Like Priests Set Apart: A Source Critical Problematization of Circumcision, Religious Othering, and Intermarriage

Abstract

There is no biblical conception that so interferes with public life and invites endless debates and controversies as the theology of election. From a religious studies perspective, the theology of election has created a tremendous, hideous impact on the history of humankind, from colonialization to Shoah to the politics of identity and populism today. Rather than being the doctrine that unites humanity, the concept of election has been regarded as the core cause that creates otherness. This article argues that the ideation of otherness in the theology of election is deeply connected to and cannot be separated from sexuality issues. The notion of circumcision, as the main feature of post-exilic priestly election theology, inevitably constructs the ideal of lineage purity, thus forbidding intermarriage. The unfaithfulness of God’s people during the Judean monarchy era would later be perceived as the main cause for the suffering and traumatic experience of exile. Radical holiness in the form of religious separation from other nations must be observed for the priests to enjoy the continuation of God’s promise in the form of descendants. The continuation of priestly lineages would assure the continuity of the Temple's existence and worship.

Full text

Indonesian Journal of Theology
Vol. 7, No. 2 (Desember 2019): 207-223
E-ISSN: 2339-0751
DOI: https://doi.org/10.46567/ijt.v7i2.129
LIKE PRIESTS SET APART
A Source- Critical Problematization of Circ umcision,
Religious Othering, and Intermarria g e
Perdian Tumanan
Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary
pkmtumanan@ambs.edu
Abstract
There is no biblical conception that so interferes with public life
and invites endless debates and controversies as the theology of
election. From a religious studies perspective, the theology of
election has created a tremendous, hideous impact on the history
of humankind, from colonialization to Shoah to the politics of
identity and populism today. Rather than being the doctrine that
unites humanity, the concept of election has been regarded as the
core cause that creates otherness. This article argues that the
ideation of otherness in the theology of election is deeply
connected to and cannot be separated from sexuality issues. The
notion of circumcision, as the main feature of post-exilic priestly
election theology, inevitably constructs the ideal of lineage purity,
thus forbidding intermarriage. The unfaithfulness of God’s people
during the Judean monarchy era would later be perceived as the
main cause for the suffering and traumatic experience of exile.
Radical holiness in the form of religious separation from other
nations must be observed for the priests to enjoy the continuation
of God’s promise in the form of descendants. The continuation of
priestly lineages would assure the continuity of the Temple's
existence and worship.
Keywords: theology of election, circumcision, sexuality, religious
otherness, intermarriage, source criticism
Abstrak
Tidak ada konsepsi Kitab Suci yang begitu mengundang
perdebatan dan kontroversi yang tiada akhir seperti teologi
pemilihan. Dari sudut pandang studi agama, teologi pemilihan telah
menciptakan dampak yang luar biasa dan mengerikan pada sejarah
umat manusia, mulai dari kolonialisasi, Shoah, politik identitas,

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hingga isu populisme yang berkembang belakangan ini. Jauh dari
menjadi doktrin yang menyatukan umat manusia, pemilihan telah
dianggap sebagai penyebab utama yang menciptakan yang liyan.
Tulisan ini berpendapat bahwa konsepsi tentang yang liyan dalam
teologi pemilihan sangat terkait dan tidak dapat dipisahkan dengan
masalah seksualitas. Gagasan sunat sebagai fitur utama dari teologi
pemilihan imam pasca pembuangan, mau tidak mau membangun
gagasan tentang kemurnian garis keturunan dan menafikan
perkawinan campur. Ketidaksetiaan umat Allah di era monarki
Yudea dianggap sebagai penyebab utama penderitaan dan
pengalaman traumatis pengasingan. Kekudusan radikal, dalam
bentuk pemisahan radikal dengan kehidupan agamawi bangsa-
bangsa lain, harus diamalkan jika para imam ingin menikmati
kelanjutan janji Tuhan dalam bentuk keturunan. Kepastian
kelanjutan keturunan imam akan secara otomatis memastikan
kelanjutan keberadaan dan pemujaan di Bait Suci.
Kata-kata Kunci: teologi pemilihan, sunat, seksualitas, religious
otherness, pernikahan beda agama, kritik sumber.
Introduction
There is no biblical concept that so interferes with public
life and invites endless debates and controversies as the theology
of election. From a religious studies perspective, the theology of
election has created a tremendous, hideous impact on the history
of humankind, from colonialization to Shoah to the politics of
identity and populism today. Rather than being the doctrine that
unites humanity, the concept of election has been regarded as the
core cause that creates otherness and has divided the world beyond
imagination. It is not surprising for a scholar like Karen Armstrong
to say, “The myth of a chosen people and a divine election has
often inspired a narrow, tribal theology from the time of
Deuteronomy up to the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim
fundamentalism that is unhappily rife in our own day.”
1
She even
coined a phrase for it, “the fearful theology of election.”
2
Theologian Sathianathan Clarke states that there are “toxic biblical
texts” that are used by fundamentalists to justify their atrocities,
including “exclusivist texts” and “explosive texts.”
3
He directly
connects such texts with a theology of election, saying, “Exclusivist
Bible texts contribute to the divine assurance of being favored by
1
Karen Armstrong, A History of God (New York: Ballantine Books,
1994), 20.
2
Ibid., 20.
3
Sathianathan Clarke, Competing Fundamentalisms: Violent Extremism in
Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press,
2017), 173.

