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Cut Your Balls Off For God

steve_bank

Diabetic retinopathy and poor eyesight. Typos ...
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In Matthew 19:12,

For there are some eunuchs who were so born from their mother’s womb, and there are some eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it.”

AI
In ancient Jewish law, eunuchs (termed saris) were broadly defined to include those castrated by men (seris adam) or born infertile/castrated by illness (seris ḥamma), with both types excluded from full participation in the congregation of Israel. While castrated individuals were forbidden from marrying Israelite women, they were often high-ranking court officials in surrounding empires, and biblical tradition offered them a symbolic, honorable place, especially if they honored the Sabbath


Castrating Catholic pri9ests might go a long way to prevent sex abuse.
 
Even if one cuts off the balls, it does not stop the production of testosterone. Long back I read that some is produced in kidneys as well. You may check.
 
Testosterone is produced primarily in the testes (testicles) in men (via Leydig cells) and in the ovaries in women. Small amounts are also produced by the adrenal glands in both sexes. Production is regulated by the brain, specifically the hypothalamus and pituitary gland
 
I can't help but think that while I chide Christians with this one (largely because they misinterpreted the meaning doctrinally), Christians have wildly misinterpreted that verse.

Then, just as now, people who were "trans" existed, we just didn't call it that because we didn't understand gender in a very formal way.

People also had all the same general debates and positions as we do today, just at slightly different ratios.

To that end, we can fairly easily interpret that verse through that mindset to understand that they were having a conversation/debate, and that the person Jesus was discussing it with had a reason for bringing it up and that it might have even been a common start to a rhetoric about marrying and more specifically having children.

If viewed in that light, suddenly this rather bizarre exchange makes sense! Because it makes sense that someone bringing up marriage is bringing it up so he can pivot towards the "Jewish" notion that everyone has a holy obligation to be fruitful and multiply.

This is then "clever enough to put in the bible" because Jesus dismantles the whole rhetorical setup by bringing up different kinds of eunuchs, and demonstrating that it is neither wrong to be a eunuch, and that marriage for the sake of childrearing doesn't matter in the least for eunuchs or for anyone else not about to have kids.

He is saying that married living and the lifestyle of marriage is not necessary for eunuchs or for anyone not having kids and that having kids is NOT really an expectation that God demands of everyone.

This is supported by the idea of eunuchs "created by God" indicating that there can be no deficiency in someone for being just as God created them, and that people make themselves so for the benefit of everyone and there can't be anything wrong with those people either, and what fault could God find in someone who has been made so by force by another?

Because "being married" was a strong proxy for "having children", as a requirement for sex.

Its really obvious to me that the verse isn't asking people to cut their balls off, but to quit being such idiots about people who do (and to just quit being shitty about the sex they were having).

It was Paul, the guy who came later, who tried to make it about celibacy. I really don't think Jesus cared -- so long as the sex was not going to produce a "bastard birth" like his own.

If I was to read the whole verse in a modern lens or with contemporary cultural notes that do not exist:

And someone came to Jesus trying to trip him up, because he hung out with a bunch of queer folks and asked Jesus "don't you think people have an obligation to have be married [and have sex with a woman to have kids]?" And Jesus replied "trans people, [who will never have kids] exist, and by no sinful hand of man but by theur first creation pop out unable to have kids, and clearly no need to marry, because no children will grace their home; some such people are made so by others while being themselves children; and others do it to themselves for the benefit of everyone, and I KNOW you brought it up just so you could speak disgustedly about those people who don't get married or have kids, as if they were in sin -- which it couldn't be because God made some of them just as they are. So it can't be sinful simply to not get married or to have sex if you're not gonna have kids; not everyone needs to so just accept these people".

It was an attempt to paint queer people as sinful and Jesus picked a handful of classes of the queerest folks he could and pointed out how their existence caused no issues despite their not marrying.
 
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