According to the testimony provided by the gospels, Jesus told some interesting tall- tales. Johnny Divine says Jesus said, "Moses therefore gave unto you circumcision; (not because it is of Moses, but of the fathers;) and ye on the sabbath day circumcise a man [John 7:22]." This is utter nonsense. Moses had nothing– other than resistance against it– to do with circumcision, according to all his own historical records in the canon. Yet Johnny Divine goes on in the next verse to say Jesus called circumcision a statute of Moses' law.
In John 7:23, John says Jesus said, "If a man on the sabbath day receive circumcision, that the law of Moses should not be broken; are ye angry at me, because I have made a man every whit whole on the sabbath day?" This, again, is utter nonsense. Circumcision came, not by the law of Moses, but (according to this same Moses) by commandment of the LORD (Genesis 17:10), to Abraham: long before Moses was born. In fact, according to the testimony of Joshua, not one of the annual passovers observed in the children of Israel's forty- year sojourn in the wilderness was observed-- according to the law--: thanks to Moses' abhorrence of circumcision.
Moses says the LORD told him, "This is the ordinance of the passover:... no uncircumcised person shall eat thereof [Exodus 12:44b - 47]." Yet Joshua writes, "4 And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise [at Gilgal; after Moses' death, and the crossing of the Jordan]:... all the people that came out [of Egypt] were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised.[Joshua 5:4 & 5]." According to this witness– contrary to what Johnny Divine says Jesus said– Moses obviously took circumcision (which was practiced by all in Egypt) away.
Moses didn't even circumcise his own children– at peril of his own life–: his wife had to circumcise Moses' child, to save Moses' life. Moses, in his own ruminations, testifies: "24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met [Moses], and sought to kill him. 25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me. 26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision [Exodus 4:24 - 26]."
It could be claimed that Moses gave the Jews a more necessary circumcision than that of the flesh, given a thing he wrote and alluded to a number of times in his pentateuch. One example of Moses' treatment of this 'more- necessary- circumcision' is found in Deuteronomy 10:16: "Circumcise therefore the foreskin of your heart, and be no more stiffnecked." However, in another passage, Moses' says the LORD God– who would rather skin Moses than to skin the dick of Moses' son– is the surgeon who so skins the heart.
In Moses' final address to the children of confusion before his death on the east side of the Jordan, Moses tells the confused that, when they fall upon apostasy and consequently repent: "the LORD thy God will circumcise thine heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live [Deuteronomy 30:6]." This doctrine espouses rebellion in favor of reformation by the hand of another who does more reliable work than their own, in light of the Jews' inability to circumcise their own hearts.
Also, if Moses propounded and practiced circumcision of any sort: why did the children of Israel abide in a continual state of apostasy under Moses' leadership? In the farewell address which constitutes the book of Deuteronomy, Moses bears witness of the state of Israel's apostasy under his direction, saying: "Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes [Deuteronomy 12:8]." This echoes the summation of the apostasy of the Hebrews in the times of the judges.
The book of Judges says of the apostasy prevalent under the judges, "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes [Judges 21:25, et. al.]"; putting the blame for their apostasy on their lack of a king; but, even when "Moses… was king in Jeshurun [Deuteronomy 33:5a]," they all did whatsoever was right in their own eyes– not whatsoever Moses told them to.
In fact, Moses prophesied false in respect of observance of the law, generally (of which circumcision is only a small part held over from the traditions preceding Moses), when he said "Ye shall not do after all the things that we do here this day, every man whatsoever is right in his own eyes [Deuteronomy 12:8]." The witness of scripture refutes this assertion entirely: to the end that, Jeremiah, (in the time of the kingdom's utter dissolution) writes, "...all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart [Jeremiah 9:26i]." Apparently the heart of a Jew not even the LORD can circumcise. If, as Johnny Divine says, Jesus said "Moses… gave unto you circumcision": Jesus obviously lied like the Devil.
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