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God and divine disfavor of religious others....Explosive texts are
much more potent at instigating and justifying violence against
those religious others.”
4
Deeply connected with and at the heart of election is
circumcision as the mark and sign of the Abrahamic covenant. Like
election, circumcision is perceived as problematic and
controversial.
5
While circumcision for Judaism is the mark of
God’s special election and covenant with Abraham and his
offspring, for others it indicates exclusiveness, separation, and
otherness. In Walter Brueggemann's words, “the same criterion
[circumcision] is used for ‘otherness’ that stands under a death
sentence (Ezek. 28:10; 31:18; 32:19-32).”
6
In discussing
circumcision from an exclusively Jude-Christian perspective—that
is, without attempt to engage the practice in other religious
traditions—this article shows that a biblical concept of religious
otherness cannot be separated from the ideation of lineage purity
and endogamous marriage embedded in the sign of circumcision.
7
The first part of this article explains that circumcision is
closely connected to sexuality issues. The second part discusses
how the idealism on sexual purity from the Priestly tradition (P)
ideates the concept of religious otherness. The last part of this
article discusses how circumcision and the notion of sexual purity
eventually impact the idea of purity in marriage as endogamy.
Circumcision and Sexuality Issues
Generally, scholars agree that for the Jews circumcision is
the sign and mark of God’s covenant and election to Israel.
8
P. R.
4
Ibid., 174.
5
Circumcision is one of the major reasons for the separation between
Judaism and Christianity. Circumcision was condemned as superstitious by
ancient writers such as Strabo and Tacitus. A ban on circumcision also one of
the main reason for the Bar Kokhba revolt. See Lawrence A Hoffman, Covenant
of Blood: Circumcision and Gender in Rabbinic Judaism (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1996), 9–10.
6
Walter Brueggemann, Reverberations of Faith: A Theological Handbook of
Old Testament Themes (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2003), 34.
7
In his project against supersessionism, respected Jewish theologian
Michael Wyschogrod offers Christian readers a natural orientation which is the
opposite to spiritual orientation. Here election is concerned not with “faith or
moral excellence” but with “natural human family.” He defines election as
“corporeal election, and the foundation of Judaism is nothing other than the
family identity of the Jewish people.” Interestingly, Wyschogrod realizes the
problem of connecting election with familial lineage, as pointed out by R.
Kendall Soulen who writes, “Wyschogrod acknowledges that joining the divine
election to the corporeal reality of a particular people invites serious objections.”
R. Kendall Soulen, The God of Israel and Christian Theology (Minneapolis, MN:
Fortress Press, 1996), 5–6.
8
This does not mean that the Hebrew Bible sees circumcision as the
primary mark/sign of the covenant. Derouchie mentions other covenantal signs

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Williamson mentions that circumcision “was mandatory for the
inclusion within the covenant.”
9
However, there are different
opinions on how to define its meaning and its connection with the
covenant. These opinions fall under at least two categories,
differentiated by whether or not circumcision is connected with
sexuality issues.
Scholars who do not connect circumcision with sexuality
perceive circumcision as a primarily theological matter. Drawing
upon Genesis 17:1-27, key are God’s promise and blessings, the
obligations of the Israelites to circumcise boys on the eighth day
after birth, and God’s punishing the Israelites if the disobey this
command.
10
Most of the scholars who hold this view have in mind
an inclusive perspective on God’s blessings toward other nations.
They mainly draw their idea from the biblical information that
circumcision was not limited to Israelites only. P. D Woodridge,
for example, says, “God’s instruction that Abraham should
circumcise every male connected with him, including any ‘slave
born in your house and the one bought with your money from any
foreigner who is not of your offspring,’ suggests that circumcision
was not meant to be understood as a sign of racial purity....the
essence of this covenant is probably to be seen not so much in its
sign as in the promise that through Abraham, God will bless many
nations.”
11
David Bernat, a prominent scholar in Judaic Studies
who supports this opinion, agrees with and goes beyond
Woodridge, when he writes, “However, circumcision in P is not a
symbol of Israelite ethnicity, nor does it ritually demarcate
communal borderlines.”
12
Holding these commitments appears to
correlate with a disinterest in asking crucial questions, like: Why
must the sign be circumcision? Or, why the penis? How about
women? Are they included in the covenant? If yes, how? Does their
status in the covenant depend on men?
A commonly held opinion within source criticism
designates as P those texts which are most elaborate about the
in both the rainbow (Gen. 9:13-17) and Sabbath (Ex. 31:13-17). Jason S
Derouchie, “Circumcision in the Hebrew Bible and Targums: Theology,
Rhetoric, and the Handling of Metaphor.,” Bulletin for Biblical Research Vol. 14,
No. 2 (2004): 184–185. According to Hoffman, it is the Priestly tradition (P) that
successfully makes circumcision the sine qua non of the covenant. Hoffman,
Covenant of Blood, 35.
9
P. R. Williamson, “Circumcision,” in Dictionary of the Old Testament:
Pentateuch, eds., T. Desmond Alexander and David Weston Baker (Downers
Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2003), 123.
10
P. D. Woodbridge, “Circumcision,” in New Biblical Dictionary of Biblical
Theology, eds., T. Desmond Alexander and Brian S. Rosner (Downers Grove, IL:
InterVarsity Press, 2000), 411–412.
11
Ibid.
12
David A Bernat, Sign of the Covenant: Circumcision in the Priestly Tradition
(Leiden: Brill, 2009), 48.

