Sajara

Heh, Israel is the European continent of 'RISK'.

steamer

Now I see the problem. Your comment was to my post that began in ABR. You are right to say that my comment isn't appropriate to this forum although it was appropriate when I made it. Although it appears your response was also in ABR. :huh:

Jimmy Higgins

If you aren't going to look at it in a literary manner, then there is no point in your talking about it, especially in a juvenile way.

Cege

Since none of the male Hebrew children born during the 40 years Moses led "his people" through the desert were circumcised (Joshua 5), it doesn't appear that Moses thought circumcision to be terribly important.

I can't tell from biblical writing whether Moses was circumcised or not.

steamer

Whatever.:melodramatic:

Juststeve

Cege:

If you accept the story you could infer that Moses would have been circumcised as a Prince of Egypt as the Egyptians practiced circumcision as well.

Whether this would have constituted a proper circumcision would depend on which rabbi you ask. A friend of mine who had the standard sort of circumcision boys in this country get was required to undergo a second circumcision when he converted under an Orthodox Rabbi. It wasn’t the full deal but he was required to shed a drop of penis blood.

Steve

spamandham

"Every man under my command owes me one hundred Natzi foreskins... and I want my foreskins!"

judge

There is a lot of confusing stuff in the hebrew bible. Have you read "who wrote the bible (or via: amazon.co.uk)" by Richard Friedman? Its a great book, and probbaly in the suggested reading list here.
Its a while since i read it but IIUC he hypothesises that the hebrew bible we have today is the result of a mixing of different tradtions. Some traditions thought the Mosaic preiesthood was the correct one, so they would have made moses look good and maybe , Aaron look bad. Other tradtions thought that the aaronic priesthood was the correct one or the levitical priesthood so they had stories or versions that made their guy/s look good and the other guys look bad.
I may have horribly over simplified this or even got it a bit wrong, but if I do remeber friedmans theory correctly (which is basically a much older theory that Friedman tried to take alittle further), then that could explain this passge...maybe.

p.s Id be glad if anyone can help out if i messd up here. ;-)

Anat

Moses was 3 months old when he was placed in that basket on the river. He may have already been circumcised.

yin_sage

There is a nice explanation of the documentary hypothesis here.

Wellhausen's book is online here.