived ancient religion (LAR) approach elaborated in a project involving Jörg Rüpke, Rubina Raja, Katharina Rieger, Richard Gordon, and Emiliano Urciuoli, among many others, at the University of Erfurt from 2012 to 2017. 72 Succinctly: “The main thrust of the LAR initiative was to resist the easy reification of ‘religion’ (as though we all know what is involved) in order to emphasize its ceaseless construction through individual action within the loose parameters provided by traditions, ideals and institutions (‘religion in the making’).” 73 LAR rejects approaches in which “the balance between structure and individual agents is shifted to the one pole of an overwhelming and encaging structure.” 74 Further: “Rather than stressing the ‘reproduction’ of culture, appropriation focusses on the partiality, the occasional character, the deficits, the incoherency, but above all on the strategic selectivity of the individual agent’s 69

Hellemans, “Turning ‘Society’ into Religion,” 46.

Staf Hellemans and Gerard Rouwhorst, “Introduction: On the Processing of Society and Religion by Religious Agents,” in Hellemans and Rouwhorst, Making of Christianities, 7– 22 (quotation: 16); see also Rouwhorst, “The Making of Early Christianity: A Processing Perspective on the History of Its Rituals,” in Hellemans and Rouwhorst, Making of Christianities, 83–118.

71 On the language of “fields,” see Pierre Bourdieu, The Field of Cultural Production: Essays in Art and Literature (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993).

72 Jörg Rüpke, “Lived Ancient Religion: Questioning ‘Cults’ and ‘Polis Religion,’” Mythos, n.s., 5 (2011): 191–204 (191).

73 Janico Albrecht et al., “Religion in the Making: The Lived Ancient Religion Approach,” Religion 48 (2018): 1–26 (quotation: 2).

74 Rubina Raja and Jörg Rüpke, “Appropriating Religion: Methodological Issues in Testing the ‘Lived Ancient Religion’ Approach,” Religion in the Roman Empire 1 (2015): 11–19 (quotation: 12).

70

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making prefabricated meanings one’s own. Accordingly, the cumulated effect of these appropriations is the precarious and ever-changing character of what claims to be normative tradition.” 75 The lived ancient religion approach identifies four key terms “intended to sharpen the accounts of the dynamics of ancient religious experiences, practices and beliefs.” These include appropriation, denoting “the situational adaptation and deployment of existing practices and techniques, institutions, norms and media to suit contingent individual or group aims and needs”; competence, which highlights “the priority of personal engagement, knowledge and skill in the provision of services of all kinds, … including public and private performance, authorship, teaching and networking”; the situational construction of meaning; that is, religious meanings were assumed to be generated not “by world-views but by the complex interplay of interests, beliefs and satisfactions in specific situations”; and mediality, 76 referring to the ways in which agents communicate religious meanings materially; for example, through utterances, prayers, gestures, texts, objects (statuary, altars, votives, etc.), and the manipulation of objects (e.g., depositing votives in a space marked as “sacred”).

Both the processing approach and LAR object to the reification of structure, privilege the agency of individuals and groups as they actively select and modify elements of their environments to suit their own needs, and posit a reciprocally formative relationship between structure and agency: structure is understood to amount to the “cumulated effect of … [its] appropriations” by agents. Structure is thus understood to be subject to historical change in keeping with the shifting priorities and demands of innumerable agents.

4. Case Study: Mimouni and Nanos Regarding Izates and Paul In an attempt to demonstrate how the processing approach and LAR might usefully be applied, I consider the comments of Mimouni and Nanos regarding circumcision in the cases of Izates II, king of Adiabene in the early- to mid-first century CE, and Paul of Tarsus. 77 I pay special attention to the ways in which structure—a potent conceptual tool in both the processing approach and LAR— plays an important, though unacknowledged, role in shaping the arguments of both Mimouni and Nanos. Two divergent views of structure are, moreover, implied. Other issues of potential interest, including strategic selectivity, modification, and the assembly of elements by agents, cannot be pursued here.

75 76 77

Raja and Rüpke, “Appropriating Religion,” 13 (emphasis mine).

Albrecht, “Religion in the Making,” 3.

Adiabene was a Parthian client kingdom in Western Asia, in present-day Iraq.

