CIRCUMCISION: Motivational Changes in the Meaning of the Word of God

Culture uses ritual to control by means of sets of assumptions about the way things are and should be' - Catherine Bell

The reality of what is taking place is shocking, once people take the time to realize what this practice means.

(MONTEREY, Calif.) - Changing a ritual, while keeping the ritual’s same name, obfuscates. Historic changes in ritual circumcision have changed the meaning of the Word of God. Verses in both the Jewish and Christian Testaments directly regard the duty of Shepherds and their being held more responsible.

Leaders drive theological discourse in religious organizations. Structuring involves Power Relationships. Genital blood rituals and criminal serial predation share the same psychological indicators of: power, control and authority using manipulation for dominance out of selfishness.

This connection is Signatures Desire. Signature is the psychological elements that drive the perpetrator. The Modus Operandi (MO) is how the crime is committed and varies. Signature of genital blood rituals is a genital attack.[2] Circumcision involves dismemberment and fits the category of a Lust Crime.[3]

To achieve power[4] and control,[5] assumed authority[6] must be established. The Con Approach is used to gain the confidence of the victim before the crime is committed. Cons are more successful when the perpetrator is dressed in a uniform. Circumcision’s uniforms have traditionally been the holy man’s robes and vestments. More recently the uniform is the smock of a physician.

Most serial predators are excellent manipulators of other people.[7] The end game is to achieve dominance over others.[8] Putting oneself in a place to misuse power is partly due to selfishness and narcissism.[9]

Religious leaders who established and continue support of Routine Infant and Neonatal Circumcision have placed themselves upon the false pedestal of a Ritual Agent.[10] This is self-glorification.[11]

Serial predators may exhibit punitiveness which is multidimensional.[12] Punitive behaviors involve righteousness with the ethic of controlling everything possible. Some with psychopathy use religion as an excuse. Punitive increases in the ritual of circumcision are exampled by its historic changes.

The foreskin when referenced in the bible is only that skin which normally extends beyond the glans penis. The two words used in the Jewish Testament are namal and muwl. Namal means clipping a thing at the end as one would a fingernail. Muwl means to blunt. The Hebrews had other words for ‘cut off’ and ‘remove.’[13]

The prepuce is the entire skin covering the glans of both sexes. The Greeks also had words to differentiate the foreskin from the prepuce.[14] Whenever the word foreskin is used in the Jerusalemic and Christian Testaments it refers only to that portion of skin that extends beyond the glans penis.

PRE 500 BC

Circumcision was not a religious demand prior to the Jewish return from Babylonian exile. The procedure was a small slit on the top side of the foreskin that aided retraction and cleansing.[15] This is termed a Partial Dorsal Slit. The Full Dorsal Slit is also performed in medicine[16] and is the Philippine type circumcision during their Tuli ceremony.[17]

500 BC

The Milah was more likely than not instituted after the Jewish return from Babylon and only involved removing the foreskin. This period saw many changed in the Jewish Testament. Abraham’s circumcision story was added at this time. The Milah was practiced at the time of Jesus. Jesus, the Apostles and most, if not all, other religious members mentioned in the Jewish and Christian Testaments had their prepuce covering the glans.

135 AD

The Periah was established around 135 AD. It involves the removal of the entire prepuce which includes the foreskin. This change was during of the Bar Kokhba revolt against Rome.[18] From the time of Greek rule two centuries before[17] many men were stretching their skin and having surgery to eliminate the appearance of their circumcision.[20]

500 AD

The Metzitzah, sucking blood from the penis by the mohel was established during the Talmudic period between 500-650 AD.[21] By the end of the 19th Century the Metzitzah’s long standing essential part of circumcision was ended for the most part because of a long history of transmitted infections where some have led to brain damage and death. Some now advocate collecting a drop of blood from a pipette.

