Circumcision

Joshua circumcises the Israelites only upon their entry to the land.

Is the purification ritual or spiritual?

Circumcision seemingly maims the body, yet ancient Jewish and rabbinic interpretation present it as actually perfecting the body.

Before circumcision was a mitzvah, it was a cultural marker: Thus Joshua introduces circumcision to Israel at Gilgal (Joshua 5:2-9), Jacob’s sons insist that the Shechemites circumcise before Shechem marries their sister (Genesis 34), and the Israelites scorn the Philistines for being uncircumcised (Judges 14:3).

A Surprising Midrashic Portrait of Abraham

Who gets to name the child? Priestly and non-Priestly texts give two different answers.

Elijah the prophet is immortal, and Pinchas appears in a story long after the wilderness period. Both figures are described as zealots, leading to their identification as the same person by Pseudo-Philo (ca. 1st cent. C.E.) and later midrash. In a heated exchange preserved in a 13th-century fragment from the Cairo Genizah, two cantors and a congregant debate the rationality of this identification.