Matthew 19:12 {Gideon's}

[Burdizzo Bill (imported)]

But getting back to Matt. 19:12, Jesus didn't advocate castration, He was simply stating why some men castrate themselves. Had he truly advocated the practice, Christianity would have eventually died out like the Skoptics. Did you know that there is a website of a Christian man named Bill, who used a "burdizzo" to castrate himself? Ask him and he will tell you. www.burdizzocastration.com Hash

Isaiah 56:3-12, which is part of Isaiah's prophecy of the coming of Christ, explains that an Eunuch is certainly entitled to any of Christianity's gifts. However, most scholars believe the word Eunuch in this passage, refers to men who have chosen to remain childless voluntarily - not men who have actually been castrated. I do not know why the scholars have this opinion.

Christianity is based on FAITH. As a Christian we are expected to use our faith to combat our problems. I believe that he who has a problem with controlling his sex drive is expected to solve that problem with his faith - not with castration. However, I also do not believe that he who has been castrated is excluded.

2 Corinthians 12:7 Demonstrates that even Paul suffered from "a thorn in the flesh" and just what that thorn was, is left to our imagination. (But since this "thorn" comes from Satan, I have always suspected it was related to sex drive.) In verse 12:8 Paul asks God for help; in 12:9 God explains that Paul's weakness serves God's purpose. In other words - God would not take this "thorn" from Paul.

1 Corinthians 7:9 explains that those who cannot control their sex drive should marry. It does not say they should castrate themselves.

I do agree that Matt. 18:8 seems clear - and certainly if all else has failed it would seem to apply. But the Bible seems to have clearer solutions to sex drive problems, than castration.

After I consider all the input, I do not believe the Bible either advocates or condemns castration. Mat 19:11 "But he said unto them, All men cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given." I believe that this tells us that we may have different opinions and that no one is wrong. A Christian must consult Jesus via prayer and meditation. Each of us could get different answers to the same questions.

As far as established religion is concerned - most particularly the Catholic Church - these institutions are more concerned with furthering themselves than with furthering Christianity. So do not look at the church for an answer - look at the Bible. There you will get the answer that is correct for YOU.

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Yes I am the same Bill from the web site and the documentary. I lurk here, and since I seldom have something interesting to say I seldom post. Finishing my castration killed my sex drive and in doing so most of the effort required to put my piercing back in also left. So yes, I am pierced and I seldom wear the piercing now.

[Paolo]

Nice to see you post bill, and bravo for being in the documentary.

[truly committed (imported)]

hey Bill, sorry u confused me for a bit

[Burdizzo Bill (imported)]

Nice to see you post bill, and bravo for being in the documentary.

Thank you Paulo ... have you seen the documentary yet? I have not.

[Burdizzo Bill (imported)]

Im torn between what i believe in God...Im not sure if i can believe anything thats written in that book anymore....

What's written in the Bible is exactly what you can believe. What you need to be careful of is the things people tell you without telling you the specific biblical reference. People tend to twist the words of the Bible into whatever they want them to mean ... as you also observed.

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No harm done about being confused for a bit ... and thank you for the complimentary things you said about me!

[A-1 (imported)]

Of the list all of the things that people do to themselves that God might worry about I would place castration near the bottom. I can't give a lot of examples but word is that the Prophet Daniel was a Eunuch.

Matters of love and justice are so much more important. The point being that if sex is getting in the way of the weightier matters, well, really, it does not matter much if you lose it (sex) in some manner. What way it is lost is of little concern except for the fact that you have made a sacrifice for spirituality.

The problem is when you let sex become your GOD and become the only thing that you care about.

...that's when the problems come...

[Burdizzo Bill (imported)]

Of the list all of the things that people do to themselves that God might worry about I would place castration near the bottom. I can't give a lot of examples but word is that the Prophet Daniel was a Eunuch.

I don't think castration would even make the list depending on the rest of what someone does with their life. Galatians 5:19-23.

People think Daniel was an eunuch because he was below the Prince of Eunuchs in his captor's house. But Daniel, as a royal captive, was probably not castrated, he was a captive, not a slave. The price of eunuchs just was the guy in charge of the household and royal prisoners were just another part of the household. Daniel chapter 1.

The problem is when you let sex become your GOD and become the only thing that you care about.

...that's when the problems come...

Matthew

12:43 When the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walks through dry places seeking rest, and finds none.

12:44 Then he said, I will return into my house from where I came out. And when he has come, he finds it empty, swept, and decorated.

12:45 Then he goes and takes with him seven other spirits more evil than himself, and they enter in and live there. And the last state of that man is worse than the first.

[JesusA (imported)]

People think Daniel was an eunuch because he was below the Prince of Eunuchs in his captor's house. But Daniel, as a royal captive, was probably not castrated, he was a captive, not a slave. The price of eunuchs just was the guy in charge of the household and royal prisoners were just another part of the household. Daniel chapter 1.