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 147

The story of Izates’s circumcision, related in Josephus, Ant. 20.2.1–4 (§§17–48), is embedded within a larger literary unit that stretches from Ant. 20.2.1 to 20.4.3 (§§17–96). Josephus relates the circumcision of Izates as follows: Izates’s mother, Helene of Adiabene, was a sympathizer of Judaism, “very pleased with the customs of Judeans” (Ant. 20.2.4 [§38]), and acted as a benefactress to the people of Jerusalem during a time of famine (ca. 44 CE; Ant. 20.2.5 [§§49–53]). 78 Taking the cue from his mother, Izates, too, “hastened to adopt” Jewish customs (Ant. 20.2.4 [§38]). Izates is counseled successively by two Jewish males: first, by one whom Josephus describes as a travelling merchant, Ananias; and second, by a Galilean Jew, Eleazar, described as “extremely strict [ἀκριβής] concerning the ancestral decrees” (Ant. 20.2.4 [§44]). Anxious that he might not be “with certainty a Judean” (βεβαίως Ἰουδαῖος) unless he was circumcised (Ant. 20.2.4 [§38]), Izates seeks the advice of Ananias, who indicates that the king’s circumcision would generate “great enmity” towards him among his subjects, since they would “not tolerate a Judean ruling over them” (Ant. 20.2.4 [§39]). 79 Ananias adds that Izates would be able to “revere the divinity without being circumcised” and that God would “pardon” him for omitting the rite since he was constrained by the twin forces of “necessity” and “fear of his subjects” (Ant. 20.2.4 [§41–42]). After being inhibited for a time by this advice, Izates met with Eleazar, who said that by failing to observe the ritual of circumcision, Izates was violating the greatest laws, thereby “wronging” God (Ant. 20.2.4 [§45]). Thereupon, Josephus informs us, Izates “did not postpone the act; but, departing to another room and summoning the physician, he accomplished what was commanded” (Ant. 20.2.4 [§46]).

In Mimouni’s view, the narrative expresses a distinction between diaspora Judaism, understood to be “rather lax” (plutôt ‘laxistes’) in terms of adherence to Mosaic law, and Palestinian Pharisaism, understood to be characterized by strict observance of the laws. Mimouni notes that Eleazar is described as “extremely strict concerning the ancestral decrees,” similar to Josephus’s descriptions of Pharisees elsewhere (e.g., B.J. 2.8.14 [§162]). Josephus endorses Eleazar’s position: “For Flavius Josephus, the opinion adopted by the king is the right one; it is the one that must be followed because it conforms to the law and to God”—even though he had espoused a different opinion on the subject

78

For the date, see Mimouni, Circoncision, 140.

I prefer to translate Ἰουδαῖος as “Judean” rather than “Jew” here: in Josephus’s Roman imperial context, the issue of indigenous rule by an Adiabenian (rather than a Judean) is implied.

79

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at an earlier date (Life 23 [§112–113]). 80 Mimouni understands the positions advocated by Ananias and Eleazar to parallel those defended at the Jerusalem meeting held around 48–50 CE. 81 Mimouni finds in the Izates narrative “undeniable” evidence for the existence of a “tendency in favor of the absence of the obligation of circumcision for proselytes” in the mid-first century CE. 82 In Mimouni’s view, prior to its destruction in 70 CE, the Jerusalem Temple, with its priestly hierarchy under the authority of the High Priest, had “held and maintained the ‘national ancestral laws.’” The loss of the Jerusalem Temple precipitated a “destructuring [déstructuration] and the absence of a recognized and sovereign authority [une autorité reconnue et souveraine] capable of defining Judean identity with a single voice”; scribes and sages subsequently filled the void left by an absent priesthood. 83 In Mimouni’s view, structure is unitary: a centralized authority, the High Priest, based in the temple in Jerusalem, Judea’s cultural and religious hub, maintains laws that implicitly structure the practices and define the identities of Judeans at home and abroad. 84 Actions are evaluated almost solely in terms of their correspondence to the norms proposed by this centralized authority. Thus the binary scheme: behavior is either “strict” or “lax”; there is no question of selection, modification, innovation, or the like.

Only when the temple is destroyed, and its priests rendered powerless, can there be a “destructuring” of society; other actors rush to fill the structural void.

