Not desperation. Irritation. I couldn't care less if Paul was gay. Deliberate distortions of the truth, however, I do care about.
It's not a distortion, it is a conclusion you simply don't like, based on a variety of truths present both in the text and in general human nature. The evidence, sketchy as it is, is inconclusive; you yourself have been forced to admit this or use it as reasoning on a few occasions. Thus they are open to interpretation. This is simply an interpretation you don't like.
1) There is no indication that this was the "default proposal." The document clearly states that it is a procedure done only during a few specific days within a child's first two weeks. To call that the "default" anything is to cherry-pick what you want from the document and distort it.
Your cherry pick that it is ONLY for children has been debunked.
2) It is not at all rational to make arguments based on an absence of evidence. We know that people all over the world treat babies differently than adults. Culturally acceptable behavior around infants is certainly not necessarily culturally acceptable behavior around adults. You plucked one description which specifically prohibits this procedure for children after 12 days and then appiled it to an adult.
And you presume there is a separate procedure, simply because your modern pretext considers the idea of mouth suction on an adult, somehow distasteful [no pun intended] and so there MUST be another procedure. Yet, there isn't one in the texts. Not a single hint. All you people claiming I am biased sure seem to have your own personal biases about this idea stemming from what appears a rather puerile personal revulsion.
3) You also picked it out of a text written 400 years after Paul. There is no reason whatsoever to suppose the practice was the same.
Except the general obvious adherence to tradition by the Hebrews.
Neusner in particular (but hardly alone) began making it clear that later rabbinic texts could not readily projected onto first century judaism
No idea who that is, anecdotal citation claiming some generality that may or may not apply. Perhaps that wows 'em at the pub because they don't expect links in chat bubbles, but...
4) The procedure you describe is MEDICAL. You claimed it wasn't by citing herodotus, but herodotus says the exact opposite.
My error in one case, following a citation from Wiki, does not invalidate my main point, try again
Nothing in your argument is a rational, unbiased, or historical.
I demand you identify and specify the bias or cease libeling me, thank you
"The Talmud explains that the wound is suctioned in order to promote healing, but does not explain how the suctioning is to be performed; medieval Jewish authorities unanimously assume that the suctioning is to be done by the cirumciser by mouth, and the procedure was thus performed until the middle of the 19th century...but in the talmudic period the blood that was suctioned was not yet ideologically significant, nor was its treatment the subject of custom." From Professor Cohen's Why Aren't Jewish Women Circumcised (University of California Press, 2005).
Quick question: if medieval Hebrew scholars presumed the mouth suction was TRADITIONAL, they would then follow it, because tradition was important to them, true or false?
If 'true' then your demand that it is unlikely the process was traditional 200, or 400 years previously is obviously too weak to stand further. Because 600 years later it was suuuure important to them, that the tradition be observed, and followed. Also.... you're quoting a book on
female circumcision, what is the context of that citation?? In addition I would add that your quote, simply states that the blood was not itself treated in any customary way. In other words it was not 'sacred' blood so, this does not indicate it would be treated with any reverence. If anything that makes my point a bit more likely then or is at least a neutral fact vs my point, since the blood's being taken into the mouth wouldn't mean anything at all. it could be treated with or discarded in any manner.
Whether suction was performed by a sponge or one's mouth, or AT ALL in 1st century palestine isn't clear.
Not definitive, but evidence points that it WAS, because you still have zero evidence for your phantom homophobic 2nd procedure.
The Talmud (c. 500 CE) discusses the extraction/suction of blood, but not by mouth. Only in medieval Judaism was this believed to be the proper method. So you're reading a medieval interpretation of a text from c. 500 CE which explicitly states it shouldn't be performed after the age of 12 days into a scene from Acts, and then concluding that there is any indication whatsoever that Paul used this method or that it ever had homosexual implications.
Watch your wording: it does NOT state it is forbidden. Your tired little argument about the age restriction is obviously bogus and I simply won't consider it present again, no matter how often you repeat it. The date restrictions were for infants, but the procedure still had to be performed post-natal and this is clearly NOT the reason why the dates immediately after birth are cited. And again, the Mishnah is still 200 years. You seem to need to keep pushing the dates of mention, farther and farther into the future to bolster a sagging point.
