Analysis of information sources in references of the Wikipedia article "Circumcision controversies" in English language version.
However, the practice is still common among Christians in the United States, Oceania, South Korea, the Philippines, the Middle East and Africa. Some Middle Eastern Christians actually view the procedure as a rite of passage.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)[permanent dead link]{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision
{{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Contact with Grecian life, especially at the games of the arena [which involved nudity], made this distinction obnoxious to the Hellenists, or antinationalists; and the consequence was their attempt to appear like the Greeks by epispasm ("making themselves foreskins"; I Macc. i. 15; Josephus, "Ant." xii. 5, § 1; Assumptio Mosis, viii.; I Cor. vii. 18; Tosef., Shab. xv. 9; Yeb. 72a, b; Yer. Peah i. 16b; Yeb. viii. 9a). All the more did the law-observing Jews defy the edict of Antiochus IV Epiphanes prohibiting circumcision (I Macc. i. 48, 60; ii. 46); and the Jewish women showed their loyalty to the Law, even at the risk of their lives, by themselves circumcising their sons.
it denounces all who after that time observe circumcision
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Unlike the Bible, there is not a lot of mention of circumcision in the Qur'an, but male circumcision is also deeply rooted in the Muslim tradition. Gollaher explains how "Muhammad is reported to have prescribed cutting the foreskin as a fitrah, a measure of personal cleanliness" (Gollaher, p. 45). Also, just as within the Jewish tradition, modern Muslims see this religious practice as not only morally but medically beneficial. A conference of Islamic scholars in 1987 stated that pro-circumcision medical studies "[reflect] the wisdom of the Islamic statements" (Gollaher, p. 47).
{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link)Contact with Grecian life, especially at the games of the arena [which involved nudity], made this distinction obnoxious to the Hellenists, or antinationalists; and the consequence was their attempt to appear like the Greeks by epispasm ("making themselves foreskins"; I Macc. i. 15; Josephus, "Ant." xii. 5, § 1; Assumptio Mosis, viii.; I Cor. vii. 18; Tosef., Shab. xv. 9; Yeb. 72a, b; Yer. Peah i. 16b; Yeb. viii. 9a). All the more did the law-observing Jews defy the edict of Antiochus IV Epiphanes prohibiting circumcision (I Macc. i. 48, 60; ii. 46); and the Jewish women showed their loyalty to the Law, even at the risk of their lives, by themselves circumcising their sons.
In the first half of the nineteenth century, various European governments considered regulating, if not banning, berit milah on the grounds that it posed potential medical dangers. In the 1840s, radical Jewish reformers in Frankfurt asserted that circumcision should no longer be compulsory. This controversy reachedRussia in the 1880s. Russian Jewish physicians expressed concern over two central issues: the competence of those carrying out the procedure, and the method used for metsitsah. Many Jewish physicians supported the idea of procedural and hygienic reforms in the practice, and they debated the question of physician supervision during the ceremony. Most significantly, many advocated carrying out metsitsah by pipette, not by mouth. In 1889, a committee on circumcision convened by the Russian Society for the Protection of Health, which included leading Jewish figures, recommended educating the Jewish public about the concerns connected with circumcision, in particular, the possible transmission of diseases such as tuberculosis and syphilis through the custom of metsitsah by mouth. Veniamin Portugalov, who—alone among Jewish physicians in Russia—called for the abolition of circumcision, set off these discussions. Portugalov not only denied all medical claims regarding the sanitary advantages of circumcision but disparaged the practice as barbaric, likening it to pagan ritual mutilation. Ritual circumcision, he claimed, stood as a self-imposed obstacle to the Jews'attainment of true equality with the other peoples of Europe.
{{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite news}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link){{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of July 2025 (link){{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)In the first half of the nineteenth century, various European governments considered regulating, if not banning, berit milah on the grounds that it posed potential medical dangers. In the 1840s, radical Jewish reformers in Frankfurt asserted that circumcision should no longer be compulsory. This controversy reachedRussia in the 1880s. Russian Jewish physicians expressed concern over two central issues: the competence of those carrying out the procedure, and the method used for metsitsah. Many Jewish physicians supported the idea of procedural and hygienic reforms in the practice, and they debated the question of physician supervision during the ceremony. Most significantly, many advocated carrying out metsitsah by pipette, not by mouth. In 1889, a committee on circumcision convened by the Russian Society for the Protection of Health, which included leading Jewish figures, recommended educating the Jewish public about the concerns connected with circumcision, in particular, the possible transmission of diseases such as tuberculosis and syphilis through the custom of metsitsah by mouth. Veniamin Portugalov, who—alone among Jewish physicians in Russia—called for the abolition of circumcision, set off these discussions. Portugalov not only denied all medical claims regarding the sanitary advantages of circumcision but disparaged the practice as barbaric, likening it to pagan ritual mutilation. Ritual circumcision, he claimed, stood as a self-imposed obstacle to the Jews'attainment of true equality with the other peoples of Europe.