One cannot fail to note a certain correspondence of this top-down structural view with a long tradition of Christian historiography, stretching back to the patristic era, that defined the church in analogous terms; it is, however, the Pope rather than the High Priest who speaks with a “single voice” of “sovereign authority”; Rome rather than Jerusalem that is defined as the center in relation to which all actions are judged; and “orthodoxy” and “heresy” that are encountered rather than “rigorism” and “laxism.” Despite all their significant differences, the two approaches share a common outlook: structure is determined by a single figure of authority presiding in a temple or basilica situated at a geographic hub, and actions are evaluated in terms of their correspondence with the pronouncements emanating from the cultural-religious center.

80

Mimouni, Circoncision, 139.

Mimouni, Circoncision, 139.

82 Mimouni, Circoncision, 140.

81

83

Mimouni, Circoncision, 209–210.

Mimouni does, however, occasionally concede dual practices, such as the principle of matrilineality that he proposes was dominant in the diaspora, in contrast to the patrilineality practiced in Judea.

84

Blanton, Circumcision in the Early Jesus Movement 149

LAR seeks to problematize the type of view that Mimouni espouses; that is, views of ancient religions as constituted by “an ahistorical set of ‘symbols’ of fixed meaning” 85 or “as a belief system on the blueprint of Christian dogmatics.” 86 “Instead of starting from religious organisations, elaborated belief systems and their always insufficient reproduction by individual members and believers, ‘lived religion’ focusses on the individual’s ‘usage’ of religion.” 87 One sees little room for individual agency in Mimouni’s paradigm, where decisions are implicitly cast in binary terms: one chooses either to follow the voice of sovereign authority or to reject it. The multiform procedures by which agents appropriate, rearrange, and communicate elements of a variegated structure envisioned by the processing approach and LAR do not appear in Mimouni’s account; indeed, his monolithic view of structure precludes them.

In contrast with Mimouni, Nanos sees a more complex cultural dynamic at work. When comparing Paul’s position to that of other Jewish writers (such as Josephus), Nanos suggests that the elements of “time, location, and situation” must be taken into account, implying a more dynamic view of structure and agency. 88 In terms of time, Nanos notes that Paul promoted the “claim that the end of the ages has begun within the midst of the present age”; that is, he espoused an apocalyptic perspective in which non-Jews were learning to revere Israel’s God. 89 Nanos notes that Josephus’s narrative about Izates contains no hint that considerations of apocalyptic temporality played any role as they did in Paul’s arguments.

In terms of location, Nanos posits that Paul’s addressees convened in “subgroup gatherings (ekklēsia) of Israelites and non-Israelites [who] live and worship together without discrimination even though retaining ethnic, gender, and other significant differences.” 90 Izates, in contrast, appears to be detached from any corporate setting of devotion to the God of Israel (i.e., such as an association or synagogue of Judeans); he is drawn to “Judaize” by a series of institutionally unrelated individuals: his mother and two Judean teachers, one a traveling merchant and the other an itinerant teacher from Galilee. The location 85

Albrecht, “Religion in the Making,” 4.

86

Jörg Rüpke, On Roman Religion: Lived Religion and the Individual in Ancient Rome (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016), 2.

87 Raja and Rüpke, “Appropriating Religion,” 12.

88 89 90

Nanos, “Question,” 108. Emphasis is Nanos’s.

Nanos, “Question,” 108.

Nanos, “Question,” 109.

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of the Pauline groups as “subgroup gatherings” of Jews and non-Jews decisively inflects Paul’s positions regarding circumcision in a way that is not paralleled in Josephus’s Izates account.

Lastly, the situation must be assessed when comparing Paul’s position to the Izates narrative. The central dynamic in the Josephus narrative concerns the way in which Izates, as heir to the throne and subsequently king of Adiabene, was subject to significant political risk due to his circumcision. For Paul’s addressees, the central dynamic was different: how should Jews and non-Jews best be incorporated into a single associative body while retaining the specific ethnic identities of each one? The proposed solution: “Paul opposed Christ-following non-Jews becoming Jews (i.e., “converting” to Jewish ethnic identity [through circumcision]), but he did not oppose, and instead promoted, them practicing Judaism, (i.e., “converting” into a Jewish way of living), alongside of Jews who did so, such as himself.”

Nanos concludes his study by pointing to the centrality of pistis, understood to denote “fidelity” or “loyalty” to Israel’s God, in the narratives under consideration. Just as Paul makes pistis a cornerstone of his arguments in Romans and Galatians, Nanos argues that “although Izates’s advisors do not use the word pistis in direct contrast to ergon … both make their case based upon whether the action or rite best represents faithfulness for him.” 91 Nanos’s attempt to connect Josephus’s account with the virtue of pistis, however, is based on slim evidence, a single use of the verbal form pisteuō in Ant. 20.2.4 (§48). There Josephus narrates, “the fruit of reverence [τῆς εὐσεβείας] is not lost to those who pay attention to him [τοῖς εἰς αὐτὸν ἀποβλέπουσιν] and trust in him alone [καὶ μόνῳ πεπιστευκόσιν].”

