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Article: Circumcision
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood in History and Society
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Circumcision
Male circumcision is evidently both the oldest and the most widespread surgical operation. It was practiced among several ancient Near Eastern cultures, but scholars have differed as to which of these first introduced the practice and how it spread. According to the Bible (Genesis 27:24
–
25), the first individuals to be circumcised at God's command were Abraham, who performed the procedure upon himself at the age of ninety-nine, and his son Ishmael, who was thirteen when he entered the "covenant." Voltaire, however, in his 1764
Philosophical Dictionary
famously asserted that the Israelites had adopted circumcision from the Egyptians ("who revered the instrument of ...