Religious Male Circumcision - in The Deuterocanon/Biblical Apocrypha

In The Deuterocanon/Biblical Apocrypha

The Deuterocanon/Biblical Apocrypha reveal the cultural clash between Jews and Greeks, and between Judaizers and Hellenizers. Greeks valued the foreskin, and when they took part in athletic sports, they did it in the nude . However, they insisted that the glans remained covered, and they did not approve of the Jewish custom of circumcision. The Books of the Maccabees reveal that some Jewish men chose to undergo epispasm, foreskin restoration by stretching the residual skin, so that they could conform to Greek culture and take part in these sports. (1 Macc 1:11-15). Some also left their sons uncircumcised (1 Macc 2:46). This relatively peaceful period came to an end when Antiochus Epiphanes attacked first Egypt and then sacked and looted Jerusalem (1 Macc 1:16-64). Epiphanes determined to force everyone to live the Greek way and abandon the Jewish way. Among other things, he banned circumcision.

Though many were prepared to conform to Greek culture, observant Jews saw circumcision as a mark of Jewish loyalty and many who kept to the Mosaic Law defied the edict of Antiochus Epiphanes prohibiting circumcision (1 Macc 1:48, 1:60, and 2:46). Jewish women showed their loyalty to the Law, even at the risk of their lives, by themselves circumcising their sons. "For example, two women were brought in for having circumcised their children. They publicly paraded them around the city, with their babies hanging at their breasts, and then hurled them down headlong from the wall (2 Macc 6:10)." At the same time, the Zealots forcibly circumcised the uncircumcised boys within the borders of Israel (1 Macc 2:46).

In the upshot, the Jewish Zealots defeated the Greeks and they retained the right to circumcise.

The Book of Jubilees, part of the Bible of the Ethiopian Orthodox, written in the time of John Hyrcanus, reveals the hostility directed against those who abandoned circumcision (xv. 26–27): "Whosoever is uncircumcised belongs to 'the sons of Belial,' to 'the children of doom and eternal perdition'; for all the angels of the Presence and of the Glorification have been so from the day of their creation, and God's anger will be kindled against the children of the covenant if they make the members of their body appear like those of the Gentiles, and they will be expelled and exterminated from the earth".

According to the Gospel of Thomas saying 53, Jesus says:

"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.'" SV

Parallels to Thomas 53 are found in Paul's Romans 2:29, Philippians 3:3, 1 Cor 7:19, Gal 6:15, and Col 2:11-12.

The Jewish Encyclopedia in the article "Gentiles", section "Gentiles May Not Be Taught the Torah", states: