Editing Brit milah (section)

== Judaism, Christianity, and the Early Church (4 BCE – 150 CE) ==
{{Further|Religious male circumcision#Christianity}}
The 1st-century Jewish author [[Philo]] Judaeus defended Jewish circumcision on several grounds. He thought that circumcision should be done as early as possible as it would not be as likely to be done by someone's own [[free will]]. He claimed that the foreskin prevented [[semen]] from reaching the [[vagina]] and so should be done as a way to increase the nation's population. He also noted that circumcision should be performed as an effective means to reduce sexual pleasure.<ref name=":11">{{Cite book|last=Bruce|first=Frederick|title=The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary|publisher=[[William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company]]|year=1990|isbn=978-0-8028-0966-7|pages=329|author-link=F. F. Bruce}}</ref><ref name=":9">{{Cite book|last=Darby|first=Robert|title=A Surgical Temptation:The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain|publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]]|year=2013|isbn=978-0-226-10978-7|pages=205|quote=The view that circumcision had the effect of reducing sexual pleasure, and had even been instituted with this objective in mind, was both widely held in the nineteenth century and in accordance with traditional religious teaching. Both Philo and Maimondies had written to this effect, and [[Herbert Snow]] quoted the contemporary Dr. Asher... as stating that chastity was the moral objective of the alteration.}}</ref><ref name=":13">{{Cite book|last1=Borgen|first1=Peder|title=The Social World of Formative Christianity and Judaism|last2=Neusner|first2=Jacob|publisher=[[Fortress Press]]|year=1988|isbn=978-0-8006-0875-0|pages=127|author-link=Peder Borgen}}</ref><ref name=":15">{{Cite web|last=Earp|first=Brian|author-link=Brian Earp|date=June 7, 2020|title=Male and Female Genital Cutting: Controlling Sexuality|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPotVp9X4WQ| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211123/xPotVp9X4WQ| archive-date=2021-11-23 | url-status=live|access-date=October 30, 2020|website=[[YouTube]]|quote="It is agreed among scholars that the original purpose within Judaism... was precisely to dull the sexual organ."}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

There was also division in [[Pharisees|Pharisaic Judaism]] between [[Hillel the Elder]] and [[Shammai]] on the issue of [[Circumcision in the Bible#In rabbinic literature|circumcision of proselytes]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Proselyte Who Comes|url=https://www.jewishideas.org/article/proselyte-who-comes|access-date=November 26, 2020|website=[[Marc D. Angel#Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals|Jewish Ideas]]}}</ref>

According to the [[Gospel of Luke]], [[Circumcision of Jesus|Jesus was circumcised]] on the 8th day.
{{Blockquote|After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.|source=Luke 2:21<ref>{{Bibleverse|Luke|2:21}}</ref>}}

According to saying 53 of the [[Gospel of Thomas]],<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dominic Crossan|first=John|title=The Birth of Christianity|publisher=[[Bloomsbury Academic]]|year=1999|isbn=978-0-567-08668-6|pages=327|author-link=John Dominic Crossan}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Pagels|first=Elaine|title=Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas|publisher=[[Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group]]|year=2004|isbn=978-1-4000-7908-7|pages=234|author-link=Elaine Pagels}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|His disciples said to him, "is circumcision useful or not?". He said to them, "If it were useful, their father would produce children already circumcised from their mother. Rather, the true circumcision in spirit has become profitable in every respect."}}

The foreskin was considered a symbol of [[beauty]], [[civility]], and [[masculinity]] throughout the [[Greco-Roman world]]; it was customary to spend an hour or so a day exercising [[Sexuality in ancient Rome#Male nudity|nude]] in the ''[[Gymnasium (ancient Greece)|gymnasium]]'' and in [[Thermae|Roman baths]]; many Jewish men did not want to be seen in public deprived of their [[foreskin]]s, where matters of business and politics were discussed.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Hall |first=Robert |date=August 1992 |title=Epispasm: Circumcision in Reverse |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/hall1/ |journal=[[Bible Review]] |volume=8 |issue=4 |pages=52–57}}</ref> To expose one's glans in public was seen as indecent, vulgar, and a sign of [[sexual arousal]] and desire.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Neusner">{{Blockquote|Circumcised [[barbarians]], along with any others who revealed the ''glans penis'', were the butt of ribald [[Roman jokes|humor]]. For [[Ancient Greek art|Greek art]] portrays the foreskin, often drawn in meticulous detail, as an emblem of male beauty; and children with congenitally short foreskins were sometimes subjected to a treatment, known as ''[[epispasm]]'', that was aimed at elongation.|author=[[Jacob Neusner|Neusner, Jacob]]|source=''Approaches to Ancient Judaism, New Series: Religious and Theological Studies'' (1993), p. 149, Scholars Press.}}</ref><ref name=":4" />