211 Like Priests Set Apart
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regulations of circumcision. Building on this understanding, Bernat
argues, “The fact that circumcision is performed on the penis does
enable the P author(s) (or editor[s]) to perpetuate a patriarchal
ethos. Beyond this, circumcision in P has nothing to do with the
penis and its function.”
13
His argument is based on the assumption
that the intent behind P had been to eradicate the Canaanite
religions, particularly the elements of sexual practice that were
embedded in them.
14
To bolster his position that circumcision is all
about covenant and has nothing to do with fertility rituals and their
symbolic meanings, he quotes Gerhard von Rad to underscore that
“circumcision is understood quite formally, i.e., without significant
reference to the procedure itself, as a sign of the covenant.”
15
However, Bernat’s argumentations are ad absurdum and,
thus, very unconvincing for several reasons. First, he readily agrees
that P’s view on circumcision helps in creating and promoting a
patriarchal society; he gives quite a long explanation about it.
16
He
says, “Females stand below males, and their status is tied to the
man in whose domain they reside. It is only a male who can carry
the sign. A woman is thus part of the community by proxy, an
extension of her father or husband.”
17
If this is his conclusion, then
why does he say that circumcision has nothing to do with
sexuality?
18
What is wrong with Bernat’s opinion is that he primarily
sees sexuality from a biological perspective, while sexuality is more
accurately a social construct. In line with this latter understanding,
Lawrence Hofmann rightly says, “Circumcision was no life-cycle
ceremony for a newborn; it was a ritualization of male status within
Judaism. Understanding gender as a social category that defines the
set of roles appropriate to each sex, we can say that circumcision’s
primary meaning was social, not biological.”
19
Second, Bernat says
that one of P’s main purposes is to eradicate Canaanite religion,
along with its fertility and sexual elements. He then concludes that
this is why P contains many regulations regarding sexual purity, as
seen in Leviticus.
20
However, is it not a self-contradictory
conclusion to say that P has nothing to do with sexuality while, in
fact, much sexual regulation can be found in it? Moreover, Bernat
barely explains the connection between sexual purity and
13
Ibid., 50.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid., 48–50.
17
Ibid., 49.
18
On how issues of sexuality are closely linked with marital or familial
systems and with a gendered hierarchy, as well as how theology brought
significant influence on these practices the world over, see Merry E Wiesner-
Hanks, Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World Regulating Desire,
Reforming Practice (Milton: Taylor & Francis Group, 2020).
19
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 80.
20
Bernat, Sign of the Covenant, 50–51.

