¹ For discussion of this see Fiorenza, E. S., ‘Remembering the Past in Creating the Future: Historical-Critical Scholarship and Feminist Biblical Interpretation’, in Collins, A. Y., ed., Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (SBL; Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1985) 43–63, 44–8Google Scholar; ‘The Ethics of Biblical Interpretation: Decentering Biblical Scholarship’, JBL 107 (1988) 3–17.Google Scholar

² Justin's use of the phrase ‘eternal just enactments’ in 46.2 must be an ironical echo of his opponent's assessment.

³ Note, however, that the women are defined in terms of their menfolk who are the significant characters.

⁴ Justin's text here, in contrast to the LXX, aids his argument. In the LXX the text reads ‘every uncircumcised male who does not circumcise his uncircumcised flesh on the eighth day, that person shall be cut off from that race’. Justin uses the same text in Dial. 10.3.

⁵ Tertullian adv.Iud. 2.10–14 notes that Adam was not created circumcised (cf. Justin Dial. 19.3) and appeals to Abel, Noah, Enoch, Melchizedek and Lot who were pleasing to God before Abraham. