TITLE:
Circumcision: History, Scope, and Aim: Part I
AUTHORS:
Ilia Brondz, Tahmina Aslanova
KEYWORDS:
Circumcision, History, Protection against Sacrificing
JOURNAL NAME:
Voice of the Publisher,
Vol.5 No.4,
December
31,
2019
ABSTRACT: The issue of circumcision has been vigorously discussed throughout human
history. Discussions about its origin, history, purpose, and religious and
social meanings have been ongoing since the first human civilizations,
occurring within primitive tribes, slave-based societies, fortified cities,
slave kingdoms, and empires (e.g., the Roman Empire). The topic has been taken
up across feudal and modern kingdoms, and within modern capitalist and
socialist societies. For example, the Nazis stand out for having used
circumcision in their propaganda against Jews, and as an identifier to
segregate Jews from others during their extermination. However, despite such
prolonged and vigorous discussion, no consensus has been reached on the issue.
Many well-based explanations for specific aspects of circumcision have been
advanced (e.g., its origin, history, purpose, and religious and social
meanings), yet each has contradicted the others. The aim of this paper is to
determine the most plausible explanations for circumcision, within the context
of various forms of genital manipulations that have been conducted across human
history. It is difficult to cover all aspects of this topic in a relatively
brief paper—indeed, it would also be difficult to cover the entire story in a
voluminous book. In addition to the evidence available from other sources,
special attention is paid to the passages from the Torah, the Old and New
Testaments of the Bible, and the Koran.