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circumcision. Third, he also cannot answer satisfactorily why the
penis must be the mark or sign of the covenant and, hence, of
election. Regarding such a question, his explanation is ambiguous:
21
Why, then, would the Priestly trident choose the penis, a
sexual organ, as the locus of the תירב sign? Any answer to
such a question will, by nature, be speculative. I suggest, in
line with a traditional viewpoint, that P did not choose the
penis. Circumcision must have had an ancient provenance
and been deeply embedded into the fabric of the society,
out of which the Priestly community emerged. Thus, the
rite had to be integrated into a new ideological framework
and marked with a new set of meanings.
For scholars who support the connection of circumcision
with sexuality, their opinion stems from the fact that circumcision
is not a unique or original tradition of Israel.
22
It was a common
practice among many nations in the ancient Near East.
23
Egyptians
and people from western Semitic groups in Syria and Palestine were
already practicing circumcision a long time before the Israelites.
24
For those cultures, circumcision cannot be separated from
marriage and fertility.
25
Quoting Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, the
well-known rabbi and anthropologist, Leonard B. Glick makes an
essential claim about the meaning of the penis for the ancient Near
East peoples, including Judeans in antiquity, seeing it as “a symbol
not only of patrilineal social organization but of male reproductive
prowess and male supremacy.”
26
In Genesis 17, God’s command
of circumcision connects closely to God’s promise of progeny (vv.
2, 4-6). Lawrence A. Hoffman emphasizes this connection
powerfully: “A close look at the covenant with Abraham
demonstrates how central fertility is to God’s promise.”
27
The fact
that the command was given to Abram/Abraham when he was
ninety-nine and Sarai/Sarah was ninety years old only confirms this
shared understanding between the people of the Pentateuchal
21
Ibid., 51.
22
Woodbridge, “Circumcision,” 411.
23
Robert G. Hall, “Circumcision,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed.,
David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 1025. See also
Williamson, “Circumcision,” 122. Anthropologist Leonard B. Glick even says
that circumcision was and is widely practiced among African, Southeast Asian,
and a few Pacific peoples. See Leonard B. Glick, Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision
from Ancient Judea to Modern America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 5.
24
However, there is no culture that so much attached and made
circumcision one of its core touchstones of cultural, national, and religious
identity qua Israel. Hall, “Circumcision,” 1025.
25
Ibid., 1026.
26
Glick, Marked in Your Flesh, 18.
27
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 38.

213 Like Priests Set Apart
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witness and the surrounding them (vv. 1, 17). Furthermore,
Hoffman also cites two other P traditions in Genesis that mention
fertility, viz. God’s instructions to Adam (1:28) and Noah (8:17).
28
However, there might be other concerns that convince
scholars such as Bernat to reject any connection between
circumcision and sexuality. Prominent among these is the
traditional notion that marriage and fertility are connected with
religious purity according to the ideology assumed by P.
29
Addressing questions such as this leads us to understand further
how circumcision, marriage, and fertility are interconnected in the
ideation of religious otherness—to which we now turn.
Circumcision and Religious Otherness
As mentioned earlier, the primary motivation of those who
support the concept of circumcision without connection to
sexuality involves decoupling circumcision from hereditary purity.
In other words, the unfortunate outcome of connecting
circumcision with sexuality is racial purity. For them, this is
incompatible with the notion of God’s extended blessings for all
nations through Abraham.
30
They argue that it is already apparent
from the biblical information that circumcision does not only apply
to the Israelites but to the foreign slaves as well.
31
However, such a perspective comes from an over-
simplification of many issues at play here. In his extensive study of
the connection between circumcision and social status, Bernat—
who notably rejects the connection between circumcision and
sexuality—stresses the understanding of slave in the ancient world
as the master’s property; they are juridically not persons. When an
28
Ibid., 39. In his article about P in Genesis, J. A. Emerton mentions
other verses that deal with fertility, viz. 9:1, 7; 28:3; 35:11; 47:27; and 48:4. He
says that the notion of fertility in Genesis is “found only in passages ascribed to
P.” See J. A. Emerton, “The Priestly Writer in Genesis,” Journal of Theological
Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2 (1988): 386.
29
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 39.
30
This sense of the “missional” in the Abrahamic covenant often
elaborated upon by Christian theologians is refused by Joel Kaminsky. He states
that the biblical notion of Israel as the light of the world has nothing to do with
proselytizing and missionizing the gentiles. See Joel Kaminsky and Mark
Reasoner, “The Meaning and Telos of Israel’s Election: An Interfaith Response
to N.T. Wright’s Reading of Paul,” Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 112, No. 4
(2019): 426, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0017816019000221.
31
In his comprehensive treatment of the Hebrew Bible, Matthew
Thiessen argues in the published rendition of his dissertation, “There is no
evidence that circumcision was considered to be a rite of conversion to Israelite
religion. In fact, circumcision, particularly the infant circumcision instantiated
within Israelite and early Jewish society excludes from the covenant those not
properly descended from Abraham.” Matthew Thiessen, Contesting Conversion:
Genealogy, Circumcision, and Identity in Ancient Judaism and Christianity (New York:
Oxford University Press, 2011), iv.

