4.0073 Foreskins (64)
Elaine Brennan & Allen Renear (EDITORS@BROWNVM.BITNET)
Sat, 19 May 90 18:53:32 EDT
Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 4, No. 0073. Saturday, 19 May 1990.
(1) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 21:33:57 EST (25 lines)
From: Naama Zahavi-Ely <ELINZE@YALEVM>
Subject: foreskins
(2) Date: Fri, 18 May 90 05:26:43 IST (11 lines)
From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0071 Queries (53)
(3) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 23:18:05 -0500 (9 lines)
From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: Philistines
(4) Date: Thu, 17 May 90 17:22 PDT (10 lines)
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0071 Queries (53)
(5) Date: Friday, 18 May 1990 9:12am ET (9 lines)
From: "Sheizaf.Rafaeli" <21898MGR@MSU>
Subject: Foreskins
(1) --------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 21:33:57 EST
From: Naama Zahavi-Ely <ELINZE@YALEVM>
Subject: foreskins
Hello!
It seems that 11 years of non-religious biblical studies in an Israeli
school are bearing fruit!
In Samson's story (Judges 13-16, this episode in chapter 15) the
philistines are often called "arelim", that is, those who have foreskins
(arlot). There is no mention of collecting foreskins in Samson's
stories, or anywhere else that I know of off hand, except for one: in
the story of David and Saul. David at the time was a very popular
officer of Saul, who was the king. Saul was jealous of David, and was
looking for a way to get rid of him. David and Michal the daughter of
Saul fell in love, and Saul's condition for their wedding was for David
to bring him 100 foreskins of philistines. His intention was to get
David killed by the philistines. It seems to be presented as an unusual
request. For details, see Samuel I chapter 15.
Best wishes,
-Naama Zahavi-Ely
elinze@yalevm.bitnet
Zahavi-Ely-Naama@Yale.Edu
(2) --------------------------------------------------------------18----
Date: Fri, 18 May 90 05:26:43 IST
From: Daniel Boyarin <BOYARIN@TAUNIVM>
Subject: Re: 4.0071 Queries (53)
Dear Mr. Flannagan,
the "foreskins" of milton is undoubtedly synechdoche. there was no custom
whatsoever to scalp enemies. the bible generally refers to philistines
as the "uncircumcised," a word that looks in hebrew something like the
word for "foresckins", so i suspect that in some english bible, there
was a mistranslation, but that has to be checked. in any case, this
synechdoche is *not* used in hebrew. daniel boyarin
(3) --------------------------------------------------------------20----
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 23:18:05 -0500
From: Alan D Corre <corre@csd4.csd.uwm.edu>
Subject: Philistines
In response to Roy Flannagan's question, in the first book of Samuel
chapter 18 verse 25 Saul requires David to produce 100 Philistine
foreskins in return for being allowed to marry his daughter. His
intent was that David would be killed in carrying out this mission,
but David completes it successfully and wins his bride.
(4) --------------------------------------------------------------192---
Date: Thu, 17 May 90 17:22 PDT
From: KESSLER <IME9JFK@UCLAMVS.BITNET>
Subject: Re: 4.0071 Queries (53)
Well as professional synecdochist, what poet would think it logical to
write th at foreskins that fell, rather to think it, were foreskins, and
not a short han d way of saying in synecdoche, Philistines, ie, the
uncircumcised enemy, the PH ilistines. Milton wrote it simply, it seems
to me. and saved a syllable in th e line, for Philistine would ruined
that pair of iambs, a thousand foreskins...
Kessler.
(5) --------------------------------------------------------------18----
Date: Friday, 18 May 1990 9:12am ET
From: "Sheizaf.Rafaeli" <21898MGR@MSU>
Subject: Foreskins
I'm not a biblical scholar, nor an expert on ancient combat. I know
even less about the subject matter. But: could it be that this is a
confusion/allusion to the similarity of ORLA (Hebrew for foreskin) and
AREL (Hebrew for 'uncircumcised', derived, I think, from ORLA, and by
extension, a disparaging term for gentiles)?