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