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Israelite master circumcises his male slaves, it does not mean the
slaves now have the exclusive privilege to gain God’s blessings or
that their social status is equal with that of the Israelites.
32
It is more
about the mark of the master’s total and complete obedience to
God.
33
Once a slave is owned by a master, he/she will also observe
his/her master’s religion. Matthew Thiessen, in his extensive
research about the connection between circumcision and
genealogy, states:
34
No passage in the Hebrew Bible suggests that circumcision
functioned as an initiatory or conversionistic rite which
enables a foreigner to become an Israelite. Even priestly
circles, which require the circumcision of certain non-
Israelites, carefully intertwine circumcision and genealogy
in such a way as to make it theoretically impossible for
them to enter into the congregation of Israel. While non-
Israelites no doubt found ways of entering Israel, and
Israelites found ways of allowing them to enter, nowhere is
this done by explicitly recognizing circumcision as an
avenue of entrance into Israel.
Thiessen seems to forcefully affirm certain aspects of
Bernat’s claim that slave circumcision cannot be used as a
justification for God’s extended blessings to other nations. Yet,
how does this reconcile with Bernat’s refusal to see connections to
Israelite sexual mores? Consider the fact that Bernat, in trying to
further justify and ground his slave-as-property claim, points to the
circumcision of Ishmael, saying, “Moreover, the narrative of
Ishmael’s circumcision conveys, on one level, P’s implicit
acknowledgment that other nations may practice circumcision.”
35
It is astounding how he seems to ignore the simple fact that
Ishmael was not only a slave child (from Hagar) but also Abraham’s
own biological child.
Source analysis offers another set of objections to the
shallow claim that rejects any connection between circumcision
and sexuality, characteristic as this is of the inclusivist view. There
is scholarly consensus that the first text to explain the regulation of
circumcision, Genesis 17, should be ascribed to P, which was
formed in the late sixth century BCE.
36
This dating suggests to
scholars that the ideation of circumcision as being mandatory for
32
Bernat, Sign of the Covenant, 45.
33
Ibid.
34
Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 134.
35
Bernat, Sign of the Covenant, 48.
36
Walter Brueggemann, “Circumcision,” in Reverberations of Faith: A
Theological Handbok of Old Testament Themes (Louisville, KY: Westminster/John
Knox Press, 2002), 33.

215 Like Priests Set Apart
©Desember 2019, Indonesian Journal of Theology, Vol. 7, No. 2
the covenant emerged during the exile.
37
Before then, circumcision
was never considered as central to the covenant.
38
Instead, central
were the animal sacrifices.
39
From the time of the exile through the
first century CE, circumcision was thus taken to be an integral sign
of the covenant, as demonstrated by the New Testament stories
involving the circumcisions of John the Baptist (Luke 1:58-59) and
Jesus (Luke 2:21).
40
There are at least two developments brought about by the
exile that carried into post-exilic Jewish society. First, the exile
marks the end of Israel’s monarchic age, and the new temple (i.e.,
the second temple) now functioned not only as of the center of
religious worship but also of political life. During the monarchic
age, kings and noblemen controlled the social and political life of
Israel, whereas in the post-exilic era the temple priests became de
facto rulers.
41
Religious, social, and political power became
consolidated in the hands of the reinvented priestly class.
According to Glick, “These men [as] priests [were] member of the
elite class who assumed virtually complete social authority in the
newly constituted Judean society that arose after the Babylonian
exile....The responsibility was theirs alone; the monarchy had
ended, never to be restored.”
42
In this emergent setting, temple rites
and religious beliefs became very important for forming this new
era of Jewish society.
If the first exilic development was a restructuring of Jewish
society under Temple rule, then the second exilic invention was the
emphasis on holistic purity. Having consolidated their control of
Jewish social, religious, and political life, the priestly class could
easily centralize and locate all covenantal activity to Herod's
Temple in Jerusalem.
43
This could only happen upon the
eradication of local cult sacrifices perceived by the ruling priestly
class as the source of Israel’s impurity, which had led to the
Babylonian exile.
44
From that point on, the priests increasingly
instituted strict religious regulations emphasizing purity.
45
37
Ibid.
38
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 37.
39
Ibid., 34, 36–37.
40
The tense debates in the early church about circumcision prove that
circumcision was still perceived as important by many Jewish Christians in the
first century. See Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 37. In my opinion, the view that
circumcision only becomes central to the covenant after the sixth century BCE
relatives Paul’s rejection of salvific circumcision as not so extravagant a
conclusion (Romans 2-4; Galatians 5).
41
Glick, Marked in Your Flesh, 15–16.
42
Ibid., 15–16.
43
Ibid., 16–17.
44
Ibid., 15.
45
Ibid., 17. See also Walter Brueggemann and Tod Linafelt, An
Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination (Louisville, KY:
Westminster/John Knox Press, 2012), 90.