Nanos’s attempt to see in the passage a reference to “faith(fulness)/trust alone [monō pepisteukosin]” misconstrues the term μόνῳ, an adjective referring to the object of trust (i.e., God alone; in the dative case), not an adverb modifying πεπιστευκόσιν (in which case we would expect μόνως or μόνον). 92 In contrast with Paul, I suggest, the virtue of special interest in Josephus’s narrative is not “faithfulness” (pistis) but “reverence” (eusebeia): reverence bears fruit for “those who pay attention” to and place their trust in God (Ant. 20.2.4).

Similar formulations appear elsewhere in the narrative: Ananias taught women in the king’s court to “revere God” (τὸν θεὸν σέβειν; Ant. 20.2.3 [§34]) and counseled Izates to “revere God without being circumcised” (χωρὶς τῆς περιτομῆς τὸ θεῖον σέβειν; Ant. 20.2.4 [§41]); Izates displayed “reverence toward God” (τὴν πρὸς τὸν θεὸν εὐσέβειαν; Ant. 20.4.1 [§75]; τὸν θεὸν ὃν σέβει; Ant. 20.4.2 [§88]). Pietas (eusebeia), 91

Nanos, “Question,” 123.

92

On the dative object, see BDAG, s.v. πιστεύω, 1b.

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like fides (pistis), was a virtue that Romans and Judeans held in common. We will return to this issue shortly.

In contrast with Mimouni’s assumption an encaging structure, Nanos’s discussion is far more nuanced. Although the latter offers no theoretical reflection on the role that structure plays in his argument, I suggest that at least four components may be detected in it, each of which contributes to the structuring of the religiopolitical environment. These include (1) virtues, (2) legal norms and ethnic customs, (3) “scriptural” narratives and apocalyptic traditions, and (4) guidelines for behavior within assemblies (i.e., the “body of Christ”). We take a closer look at each in turn.

1. By virtue, I refer to abstract concepts designating loose constellations of behaviors judged to be beneficial to society. Discourses of virtue played a key role in Roman narratives in which exemplary figures and actions are adduced to guide subsequent behavior, in what Matthew Roller dubs a “loop of social reproduction.” 93 Similar processes are at work in Jewish texts. 94 Both pistis (Lat. fides) and eusebeia (Lat. pietas) were important social/political/religious virtues in antiquity.

Despite my caveat about eusebeia rather than pistis being the operative category in the Izates narrative, Nanos’s discussion points to the ways in which virtues function as conceptual tools that bear the potential to shape (or, structure) environments: behaviors judged to embody virtues such as loyalty and respect for one’s superiors are likely to be socially encouraged and rewarded, while those judged to embody the opposite characteristics are likely to be punished or to elicit social disapproval. The structuring environment makes available a range of virtues from which agents must choose to label particular actions or courses of action. In the Izates account, the choice of which virtue best applied was at issue, as was the question of whether or not a particular virtue was properly embodied in a given course of action. Did the actions of Izates or Paul embody or fail to embody the crucial virtues of pistis and eusebeia? Answers to these questions could vary. The act of associating a particular course of action with a particular virtue thus sends a sociopolitical message as to whether or not that action is suitable for repetition and thus (in “processing” terms) incorporation into a behavioral repertoire. Virtue-labeling is therefore a strategic act accomplished by

93

Matthew B. Roller, “Exemplarity in Roman Culture: The Cases of Horatius Cocles and Cloelia,” Classical Philology 99 (2004): 1–56.

94 E.g., Howard Clark Kee, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in OTP 1:775–828 (779): “universal virtues are presented in a manner strongly reminiscent of Stoicism.”

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agents interested in promoting specific types of social formation and discouraging others.

2. Legal norms and ethnic customs are sometimes viewed, as with Mimouni, to provide rules that are either followed “strictly” or imperfectly (i.e., by “laxists”). 95 As a practice that, for Judeans, is legally mandated yet subject to local autonomy, the issue of circumcision provides an interesting vantage point from which to view issues of structure.

