(no subject)

[catslash]

Today I had two classes, Medieval Popular Culture and Historical Construction of Sexuality.

Each of my professors took the opportunity to discuss Jesus's foreskin.

I don't even know, you guys.

Comments

[apiphile.livejournal.com]

O_O

What, academia. What.

[catslash.livejournal.com]

Amazingly enough it all made sense in context (discussion of saints' relics in one class, discussion of male obsession with dicks in the other), but that's a hell of a coincidence!

[new-world-smurf.livejournal.com]

That could be made of the tiniest bit of win. I don't know why, but I think so.

[catslash.livejournal.com]

As tiny as the baby Jesus's foreskin?

[new-world-smurf.livejournal.com]

Jewish guys are generally well hung so it might not be that small.

[catslash.livejournal.com]

It was if it ended up in as many reliquaries as it was claimed by in the Middle Ages. Or, well, the bits of it were.

[mmexlibris]

You know why there are no longer any cedars in Lebanon? Because every Crusader came home with a piece of the True Cross.

[gileonnen.livejournal.com]

This is probably because one of THE landmark treatments of corporeality in the medieval framework? Was on Jesus's foreskin and how his genitals were represented in medieval iconography. EVERY SINGLE ONE of my medieval-history-of-the-body texts has namechecked it.

[catslash.livejournal.com]

That sounds about right! I just - twice in one day, in two different classes in two different departments. Wow.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I assume his lack of, given that he was a nice Jewish boy?

[catslash.livejournal.com]

Precisely. It was a Whole Big Thing in medieval times. Very symbolic.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Not a Christian, or a student of Medieval history, but I had read somewhere that this was precisely why he was allowed to be crucified with a covering over his lower body, where non-circumcised males were crucified naked. That always seemed like a weird kind of well, I don't wanna say kindness, but. Any truth to that?

(Also, if you don't mind- symbolic of what, exactly, other than the obvious fact that he was a Heb?)

[catslash.livejournal.com]

That I can't speak to; the crucifixion hasn't been covered specifically in class, and I don't know if it's going to be.

As for symbolism, one possibility is that the physical break from the foreskin is a sort of foreshadowing of the crucifixion and the break between body and spirit, or something to that effect. (I'm drinking wine right now.) There's also a lot of art from the time period with focus on the baby Jesus's penis; this is at least in part because it symbolizes the human part of Christ, and the combination of the human and the divine in Jesus Christ was debated constantly in the medieval era. It was a huge, huge deal, at least among theologians, and it contributed to the Apocryphal Gospels, some stories in which deal with the natural consequences of a young child who is all-powerful (ie, lots of stories of child Jesus curse-killing kids who pissed him off).

It's down to male-dominated society's obsession with the penis, and combine that with a religion in which a major figure would have been circumcised, and you get all kinds of crazy shit.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

Hunh.

Wow. That's... I mean, it's so interesting to me, because around here it's just What We Do, y'know?

Hunh.

[catslash.livejournal.com]

My Medieval Pop Culture prof also mentioned in passing that quite a few churches claimed to have the foreskin, or part of it, as a relic, which would have drawn a lot of believers. (And a lot of believers' donations.) So it has that role in history, too.

I've never thought about circumcision much one way or another - I'm not religious and I don't have kids, so there's never been a reason to. I do find it interesting how different cultures can take different approaches to the same thing, though.

[kita0610.livejournal.com]

I can't imagine why a church would have it, we don't keep the damn thing around. :g:
It is interesting that's a focus at all, but not surprising I suppose, like you said with Western culture's phallic fascination.

[owllover711.livejournal.com]

o_O

What exactly did this discussion entail?

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

Biblical Kinkmeme, anybody?

[badninja.livejournal.com]

There would be loads of incest, but one can't say the Bible didn't have it either!

[karaokegal.livejournal.com]

Noah and his daughters springs to mind instantly. (In fact, if you took out the names and replaced them with a fandom Father/Daughter it would be a kinkmeme prompt all by itself.)

"Following a devastating natural disaster Sydney Bristow fears for the future of the race and gets Jack drunk in order to seduce him."

[badninja.livejournal.com]

See, now someone has to work 'jesus' foreskin' into an LJ name title somehow.

[burningmarl.livejournal.com]

that's brilliant,
our lecturer was talking about playing violyns to vadges the other day :|