BRIT SHALOM

The recent Brit Shalom, Covenant of Peace, is a ceremony without bloodletting similar to the naming ceremony for girls called the Brit Bat. Jewish boys are not named until their ritual. It is also called the Brit B’li Milah meaning Covenant without Cutting as well as Brit Chayim as the Covenant of Life.

SOCIAL CONTRACT

Circumcision is a Social Contract. The Contract is such that though perhaps never formally stated, they are considered everywhere the same. By the very nature of the precisely determined act when the Social Contract is changed it is determined to be violated thus becoming null, void. Also it is voidable at any moment for the individual as well as the society.[22]

Abused children often become abusers themselves, all in multi-generational cycles of violence through socialized collectivization of Transference of Aggression manifesting as a Culture Bound Syndrome in the form of Repetition Compulsion. It is the child that experiences the socialized apocalyptic event.[23]

      The question remains: What is the true definition of the Jerusalemic religious ritual of male circumcision? There have been so many changes to the ritual that many explanations and procedures are not correct, if not the procedure itself being anathema.  Circumcision should be stopped until the matter is resolved. 

Ritual is a matter of the performance of gestures and the manipulation of objects.  Catherine Bell.[24] 

[1] Bell, Catherine, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 215.

[2] Matteoli, Richard L, The Munchausen Complex: Socialization of Violence and Abuse, Nemean Press, 2009, pp. 66-67.  A Mandated Report to the social body.

[3] Michaud, Stephen with Hazelwood, Roy, The Evil That Men Do, St. Martin, p. 139.

[4] Fletcher, Connie, What Cops Know, Pocket, 1990, p. 118.

[5] Keppel, Robert D., Signature Killers, Pocket, p. 24.

[6] Douglas, John with Olshaker, Mark, The Anatomy of Motive, Pocket, 1999, p. 96.

[7] Douglas, John with Olshaker, Mark, Mind Hunter: Inside the FBI’s Elite Serial Crime Unit, Pocket, 1995, p. 120.

[8] Douglas, John with Olshaker, Mark, Obsession, Pocket, 1998, pp. 33-34.

[9] Douglas, John with Olshaker, Mark, Journey into Darkness, Pocket, 1997, p. 75

[10] Bell, Catherine, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 40-41, 98-108,184 and 207.

[11] Meadow, Roy, (1977), Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy: The Hinterland of Child Abuse, The Lancet, ii; 342-345.

[12] Ray, John J, The Punitive Personality, The Journal of Social Psychology, 1985, 125(3), 329-333.

[13] Jezek, Laura, What the Bible Really Says about Routine Infant Circumcision, Web available.

[14] Hodges, Fredrick, The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to ‘Lipodermis,’ Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the ‘Kynodesme’, The Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Volume 75: Pages 375-405.

[15] Glick, Leonard, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern Times, Oxford University Press, 2005, p.286, n6.

[16] Diaz A, Dorsal Slit, A Circumcision Alternative, Obstetrics & Gynecology, 37:619, 1971.

[17] Lee, Romeo B, Filipino experience of ritual male circumcision: Knowledge and Insights for anti-circumcision advocacy, Culture, Health & Sexuality, May-June 2006; 8(3): 225-234.

[18] Gamoran, Mamie G., The New Jewish History, Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1956, pp. 82-88.

[19] Durant,Will, The Story of Civilization: The Life of Greece, Simon & Schuster, 1939,  p. 582.

[20] Werblowski RJZ, Wignor G, The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 161.

[21] Denniston, ed., Male and Female Circumcision, Plenum Publishers, 1999, pp. 343-344.

[22] Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, The Social Contract, Penguin Classics, 1968, p. 60

[23] Matteoli, Richard L, Comixio Religionis: Socialization of Violence and Abuse, Nemean Press, 2008.  A Mandated Report to the social body.

[24] Bell, Catherine, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, Oxford University Press, 1992, p. 215.

Dr. Matteoli graduated from St. Mary's College of California in 1967 and Creighton University in 1971. He is retired from the US Navy where he spent most of his career attached to the United States Marine Corps.