Although there was widespread agreement among Judeans that circumcision ought to be performed by members of that group as a “sign of the covenant” with Yahweh, the god of Israel (e.g., Gen 17), nevertheless there is evidence to suggest that some either neglected the rite altogether or performed it but removed only a portion of the prepuce, leaving part of the glans covered (Jub. 15:33; 1 Macc 1:48; perhaps Philo, Migr. 89–93). 96 During the Second Temple period, there does not appear to have been any “standard” practice promulgated, either by the Jerusalem priesthood or any other group, pertaining to the circumcision of non-Judeans who wished to “revere” Israel’s God. Instead we encounter a sliding scale of practices ranging from lighting candles on the Sabbath to immersion in water and circumcision. 97 Thus it comes as no surprise that differences of agreement arose as the Jesus movement began to incorporate greater numbers of non-Jews into its ranks.

Moreover, since circumcision was practiced locally, its implementation was never subject to direct administrative oversight from the Jerusalem Temple or its priesthood. The author of the Gospel of Luke imagines that John and Jesus were circumcised in a local context (Luke 1:57–66; 2:15–21), evidently in the home. In Luke 1:58, “they,” that is, “neighbors and relatives,” “came” (ἦλθον), apparently to the home in which the child had been born, to witness John’s circumcision (Luke 1:59). Although from a later period, the Mishnah’s statement about the transport from one courtyard to another of a bandage to help staunch the bleeding of the circumcised phallus similarly implies a domestic setting (m. Šabb. 19:2).

Circumcisions may have been performed by local ritual experts or surgeons (roles that were not mutually exclusive in antiquity). Recall that in Josephus’s account, Izates is circumcised in his royal residence by someone 95

On ethnicity and customs in relation to deities, see Paula Fredriksen, “Judaizing the Nations: The Ritual Demands of Paul’s Gospel,” NTS 26 (2010): 232–252.

96 For Jubilees, see James C. VanderKam, Jubilees: A Commentary on the Book of Jubilees, 2 vols. (Hermeneia; Minneapolis: Fortress, 2018), 1:524–525.

97 Berthelot, “To Convert.”

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designated only “the physician” (ὁ ἰατρός), presumably a non-Judean who may have been familiar with a version of the procedure known to Greek medicine as a treatment for phimosis, or inflammation of the penis. 98 Only in a later period (ca. fifth–eighth centuries CE) 99 does the Babylonian Talmud offer evidence for ritual experts who specialized in circumcision: b. Šabb. 130b (§6) mentions one Rabbi Yehuda “the Cutter” (‫ )הגזר‬in the context of a discussion about circumcision on the Sabbath, while the better-known designation mohel (Aram. ‫מהולא‬: “circumciser”) appears in b. Šabb. 156a (§11).

Rather than involving ritual or medical experts specifically trained for the task, Jubilees imagines that the patriarch Abraham himself performed circumcisions at his estate (Jub. 15:23). 100 Exod 4:25 has Moses’s wife Zipporah circumcise her infant son. 101 The text of 1 Macc 1:60–61 indicates that mothers “who had circumcised [τὰς περιτετμηκυίας] their sons” were put to death during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes, circa 168 or 167 BCE. This could imply that mothers themselves acted as the ritual agents, but the text is not explicit. 102 Women are similarly the subjects of the active, transitive verb περιτέμνω (“to circumcise”) in 2 Macc 6:10 and 4 Macc 4:25, just as men are subjects of the verb in LXX Gen 17:23–24; 21:4; Josh 5:2–3, 7; and 1 Macc 1:61. Although more could be said, on balance this evidence suggests that both fathers and mothers were 98

Nanos (“Question,” 118, n. 22) also presumes the surgeon to be non-Judean. On the procedure, see Celsus, Med. 7.25 (also 6.18; 25.2); Frederick Mansfield Hodges, “Phimosis in Antiquity,” World Journal of Urology 17, no. 3 (1999): 133–136.

99 For the complicated issues of dating the Babylonian Talmud and its sources, see Hermann L. Strack and Günter Stemberger, Introduction to the Talmud and Midrash (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1992), 211–225.

100 See VanderKam, Jubilees, 1:518.

101 Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah: A Commentary on the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, rev. ed. (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 369.

