page 30 of volume 30 of University of Kansas Publications: Humanistic studies https://books.google.ca/books?id=OfIM93M9wjMC&q=%22any+Jew+has+purchased%22 entitled "Persecution of the Jews in the Roman Empire" (see also translation below)
“Circumcision is startling, all right, particularly when performed by a garlicked old man upon the glory of a newborn body, but then maybe that’s what the Jews had in mind and what makes the act seem quintessentially Jewish and the mark of their reality. Circumcision makes it clear as can be that you are here and not there, that you are out and not in — also that you’re mine and not theirs…. Quite convincingly, circumcision gives the lie to the womb-dream of life in the beautiful state of innocent prehistory, the appealing idyll of living "naturally," unencumbered by man-made ritual. To be born is to lose all that. The heavy hand of human values falls upon you right at the start, marking your genitals as its own.”
Source: The Counterlife (1986), Ch. 5
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Philip Roth 95
American novelist 1933–2018Related quotes
9 March 336 according to page 38 of Jews and Christians in the Holy Land: Palestine in the Fourth Century https://books.google.ca/books?id=BXuxAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA38 by Gunter Steinberger in 1999
Romans 3:19-31
Epistle to the Romans
Context: Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets; Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God; To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.
Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith. Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law. Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.
Do we then make void the law through faith? God forbid: yea, we establish the law.
In response to a journalist who asked about Russian abuses in Chechnya during a press conference in November 2002 Newsbusters http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2009/12/30/ouch-putin-answer-about-terrorism-stuns-press-conference-silence#ixzz2Wxbq9sOU
2000 - 2005
“Many people think that female circumcision only started with the advent of Islam.”
The Hidden Face of Eve (1980)
Context: Many people think that female circumcision only started with the advent of Islam. But as a matter of fact it is well known and widespread in some areas of the world before the Islamic era, including the Arabian peninsula. Mohammad the Prophet tried to oppose this custom since he considered it harmful to the sexual health of the woman.
As quoted in "Bruce Parry: 'My job doesn't allow me a private life" by Cassandra Jardine in The Telegraph (19 September 1007)