The Book of Daniel itself was written long after the Babylonian exile (586 BCE) that it describes. It is usually dated to about 165 – 164 BCE, making it the last-written book to be included in the Hebrew canon.

What is important, though, is that the author of Daniel attributed to him a governmental position that was reserved for eunuchs, as all contemporary readers of the text would have known. While there are, of course, some theologians who deny that Daniel (if he really existed) had been castrated, most of those whom I have read agree that he would have been a eunuch. His three companions are generally agreed by all but Sunday school textbook writers (and the illustrators of children’s books) to have been castrated.

While I haven’t found anything good about Babylonian eunuchs yet, the following bits about eunuchs during the Assyrian period may be of use to understand the historical context of the Book of Daniel.

Eunuchs were common enough in Assyrian government administration that over half of all the seals (for signing documents) found from the Assyrian Empire can be clearly attributed to eunuch official owners. In the ancient world, eunuchs were produced both by cutting and by crushing of the testicles. An educated guess would be that the first systematic castration of humans for use as eunuchs in ancient Sumeria was by cutting. The same term is used both for what was done to small boys and what was done to large animals.

By the time of the Assyrian Empire, both methods were in use. Cutting was clearly the method of choice for judicial punishments. The words used for castration as a punishment (ana sa resen turru – diacritial marks removed for VBulletin use) were related to those used for punishments involving cutting off ears, nose, and tongue. The sa resen part is clearly related to the most common Assyrian word for eunuch, sa resi. Sa resi is also cognate with the Hebrew and Aramaic words for eunuch, saris which is found throughout the Bible (often translated as something else by prudish theologians), though its meaning is clear to any who understand the original language.

For eunuch court officials, the more common term for the castration itself was marruru. The word meant both ‘to castrate’ and ‘to inspect to see whether someone had been properly castrated’, which was the duty of an examination board for new eunuchs accepted into the court. Marruru is clearly related to the words maraqu, ‘to crush’, and marasu, ‘to squash flat’. The court eunuchs were mostly castrated before puberty and were mostly “volunteers” – the younger and non-inheriting sons of nobility – who sought to achieve social status through their castration. Or, more likely, whose parents wanted to ensure that they didn’t contest with the eldest son for inheritance rights. Some court officials were probably castrated by cutting, especially those older boys who arrived as tribute from the frontier conquests or who arrived as foreign hostages, such as the Old Testament prophet Daniel and his three companions.

That Daniel and his companions were eunuchs was generally accepted in the Middle Ages, though modern Sunday School teachers might deny it. Here is a link to an illuminated manuscript depicting [http://www.biblical-art.com/artwork.asp ... ll#artwork]Nebuchadnezzar has Jewish youths castrated[/url].

There seems to be even less dispute over the prophet Nehemiah, who is assumed to have been a court eunuch by every theologian whose works I have read. Eunuchs were very common in the ancient world.

[Hash (imported)]

It's also believed that "Potiphar" was a eunuch (Gen. 39). Potiphar is called an officer/official and the Hebrew word that's used is "cariyc {saw-reece'} or caric {saw-reece'}" means "eunuch." Potiphar was Joseph's master, Potiphar's wife tried to entice Joseph to go to bed with her (sexual implications), but he refused and was then thrown into jail. It may have been that Potiphar had himself castrated so that he could be promoted as an official in the kings court. That would mean he could no longer satisfy his wife's sexual needs, hence, her desire to go to bed with Joseph.

[JesusA (imported)]

It's also believed that "Potiphar" was a eunuch (Gen. 39).... It may have been that Potiphar had himself castrated so that he could be promoted as an official in the kings court. That would mean he could no longer satisfy his wife's sexual needs, hence, her desire to go to bed with Joseph.

Through most of history, eunuchs (other than slaves) were allowed to marry. Many of them adopted children – frequently young eunuchs – to carry on their “family” line. This was especially true of the Chinese eunuchs and eunuchs in the Arab world. It was only in the Christian areas where marriage was forbidden. Beginning in the Middle Ages, procreation was seen as the sole purpose of marriage, and those who could not procreate were forbidden to marry. Charles d'Ancillon’s 1707 treatise Traité des Eunuques is essentially a legal brief commissioned by the Catholic Church to answer the question of whether or not castrati should be allowed to marry. His answer was “no,” because of their inability to procreate.

When I was teaching at a Korean university in 1978, I briefly met the person who was supposedly the last eunuch castrated to serve in the Yi Dynasty court. He had been an 8 year-old orphan and was castrated shortly before the Japanese occupation of the country. I met him through his adopted son, a businessman whom I knew but slightly. At the time, I was not interested and found out very little about him or his background.

Sir Richard Burton, in one of the many footnotes to his translation of The Thousand Nights and a Night, discusses the active sexuality of married eunuchs in Arabia some of whom had been castrated before puberty. (None of it involved penetrative sex.)