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sexually very disadvantageous male genital mutilation (I am not saying that offensively, but that's what the circumcision means)...
May I BOASTFULLY but yet humbly correct you here... I am totally sure that you will be vehemently contradicted by my over 23 girlfriends and some more wives (I might have forgotten a few more) from about 10 countries on 6 continents (I never went to Antarctica.. sadly for the penguins). And now a century later I'm not as advantaged but yet occasionally I've had cause for more boasting.
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So God inspired the Israelites to implement sexually very disadvantageous male genital mutilation (I am not saying that offensively, but that's what the circumcision means), to set them apart from other nations and thus insulate their monotheism? That's a huge hit to take for Monotheism, which by now a huge chunk of the world accepts anyway, thus obviating a need for circumcision. So even if this ritual demand had major value back then in insulating monotheism, how can it be needed to insulate monotheism today? Couldn't such extreme, strict Monotheists just tattoo themselves instead, like the Copts do to block themselves from conversion to Islam?
The big problem with your premise that circumcision had anything to do with monotheism is that Egyptians and many other cultures have been practicing circumcision long before YHWH was invented.
History of male circumcision
Various reasons have been given for the adoption of circumcision as a practice in different cultures around the world. The oldest documentary evidence for circumcision comes from ancient Egypt. Circumcision was common, although not universal, among ancient Semitic peoples. In the aftermath of the conquests of Alexander the Great, however, Greek dislike of circumcision (they regarded a man as truly "naked" only if his prepuce was retracted) led to a decline in its incidence among many peoples that had previously practiced it.
Circumcision has ancient roots among several ethnic groups in sub-equatorial Africa, and is still performed on adolescent boys to symbolize their transition to warrior status or adulthood.[4]
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"The distribution of circumcision and initiation rites throughout Africa, and the frequent resemblance between details of ceremonial procedure in areas thousands of miles apart, indicate that the circumcision ritual has an old tradition behind it and in its present form is the result of a long process of development."[14]
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Sixth Dynasty (2345–2181 BCE) tomb artwork in Egypt has been thought to be the oldest documentary evidence of circumcision, the most ancient depiction being a bas-relief from the necropolis at Saqqara (c. 2400 BCE) with the inscriptions reading: "The ointment is to make it acceptable." and "Hold him so that he does not fall". In the oldest written account, by an Egyptian named Uha, in the 23rd century BCE, he describes a mass circumcision and boasts of his ability to stoically endure the pain: "When I was circumcised, together with one hundred and twenty men...there was none thereof who hit out, there was none thereof who was hit, and there was none thereof who scratched and there was none thereof who was scratched."
Circumcision has ancient roots among several ethnic groups in sub-equatorial Africa, and is still performed on adolescent boys to symbolize their transition to warrior status or adulthood.[4]
.....
"The distribution of circumcision and initiation rites throughout Africa, and the frequent resemblance between details of ceremonial procedure in areas thousands of miles apart, indicate that the circumcision ritual has an old tradition behind it and in its present form is the result of a long process of development."[14]
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Sixth Dynasty (2345–2181 BCE) tomb artwork in Egypt has been thought to be the oldest documentary evidence of circumcision, the most ancient depiction being a bas-relief from the necropolis at Saqqara (c. 2400 BCE) with the inscriptions reading: "The ointment is to make it acceptable." and "Hold him so that he does not fall". In the oldest written account, by an Egyptian named Uha, in the 23rd century BCE, he describes a mass circumcision and boasts of his ability to stoically endure the pain: "When I was circumcised, together with one hundred and twenty men...there was none thereof who hit out, there was none thereof who was hit, and there was none thereof who scratched and there was none thereof who was scratched."
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