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Maintaining purity was the only way for Jewish people to keep
enjoying God’s blessings and prevent them from exile (cf. Lev.
20:22-24; 26), with purity here mainly understood in the sense of
extreme standards guarding sexual practices (Lev. 12; 15; 18; 20:13-
21; 21:7).
46
It is within this context that the regulation of
circumcision was constituted in P.
On this point, crucial are two further issues interwoven
into the provenance of Israelite male circumcision, viz. fertility and
sexual purity. In ancient Israel’s philosophy, fertility was considered
fruitfulness in horticultural allegory. Hoffman illustrates:
47
The first three years of a tree’s growth are known as its
period of circumcision, the immature fruit being called
uncircumcised and consequently forbidden for use. Trees
that reach maturity are said to have entered the time of their
circumcision. Immediately thereafter, they are expected to
bear a maximum yield of fruits, just as Abraham and his
male heirs were promised they would.
In order to bear plenty of fruit, trees must be pruned. This
practice is also well known as an analogy to circumcision, as
Hoffman says, “Both acts involve cutting away unwanted growth
from a stem or trunk in order to ensure fertility.”
48
In her research
on Jeremiah 2:20-25—the resource that is inspiring Jesus’
parable—Dalit Rom-Shiloni stresses the allusion of this text to the
P tradition.
49
What is intriguing, then, might be a concomitant
emphasis on the notion of purity.
50
Such agricultural allegorizing
implicates purity as being the sole requirement for fertility. Male
circumcision (similar to the pruning of trees) signifies the
purification of the seed.
51
46
Bernat, Sign of the Covenant, 51–52. See also Glick, Marked in Your Flesh,
18.
47
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 39. In Glick words, “the creators of the
P text described the fruit of immature trees as ‘foreskins’ and the trees
themselves as ‘uncircumcised.’” Glick, Marked in Your Flesh, 19.
48
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 39.
49
Dalit Rom-Shiloni, “‘How Can You Say, “I Am Not Defiled ...”?’
(Jeremiah 2:20-25): Allusions to Priestly Legal Traditions in the Poetry of
Jeremiah.(Report),” Journal of Biblical Literature, Vol. 133, No. 4 (2014): 757–775.
50
Ibid., 772. Interestingly, in the Hebrew Bible, pruning a tree is also a
symbol of purification. In Jesus parable about the true vine (John 15:1-10), that
is very grounded in the Hebrew Bible, the Greek word for “prune” (katharei) and
“clean” (katharoi) are from the same root. John Barton and John Muddiman, The
Oxford Bible Commentary (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 988.
51
Regarding the importance of male seed and penis in the covenant,
Glick builds on Carol Denaley’s research to say that “men ‘beget’ children by
planting generative ‘seed’ in wombs; hence, while mothers merely ‘bear’ children,
fathers create and own them. The entire Book of Genesis, she [Denaley]
remarks, “is preoccupied with the interrelated notions of seed, paternity, and

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The second interwoven issue—and summarily the most
compelling explanation connecting sexual purity (and fertility) to
covenant—can be seen in Hoffman’s analysis of the biblical
witness, wherein he concludes that P texts are overwhelmingly
obsessed with lineage.
52
For Hoffman, this fixation cannot be
separated from the reality that familial lineage determines the
continuity of the priesthood itself.
53
This is different from judges
and prophets whose role solely based on God’s individual call.
54
It
is not surprising, then, that fertility amid continuity of lineage is
crucial for P, given the transition of power to the priestly class
following the end of the Judean monarchy. However, line
continuation is not everything; for P, fertility must be accompanied
by purity. Only those who are not “unclean” may serve the Lord
(Lev. 21). The exile that had brought tremendous misery and
suffering upon the people of God was seen as being caused by the
sloppiness of their kings who, even though they enjoyed God’s
blessings of power through the Davidic lineage, had exposed
themselves to uncleanness, namely by engaging surrounding
nations with their filthy religions and fake gods (Lev. 18:24-28; 20:1-6;
22-27; 26:30-46). Radical holiness in the form of ethnoreligious
separation from other nations must be observed, if the priests want
to enjoy the continuation of God’s promise in the form of
descendants.
55
As the continuation of priestly descendants would assure
the continuity of their power, so did the existence of the Temple
and continuation of its worship cult become the only real sign of
God’s presence and favor during the Second Temple period. From
the perspective of P, the continued existence of the priesthood
itself is critical, if the people of God still want to enjoy God’s
patriliny: who begat whom .... Men’s procreative ability is defined in terms of
potency—the power to bring things into being.’ This is why the ‘sign of God’s
covenant with Abraham, circumcision, was carved on the organ felt to be the
fountain of generativity, the vehicle for the transmission of seed .... No great
imagination is required to understand why the circumcised penis was an ideal
symbol of the Lord’s covenant, and of everything that the priests intended to
promote with their new rite of initiation: male reproductive success, continuity
in the male line, male-defined ethnic identity and exclusiveness, acknowledgment
of patrilineally legitimated priestly authority.” Glick, Marked in Your Flesh, 18.
52
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 40.
53
Ibid., 40; cf. other P texts: Exodus 28:1; 29; Numbers 3-4; 8:5-22; 18.
54
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 40.
55
In Jacob Neusner’s words, “Sanctification thus means two things:
first, distinguishing Israel in all its dimensions from the world in all its ways;
second, establishing the stability, order, regularity, predictability and reliability of
Israel in the world of nature and supernature, in particular at moments and in
contexts of danger.” Jacob Neusner, “Purity and the Priesthood in the Hebrew
Scriptures and Rabbinic Tradition,” accessed December 31, 2019,
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_c
on_cclergy_doc_01011993_purity_en.html.

