Difference between revisions of "Category:Circumcision of Jesus (subject)"

The Circumcision of Jesus refers to an episode in the life of Jesus of Nazareth, and his parents, Mary of Nazareth and Joseph of Nazareth. The episode is narrated only in the Gospel of Luke.

Overview

The Circumcision of Jesus in Scholarship

That Jesus was circumcised is virtually certain from the historical point of view, even though nothing can be said about the circumstances of the event. If not circumcised, Jesus could not have performed the rituals of the Temple and should not have been bound to the obligations of the Mosaic Torah. The very fact that later Christian tradition tried to reinterpret the event as a sort of prophecy of the Passion--the first time that the blood of Jesus was shed--shows that its memory created embarrassment within a community that no longer required the ritual.

The Circumcision of Jesus in Fiction

The circumcision of Jesus was not an episode frequently visited in Christian iconography, where it overlapped with the more popular (and less controversial) Presentation of Jesus at the Temple. Besides, a correct depiction of the event would have required some familiarity with the Jewish ritual, which the rigid rules of separation between Christians and Jews made not easy to acquire. As a result, the iconography of the circumcision of Jesus often renounced any realism to stress its theological reinterpretation. The scene often ended to be more similar to a gruesome Passion scene (or to the Blood libel scene), than to the actual Jewish ritual.

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