Friday, September 20, 2019

A Note on Galatians 5:12


Gal 5:12 in the KJV reads:

I would they [the Judaizers] were even cut off which trouble you.

The KJV seems to be downplaying the euphemism in the Greek, although it has been captured rather well (and graphically . . .) by modern translations. For instance, the NRSV reads:

I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!

The NASB reads:

I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves.

The Greek translated "cut off" is ἀναστατοῦντες, the present active nominative masculine plural of αναστατοω ("to stir up/disturb/upset"). Paul is using a hyperbole of circumcision. Since the Judaizers were insistent that one had to be circumcised first before becoming a member of the New Covenant, Paul wishes for the knife to slip and that they would cut off their entire member entirely, becoming "eunuchs for the [false] kingdom" they wished to establish in Galatia.

As the NET notes:

Or "make eunuchs of themselves"; Grk "cut themselves off." This statement is rhetorical hyperbole on Paul's part. It does strongly suggest, however, that Paul's adversaries in this case ("those agitators") were men. Some interpreters (notably Erasmus and the Reformers) have attempted to soften the meaning to a figurative "separate themselves" (meaning the opponents would withdraw from fellowship) but such an understanding dramatically weakens the rhetorical force of Paul's argument. Although it has been argued that such an act of emasculation would be unthinkable for Paul, it must be noted that Paul's statement is one of biting sarcasm, obviously not meant to be taken literally.

As F.F. Bruce noted:

Ὄφελον with the future indicative expresses an attainable wish: ‘Would that they would …!’ As for the middle of ἀποκόπτω, there is little doubt that Paul means ‘they had better go the whole way and make eunuchs of themselves!’ (NEB)—or rather ‘have themselves made eunuchs’. A eunuch is called ἀποκεκομμένος in Dt. 23:1 (LXX), where he is debarred from the ἐκκλησία κυρίου. Several commentators since R Bentley, Critica Sacra, ed. A. A. Ellis (Cambridge, 1862), 48, have noted the verbal parallel in Dio Cassius, Hist. 80 (79).11, where ἀποκόπτειν completes the process which begins with περιτέμνειν. Greek commentators regularly understood Paul’s language thus; the Latins operated with a more ambiguous form of words, like Vg. utinam et abscindantur qui vos conturbant (cf. AV ‘I would they were even cut off which trouble you’). Some more recent commentators (e.g. H. N. Ridderbos, Galatians, 194f.) have noted that Pessinus, in North Galatia, was the centre of the cult of Cybele, who was served by galli, emasculated priests; but there is no need to posit such an allusion here. Elsewhere Paul demotes literal circumcision to the status of mere mutilation, κατατομή (Phil. 3:2), reserving the sacral term περιτομή for those who ‘worship by the Spirit of God’ (Phil. 3:3). (F.F. Bruce, The Epistle to the Galatians: A Commentary on the Greek Text [New International Greek Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1982], 238)

This is not the only instance of euphemistic language in the Bible and other ancient literature. In an email sent to the University of Chicago ANE digest email list from 17 February 1998, John Tvedtnes wrote:

 . . . we should note that the names of other body parts are sometimes used euphemistically for the sexual organs. Thus, Gordon noted that the word for hand, yd, is used for "phallus" in Ugaritic (Ugaritic Texts 408-409), as also in Mandaic and in the Hebrew of Isaiah 57:8  see Cyrus H. Gordon, review of E. S. Drower, The Book of the Zodiac, in Orientalia 20 (1951):507).  The same is perhaps true of the Manual of Discipline (1QS VII.15-16) from Qumran.  There are other examples from Semitic languages of various body parts being used to designate the sexual organs.  E.g., Leslau lists Akkadian išdu, "leg with posterior" (see CAD 7:235a, Muss-Arnoldt 113b, UT 394, BDB 78a) and notes that it is related to South Arabic šît.  The latter, while generally also meaning "posterior" (e.g., in Šh.auri) is "penis" in Mehri while in the Yemenite form ist, it means "pudenda" (Wolf Leslau, "The Parts of the Body in the Modern South Arabic Languages," Language 21 [1945]: 237), which we can compare to Arabic 'išt, "podex or anus, or signifying the former, and sometimes used as meaning the latter" (Lane 56b).  In the same article (page 242), Leslau lists Šh.auri gibb, "pudenda," saying that "the  Šh.auri gibb might perhaps be compared with H.ad.r[amaut] ga'ba, ‘buttock.'" In another article ("South East Semitic [Ethiopic and South Arabic]," JAOS 63 [1943]: 12), he lists Soqot.ri berberoh, Gurage bärrä, "thigh," and adds, "on the relation between this root and the Omani and Datina barbur, ‘penis', see Leslau, Lex. Soq. 94."  In the same article, he lists the following lexical items (page 13), noting that the root also exists in Cushitic: Soqot.ri qenther, "vulva," Tigrina qent.ar, "clitoris," Tigre qänt.irat, Amharic qint.är, Hariri kintir, Gurage qent.er.  Unfortunately, Leslau did not indicate whether he believed there may be a connection between qnt.r and qn, "horn."  Cf. Galla kontoro, "penis" (Foot, p. 37a), and Somali kintir, "clitoris" (Abraham 151b).  We might also note that the non-Semitic Hittite word hurnius may mean "arms" or "penis," according to E. H. Sturtevant, Hittite Glossary (Baltimore: Waverly Press; supplement to Language, Language Monographs No. IX, June 1931), 25.  In my paper, "New Light on Job 16:15," presented at last year's regional SBL meeting, I gave evidence that the word qeren (qarni) in that passage refers to the penis.

For more, see, for e.g., the entry "Bible, Euphemism, and Dysphemism in the" by Marvin Pope in the Anchor Bible Dictionary, volume 1, pp. 720-25