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presence and favor (and, of course, avoid another exile. In light of
these commitments, it is very understandable why circumcision,
fertility, and religious purity together become so central for the
formation of an emergent, post-exilic Jewish identity. These three
central issues unavoidably implicate a fourth concern about
intermarriage, which will be discussed in the next section.
Circumcision and Intermarriage
Biblical texts such as Ezra and Nehemiah attest to the
importance of a pure priestly lineage for both the ongoing
legitimacy of Temple worship and the prevention of another exile.
Naturally, historical Ezra and Nehemiah were two leading figures
ministering around the time that the P tradition was taking shape.
According to Hoffman, that fact helps to explain the genealogical
framing of the Book of Ezra as implicitly condemning exogamy or
intermarriage, with lineage lists appearing near its beginning and
end (chapters 2 and 10).
56
These hereditary rolls were deployed to
rule out anyone claiming to be of a priestly line, with the
implication that intermarriage somewhere along the claimant’s
defiled lineage now invalidates any such claim of membership in
the true (that is, pure) priestly community. As seen in Ezra 2:59-63,
those without genealogical proof will not be allowed to serve in the
Temple. Of particular interest is Thiessen’s interpretation of this
gatekeeping procedure—particularly, in how closely it seems to
relate to Leviticus 19:19’s evaluation of good and evil “seed”:
57
The officials who approach Ezra describe these
intermarriages as the mixture of the holy seed (ערז שדקה)
with the peoples of the land (ימע תוצראה). This holy seed
imagery signifies the genealogical distinction between Israel
(holy seed) and the nations (profane seed) and
demonstrates the inappropriateness of intermarriage, for if
Lev 19:19 requires that a person not sow a field with two
different types of seed, how much more inappropriate is it
to combine two forms of human seed, holy and profane,
Jew and Gentile?
Consider, too, that in his prayer of repentance Ezra
explicitly mentions intermarriage as the main warrant for the exile
(Ez. 9:1, 7-8) and argues against exogamy by adjuring all priests
(and the lay people, as well) to not give their daughters in marriage
56
Hoffman, Covenant of Blood, 40. The Book of Malachi—another text
contemporaneous with the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah—also condemns
intermarriage (Malachi 2:10-13).
57
Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 135–136. That is why it is impossible
to separate between intercultural marriage and interreligious marriage in P
tradition.

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to foreigners and to abstain from marrying any foreign woman
(9:12-15). Furthermore, it seems crucial to note that the pure
lineage of the priests serves as redemptive if also troubling
rationale, following their extreme show of repentance in the
sending away of their foreign wives and children (Ez. 10:18-24).
The Book of Nehemiah also includes listings of priestly
lineage (Neh. 7, 10-12).
58
The record of the priests’ recommitment
(Neh, 10) includes specific mention of their pledge not to
intermarry (vv. 30). The book even concludes with a cautionary tale
of what happened to the house of Eliashib, the chief priest, whose
grandsons took foreigners for wives (Neh. 13:28-31).
59
Intriguing
are the layman Nehemiah’s responses (vv. 29-30a), which we note
with emphasis (italics) in what follows: “Remember them, O my
God, because they have defiled the priesthood, the covenant of the
priests and the Levites. Thus, I cleansed them from everything
foreign” (NRSV). Key words such as “defiled,” “covenant,” and
“cleansed” are all interconnected within the context of exogamy
restrictions. Note Nehemiah’s intertextual echo of Leviticus 21:13-
15, a quintessential verse from P:
He [a priest of Aaronic lineage] shall marry only a woman
who is a virgin. A widow, or a divorced woman, or a
woman who has been defiled, a prostitute, these he shall
not marry. He shall marry a virgin of his own kin, that he
may not profane his offspring among his kin, for I am
the LORD; I sanctify him (NRSV).
Matthew Levering has a critical opinion regarding this, “He
expels Eliashib’s grandson from Israel’s community on the
grounds that he has contaminated the high priestly lineage not merely by
intermarriage but by breaking the precept of the Torah.”
60
Another intriguing point emerges from a consideration of
the structure of Nehemiah 13, which rhetorically ties the problem
of Judean leadership inseparably with the priests’ concern for
ancestral purity. I suggest the following outline:
58
These hereditary rolls overtly emphasize the exclusivity of post-exilic
Jewish society; ibid., 135.
59
Eliashib himself was a scandalous figures tied to deep corruption at
the Temple (cf. Neh. 13:4-13).
60
Matthew Levering, Ezra & Nehemiah (Grand Rapids, MI: Brazos
Press, 2007), 204.