[[Classical antiquity|Classical]], [[Hellenistic culture|Hellenistic]], and [[Roman culture]] widely found circumcision to be barbaric, cruel, and utterly repulsive in nature.<ref name=":0" /><ref name="Neusner" /><ref name="Rubin">{{Cite journal |last1=Rubin |first1=Jody P. |date=July 1980 |title=Celsus' Decircumcision Operation: Medical and Historical Implications |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/rubin/ |journal=[[Urology (journal)|Urology]] |publisher=[[Elsevier]] |volume=16 |issue=1 |pages=121–4 |doi=10.1016/0090-4295(80)90354-4 |pmid=6994325 |access-date=4 January 2020}}</ref><ref name="Fredriksen">{{Cite book |last=Fredriksen |first=Paula |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NW9yDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA10 |title=When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation |date=2018 |publisher=[[Yale University Press]] |isbn=978-0-300-19051-9 |location=[[London]] |pages=10–11 |author-link=Paula Fredriksen}}</ref> By the period of the [[Maccabees]], many Jewish men [[Foreskin restoration|attempted to hide their circumcisions]] through the process of [[Restoration device|epispasm]] due to the circumstances of the period, although Jewish religious writers denounced these practices as abrogating the covenant of Abraham in [[1 Maccabees]] and the [[Talmud]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":4" /> After Christianity and Second Temple Judaism [[Jewish Christian|split apart from one]] another, ''Milah'' was declared spiritually unnecessary as a [[Salvation in Christianity|condition of justification]] by Christian writers such as [[Paul the Apostle]] and subsequently in the [[Council of Jerusalem]], while it further increased in importance for Jews.<ref name=":0" />

In the mid-2nd century CE, the [[Tannaim]], the successors of the newly ideologically dominant [[Pharisees]], introduced and made mandatory a secondary step of circumcision known as the ''Periah.''<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Kimmel |first=Michael |title=The Gender of Desire: Essays on Male Sexuality |publisher=[[State University of New York Press]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-7914-6337-6 |location=[[United States]] |pages=183 |author-link=Michael Kimmel}}</ref><ref name=":7" /><ref name=":8" /> Without it circumcision was newly declared to have no spiritual value.<ref name=":7" /> This new form removed as much of the [[Preputial mucosa|inner mucosa]] as possible, the [[Frenulum of prepuce of penis|frenulum]] and its corresponding [[Frenular delta|delta]] from the [[Human penis|penis]], and prevented the movement of shaft skin, in what creates a "low and tight" circumcision.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":5" /> It was intended to make it impossible to restore the foreskin.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":7" /> This is the form practiced among the large majority of Jews today, and, later, became a basis for the routine neonatal circumcisions performed in the [[United States]].<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" />

The steps, justifications, and imposition of the practice have dramatically varied throughout history; commonly cited reasons for the practice have included it being a way to control [[Human male sexuality|male sexuality]] by reducing [[Sexual stimulation|sexual pleasure]] and [[Sexual desire|desire]], as a visual marker of the [[covenant of the pieces]], as a [[Tikkun olam|metaphor for mankind perfecting creation]], and as a means to promote [[fertility]].<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":8" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":12">{{Cite book|last=Pangle|first=Thomas|title=Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham|publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]]|year=2007|isbn=978-0-8018-8761-1|pages=151–152|author-link=Thomas Pangle}}</ref><ref name=":11" /> The original version in [[Jewish history|Judaic history]] was either a ritual nick or cut done by a father to the ''[[acroposthion]]'', the part of the foreskin that overhangs the [[glans penis]]. This form of [[genital modification and mutilation|genital nicking or cutting]], known as simply ''milah,'' became adopted among Jews by the [[Second Temple Judaism|Second Temple period]] and was the predominant form until the second century CE.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":3" /><ref name=":7" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Baky Fahmy |first=Mohamed |title=Normal and Abnormal Prepuce |publisher=[[Springer International Publishing]] |year=2020 |isbn=978-3-030-37621-5 |pages=13 |quote=...Brit Milah is just [ritually] nicking or amputating the protruding tip of the prepuce...}}</ref> The notion of ''milah'' being linked to a [[biblical covenant]] is generally believed to have originated in the 6th century BCE as a product of the [[Babylonian captivity]]; the practice likely lacked this significance among [[Jews]] before the period.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":2" /><ref name=":16" />