The brit milah or bris is the ceremony of circumcision in Judaism and Samaritanism. According to the Book of Genesis, God commanded the biblical patriarch Abraham to be circumcised, an act to be followed by his male descendants on the eighth day of life, symbolizing the covenant between God and the Jewish people. Today, it is generally performed by a mohel on the eighth day after the infant's birth and is followed by a celebratory meal known as seudat mitzvah.
Judaism is the oldest Abrahamic religion. Judaism is monotheistic, and widely an ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, and legal traditions of the Jewish people, having originated as an organized religion in the Middle East during the Bronze Age. Contemporary Judaism evolved from Yahwism, the cultic religious movement of ancient Israel and Judah, around the 6th/5th century BCE, and is thus considered to be one of the oldest monotheistic religions. Religious Jews regard Judaism as their means of observing the Mosaic covenant, which was established between God and the Israelites, their ancestors. Jewish religious doctrine encompasses a wide body of texts, practices, theological positions, and forms of organization.
Herod I or Herod the Great was a Roman Jewish client king of the Herodian Kingdom of Judea. He is known for his colossal building projects throughout Judea. Among these works are the rebuilding of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and the expansion of its base—the Western Wall being part of it. Vital details of his life are recorded in the works of the 1st century CE Roman–Jewish historian Josephus.
Olry Terquem was a French mathematician. He is known for his works in geometry and for founding two scientific journals, one of which was the first journal about the history of mathematics. He was also the pseudonymous author of a sequence of letters advocating radical reform in Judaism. He was French Jewish.
Religious circumcision is generally performed shortly after birth, during childhood, or around puberty as part of a rite of passage. Circumcision for religious reasons is most frequently practiced by members of the Jewish and Islamic faiths.
The Holy Prepuce, or Holy Foreskin, is one of several relics attributed to Jesus, consisting of the foreskin removed during the circumcision of Jesus. At various points in history, a number of churches in Europe have claimed to possess the Prepuce, sometimes at the same time. Various miraculous powers have been ascribed to it.
A mohel is a Jew trained in the practice of brit milah, the "covenant of circumcision".
Circumcision likely has ancient roots among several ethnic groups in sub-equatorial Africa, Egypt, and Arabia, though the specific form and extent of circumcision has varied. Ritual male circumcision is known to have been practiced by South Sea Islanders, Aboriginal peoples of Australia, Sumatrans, Incas, Aztecs, Mayans and Ancient Egyptians. Today it is still practiced by Jews, Muslims, Coptic Christians, Ethiopian Orthodox, Eritrean Orthodox, Druze, Samaritans and some tribes in East and Southern Africa, as well as in the United States, South Korea and Philippines.
The Judaizers were a faction of the Jewish Christians, both of Jewish and non-Jewish origins, who regarded the Levitical laws of the Old Testament as still binding on all Christians. They tried to enforce Jewish circumcision upon the Gentile converts to early Christianity and were strenuously opposed and criticized for their behavior by the Apostle Paul, who employed many of his epistles to refute their doctrinal positions.
Most scholars who study the historical Jesus and early Christianity believe that the canonical gospels and the life of Jesus must be viewed within their historical and cultural context, rather than purely in terms of Christian orthodoxy. They look at Second Temple Judaism, the tensions, trends, and changes in the region under the influence of Hellenism and the Roman occupation, and the Jewish factions of the time, seeing Jesus as a Jew in this environment; and the written New Testament as arising from a period of oral gospel traditions after his death.
The Hebrew Bible makes reference to a number of covenants with God (YHWH). These include the Noahic Covenant, which is between God and all living creatures, as well as a number of more specific covenants with Abraham, the whole Israelite people, the Israelite priesthood, and the Davidic lineage of kings. In form and terminology, these covenants echo the kinds of treaty agreements in the surrounding ancient world.
Gideon Brecher, also known by the pen name Gedaliah ben Eliezer (Hebrew: גדליה בן אליעזר, was an Austrian writer and physician. He was a central figure in the Moravian Haskalah.
Early criticism of Judaism and its texts, laws, and practices originated in inter-faith polemics between Christianity and Judaism. Important disputations in the Middle Ages gave rise to widely publicized criticisms. Modern criticisms also reflect the inter-branch Jewish schisms between Orthodox Judaism, Conservative Judaism, and Reform Judaism.
Hellenistic Judaism was a form of Judaism in classical antiquity that combined Jewish religious tradition with elements of Hellenistic culture. Until the early Muslim conquests of the eastern Mediterranean, the main centers of Hellenistic Judaism were Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria, the two main Greek urban settlements of the Middle East and North Africa, both founded in the end of the fourth century BCE in the wake of the conquests of Alexander the Great. Hellenistic Judaism also existed in Jerusalem during the Second Temple Period, where there was a conflict between Hellenizers and traditionalists.
The Abrahamic religions are a group of religions, most notably Judaism, Christianity and Islam, centered on the worship of the God of Abraham. Abraham, a Hebrew patriarch, is extensively mentioned in the religious scriptures of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, and the Quran.
The circumcision of Jesus is an event from the life of Jesus, according to the Gospel of Luke chapter 2, which states:
And when eight days were fulfilled to circumcise the child, his name was called Jesus, the name called by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
The controversy on religious male circumcision in early Christianity has played an important role in the history of Christianity and Christian theology.
Peter Charles Remondino was an Italian-American physician, pro-circumcision advocate, first president of the San Diego Board of Health, and co-founder of San Diego’s first private hospital. In the course of a medical career spanning 55 years, he served with the Union forces during the American Civil War as surgeon. He also served as a surgeon during the Franco-Prussian War, for which he was awarded a medal by the French Government for his services.
Since the 1970s, scholars have sought to place Paul the Apostle within his historical context in Second Temple Judaism. Paul's relationship to Judaism involves topics including the status of Israel's covenant with God and the role of works as a means to either gain or keep the covenant.
Second Temple Judaism is the Jewish religion as it developed during the Second Temple period, which began with the construction of the Second Temple around 516 BCE and ended with the Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.