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Intro 1-3
Problem with the priests 4-14
Corruption (4-10)
Nehemiah’s action (11-13)
Nehemiah’s intercession (14)
Judah’s leadership problem 15-22
Corruption (15-20)
Nehemiah’s action (21-22a)
Nehemiah intercession (22b)
Judah’s leadership problema 23-27
Intermarriage (23-24)
Nehemiah’s action (25-27)
Problem with the priestsa 28-31
Intermarriage (28-29)
Nehemiah’s action (30-31a)
Nehemiah intercession (31b)
The inclusio situating the “problem with the priests”
(beginning: vv. 4-14; end: vv. 28-31) sends a strong message that
any interference with a priest’s purity will eventually lead to the
defilement of national leadership. The future of this people or
nation, only recently returned from exile, depends critically on how
attentive and scrupulous the priests could guarded their (own)
purity.
The ethnocentric and gendered notion of circumcision as
marking the male Israelite’s commitment to sexual purity
challenged the danger of cultural assimilation, brought about on a
massive scale with Hellenism’s cultural dominance tied to Roman
imperial ambitions (and subjugating victories). According to
ancient Near Eastern historian John Barclay, circumcision thus
became a vital practice for maintaining the purity of God’s
people:
61
One of the most important functions of circumcision was
in identifying with whom a Jewess may have sexual
intercourse….It fulfilled this function by making it taboo
for Jewish women to receive from an uncircumcised man
what Philo calls ‘‘alien seed.’’ ....Jewish girls were taught to
shudder at the thought of a sexual encounter with an
uncircumcised man.
One need only consider how Samaritans are depicted in the
New Testament (e.g., John. 4) to recognize how thoroughly both
the Jewish rejection of exogamy and the doubling-down upon
61
This important insight, which alternates the gendered gaze on male
circumcision from a distinctly (if also problematically formed) female vantage, is
cited in Glick, Marked in Your Flesh, 29.

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ancestral purity prevailed as the mainstream view on marriage—
and, thus, peoplehood—during the post-exilic until at least the end
of the Second Temple Period (70 CE).
Conclusion
The Hebrew Bible’s perspectives about intermarriage—far
from being monolithic—are rich, complex, and diverse, and this
article is not intended to convey only one stream of theological
reasoning with regard to intermarriage.
62
According to Thiessen,
this perspective is coming from a dissenting opinion among Jews
against the mainstream theology in the second century about the
possibility for Gentiles to become Jews.
63
According to the older
tradition such as Yahwist (Y), Elon Gilad also explains that
intermarriage is a common practice in the ancient Israelite society.
64
He says:
65
The Bible is full of Israelite men marrying foreign women.
Abraham marries Keturah, who couldn’t have been a
daughter of Israel as Israel, Abraham’s grandson, was yet
to have been born. Judah marries Shu’a the Canaanite.
Joseph marries Asenath, daughter of the Egyptian priest
Potiphera. Moses marries Zipporah, daughter of the
Midian priest Jethro, the kings of Judea married all sorts of
foreign princesses, and the list goes on and on.
However, as this essay has shown, the Babylonian exile
cannot be dismissed in its far-reaching implications for how God’s
people understood not only God but—I argue—themselves, as
well, vis-à-vis the nations. The P tradition introduced a new
interpretation of covenant and, with it, the theology of election.
The bitterness of exile and the people’s struggle for existence were
transposed as radical commitment toward sexual purity, with
circumcision as its main mark. The only way to survive after the
Exile is the same way Israel survived it in the first place: according
to P, this is through lineage preservation. From this cultic-
62
The case in Esther 8:17, where Gentiles become Jews (and become
circumcised), cannot be separated from the information that Esther was married
to a Gentile king (Ch. 2).
63
Thiessen, Contesting Conversion, 136–137.
64
Elon Gilad, “Intermarriage and the Jews: What Would the Early
Israelites Say?,” Haaretz, 2014, https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/.premium-
intermarriage-and-the-jews-1.5249817. From his research on intermarriage in
Pentateuch (except P), Fanie Snyman concludes, “It is however interesting to
note that instances of intermarriage occurred within the Pentateuch and
apparently the custom is not criticized. Fanie Snyman, “Investigating the Issue
of Mixed Marriages in Malachi, Ezra-Nehemiah and the Pentateuch,” Scriptura,
Vol. 116, No. 2 (2017): 182.
65
Gilad, “Intermarriage and the Jews.”

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confessional vantage, the theologies of election and covenant can
still be perceived as God’s guaranteeing the reproduction and
continuation of Israelite lineage, even amid successive environs of
hatred and the history of colonial (and neocolonial) subjugation
that has continuously threatened the history of Israel. Efforts to be
antiracist, decolonial, and rightly intolerant of antisemitism would
do well to consider the trajectory plotted by source critical biblical
studies.
About the Author
Perdian Tumanan is a tenured lecturer in Ethics, Religion, and
Peacebuilding at Petra Christian University, Surabaya (Indonesia).
He is currently a master’s degree student in Theology and Peace
Studies at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, IN
(USA).
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