102 Jonathan A. Goldstein (1 Maccabees: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary [Garden City: Doubleday, 1976]), 139, writes “the circumcision of babies appears to have been the responsibility of the mother, even though she did not perform the operation herself.” The authority he cites for this position, however, states, “While in Biblical times the mother (perhaps generally) performed the operation, it was in later times performed by a surgeon,” citing Josephus’ Izates narrative and the Talmudic passages already noted above as evidence; see online: Emil G. Hirsch et al., “Circumcision,” Jewish Encyclopedia.com, https://jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/3074-berit-milah. This evidence does not rule out the possibility that mothers performed the operation. For mothers as circumcisers, see Abraham C. Bloch, The Biblical and Historical Background of Jewish Customs and Ceremonies (New York: Ktav, 1980), 9.

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understood to perform circumcisions in antiquity. The fact that “in-house” expertise is called upon in carrying out the rite suggests a degree of pluriformity and local adaptation.

According to Shaye Cohen, the practice of periah, stipulating that the entire glans penis be uncovered by circumcision, was not mandated until the second century CE. 103 Already in the second century BCE, however, the author of Jubilees complained of procedures that left behind “some of the flesh” covering the glans (Jub. 15:33). Thus it appears that in the second century BCE, circumcision could be construed not only in binary terms (circumcised/uncircumcised), but also in quantitative terms; that is, concerning not whether but how much foreskin was removed.

If the surgical procedure was implemented by local ritual agents or family members, what can be said about the surgical-ritual implement with which the procedure was carried out? In Exod 4:25, Zipporah excises her son’s foreskin with a stone blade, perhaps flint. In Josh 5:2–3, Yahweh himself commands Joshua to make “stone blades” (‫ )חרבות צרים‬with which to circumcise Israelite males “a second time,” suggesting that only a portion of the foreskin had been removed previously. Compiled circa 200 CE and later, the Mishnah mentions the use of an “iron instrument” (‫ )כלי ברזל‬for the procedure (m. Šabb. 19:1). 104 During the Middle Ages, Maimonides would opine that almost any cutting instrument suffices, including glass and stone; noting, however, that an iron implement— scissors or a knife—was preferred in his own day (Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ahavah, Milah 2.1). 105 Although biblical texts suggest that a stone knife, perhaps specifically flint, was the preferred implement for performing circumcisions, the halaka never came around to mandating that a specific instrument be used. One may only speculate that agents performed the ritual using whatever objects were the most readily available, stone or metal blades being the most likely candidates.

There was general agreement that male infants born in Jewish communities should be circumcised on the eighth day after birth (Gen 17:9–12; Jub. 15:11–14). This, however, could be overridden: an infant who is ill should not 398F

39F

103

Cohen, The Beginnings of Jewishness, 225, writes that periah “is of uncertain origin but seems to have been instituted after the Hadrianic persecutions” of the 130s CE. 104 Strack and Stemberger, Introduction, 149–155.

105

Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (“Maimonides”), “Milah: Chapter Two,” ChabadLubavitch Media Center, Chabad.org, https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/ aid/932327/jewish/Milah-Chapter-Two.htm. See further J. David Bleich, “Survey of Recent Halakhic Periodical Literature: Laser Circumcision,” Tradition 43, no. 3 (2010): 89–109.

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be circumcised until he recovers, according to a Mishnaic view (m. Šabb. 19:5).

The birth of an infant at twilight could occasion ambiguity (m. Šabb. 19:5): had the new day yet begun at the precise moment the child was delivered? Cases involving sick infants and twilight births must have occurred long before Mishnaic rulings addressed them. Very few voices were raised, however, to indicate that boys whose circumcisions were delayed due to uncontrollable circumstances were deemed to be any less Jewish or any less within the bounds of the ancient covenant—the author of Jubilees being the notable exception (Jub. 15:25–26). But the author of Jubilees, too, exercised his own form of halakic agency, first by interpreting Gen 17 to limit and exclude cases in which circumcision was delayed slightly, a situation not envisioned in the earlier text; and second by alleging that some “Israelites” were “false to the ordinance” because they failed to remove the entire foreskin (Jub. 15:33), adding a stipulation not present in Gen 17. 106 The eighth-day rule was taken to supersede the obligation to avoid work on the Sabbath (m. Šabb. 18:3–19:2); although in Maimonides’s view, the necessary instruments had to be made ready in advance (Mishneh Torah, Sefer Ahavah, Milah 2.6). In the absence of any known “ruling” on the matter in the Second Temple period, agents were perhaps left to exercise their own discretion.

