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   ANNA is UTOPIA!! (anathema@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 00:46:38 JST ANNA is UTOPIA!!
   NOOOOOO
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     ANNA is UTOPIA!! (anathema@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 00:47:35 JST ANNA is UTOPIA!!

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     ITS OVER....
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     ANNA is UTOPIA!! (anathema@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 02:40:29 JST ANNA is UTOPIA!!

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     • Luna Lactea
     @jackemled for the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth comes knowledge & understanding
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     Luna Lactea (jackemled@furry.engineer)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 02:40:30 JST Luna Lactea

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     @anathema What the fuck were you supposed to do if you lost your balls in a fucked up farming accident or something? Like what if a cow kicked you in the crotch & your balls fell off the next day? You can't go to church because your cow was an asshole? what

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     luce !! (luce-anon@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:03:21 JST luce !!

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     • Luna Lactea
     @jackemled @anathema
     ok.... if you are actually curious to having an answer to your question then this is what i think of this passage.
     
     1. this law is a ceremonial law from the old covenant doesn't necessarily apply to christians anymore
     
     2. this law is definitely referring to somebody actively choosing to cut off their genitals for whatever reason and not an accident like the example you gave.
     
     3. if i had to guess this was one of many laws given to the israelites to help differentiate their people and their God and their ways of life from other pagans and gentiles around them. id imagine that maybe there were groups out there that were cutting off their genitals has some form of radical celibacy or something, which god did not want his people to be practicing.
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     Lizzie (lizzie@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:03:50 JST Lizzie

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     @anathema ah this is why the ethiopian eunuch was important in acts

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     lilli (lilli@social.xenofem.me)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:19:32 JST lilli

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     • Luna Lactea
     • luce !!
     @luce-anon @anathema @jackemled i agree with (1) but i think your reasoning is off for (2) and probably (3). for instance, in the direct next verse it's talking about people born of illegitimate offspring, or even the tenth generation of their children. that's definitely not voluntary
     
     the reasoning i've usually seen cited, and which i suspect is correct, is that it's a human equivalent of sacrifice laws. it's established in leviticus that sacrifices must be of male animals "without blemish," i.e. not castrated. the sacrifice must be of the highest quality in order to pay reverence to God, and a castrated animal was degraded. these offering laws had human parallels, such as in the principle of offering one's firstborn son to God established in Exodus, though ofc these would not be human sacrifices but living sacrifices where ppl were dedicated to God in some way (e.g. with the firstborn son bit, the consecration of the Levites was thought to fulfill it iirc, which i don't totally get since Levi was the third son, but whatever). to comprise the assembly of God out of an imperfect, castrated man would have been the equivalent of offering a castrated animal to God: an offensive impurity. for that reason i do not think whether it was voluntary or not mattered. it wouldn't have been seen as a moral failing to be castrated—since this is an issue of purity, not of offence—but Leviticus is full of cases which are moral but impure
     
     i also don't think groups self-castrating at this time is really well accounted for. radical celibacy was an issue in the early church, but that's anachronistic. eunuchs would have come about as servants of monarchs or accidentally in this period
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     Erato Heti (erato_heti@social.xenofem.me)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:19:41 JST Erato Heti

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     • Luna Lactea
     @jackemled @anathema god i wish that was me
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     Luna Lactea (jackemled@furry.engineer)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:20:08 JST Luna Lactea

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     • luce !!

     @luce-anon @anathema American Christians are weird.

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     luce !! (luce-anon@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:20:09 JST luce !!

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     • Luna Lactea
     @jackemled @anathema eeehhhh. not really. circumcision is a jewish law and the new testament makes it pretty clear that christians do not need to circumcise gentile converts or any reason and actually discourages it. some christians still circumcise anyways tho for non religious reasons.
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     Luna Lactea (jackemled@furry.engineer)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:20:10 JST Luna Lactea

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     • luce !!

     @luce-anon @anathema That makes sense. Christians do practice circumcision though.

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     lilli (lilli@social.xenofem.me)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:43:29 JST lilli

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     • luce !!
     @luce-anon @anathema i do think your third point is possible. there might have been known foreign religious cults which mandated castration for priests, probably less for "celibacy as a virtue" reasons than just as a symbol of devotion. so banning castrated men would have avoided admitting people defiled by other cults into the assembly, keeping Israel's cult religiously pure. but if that's true, i imagine it's true as a nice bonus to the sacrificial logic rather than the primary reason
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     luce !! (luce-anon@brain.worm.pink)'s status on Sunday, 24-Nov-2024 04:43:30 JST luce !!

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     • Luna Lactea
     • lilli
     @lilli @anathema @jackemled alright yeah this makes sense. i was just trying to give my 2 cents on what i thought of the passage meant from reading it over. my third point was simply a guess at why i thought a law like this would have been issued. your reasoning makes a lot more sense tho