Eventually the possibility that constituent elements of the legal “structure”— eighth-day circumcision and Sabbath rest—could come into conflict necessitated further specification, in a potentially endless loop of halakic elaboration.

3. The contribution of scriptural narratives and apocalyptic traditions also contribute to the ongoing production and reproduction of structure. As we have seen, Paul’s advice to seek neither circumcision nor epispasm in 1 Cor 7:18 occurs in the context of instructions predicated on an apocalyptic timetable (1 Cor 7:29). Nanos argues cogently that Paul’s apocalyptic outlook entails “the nations” revering the God of Israel alongside Judeans (e.g., Isa 11:6; 66:25). This view implies the non-circumcision of the representatives of “the nations,” for in order to fulfill the envisioned apocalyptic narrative, “the nations” must remain just that; if circumcised, they would effectively lose that status and become “Judeans.” 107 Halaka and apocalyptic perspectives thus interacted as mutually informing elements of the structure of Judean practice, again rendering “structure” a flexible construct.

40 F

106

On the halakic issue addressed in Jub. 15:25, see VanderKam, Jubilees, 1:520. The translations of Jubilees are VanderKam’s (slightly modified).

107 Nanos, “Question,” 126–127.

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4. Nanos points to yet another structural element, rules to be followed by members of the associative body. Paul actively sought to craft policies to facilitate equality of membership between Jewish and non-Jewish persons; the latter are to to be received within the ekklēsiai as “full members of the family of Abraham, as more than guests and yet not candidates for becoming Jews.” This entails arranging seating and food portions in a way that does not perpetuate “ethnoreligious hierarchical distinctions” within the space of the ekklēsia. 108 Nanos’s point can be augmented: other associative groups in antiquity issued rules to promote the integration of various constituencies, such as slave, freed, and free, holding communal meals, giving members opportunities to serve in rotating offices, and banning fighting with or insulting other members at group meetings. Recent work comparing the social organization of early groups of Jesusdevotees with other ancient Mediterranean assemblies, for example by John Kloppenborg, Philip Harland, Richard Last, and Richard Ascough (to name a few) bears the potential to shed additional light on the processes Nanos describes. 109 Paul did not craft regulations for associative life ex nihilo, but worked with preexisting patterns. That said, the interplay between pre-existing associative regulations and innovative procedures tailored specifically for Pauline groups is a topic that deserves further attention.

In sum, discourses about virtue, legal norms and ethnic customs, scriptural and apocalyptic traditions, and norms of associative organization constituted structural elements with which Paul and similar agents worked. Each of the elements was integrated with the others, albeit in unstable and sometimes conflicting ways. There was no blueprint as to how the integration of the various structural elements was to be achieved. Moreover, each of the constituent elements identified consisted not of a monolithic whole but rather an internally diverse assemblage of ideas and practices. Thus actors do not only “inherit” structures; they actively negotiate and process them, selecting elements to integrate into a behavioral repertoire, attempting (with greater or lesser degrees of success) to integrate select elements into a coherent whole, and to embody that

108 109

Nanos, “Question,” 150.

John S. Kloppenborg, Christ’s Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019); Richard Last and Philip Harland, Group Survival in the Ancient Mediterranean: Rethinking Material Conditions in the Landscape of Jews and Christians (London: T&T Clark, 2020); Richard S. Ascough, “The Thessalonian Christian Community as a Professional Voluntary Association,” JBL 119 (2000): 311–328; and Anders Runesson, “The Question of Terminology: The Architecture of Contemporary Discussions of Paul,” in Nanos and Zetterholm, Paul within Judaism, 53–77.

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negotiated structure in communicative action, all processes leading to the continual modification of the structuring environment.

5. Conclusion Far from being an element of the structuring environment whose implementation was standardized in first-century Judaism, closer scrutiny reveals that circumcision entailed a considerable degree of flexibility and local discretion by ritual agents, whether surgeons, parents, or Judaic evangelists such as Paul. The ostensibly structuring authorities of Scripture, tradition, and so on proved inadequate to resolve many of the issues involved. This study suggests therefore that researchers would do well to attend to the vicissitudes and contingencies experienced by actors who continually faced the task of “processing” “lived religion,” and to move beyond historical reconstructions that unrealistically privilege structure to the exclusion of the agency of the groups and individuals of interest; most notably, for present purposes, those affiliated with the Jesus movement in its various Jewish settings.

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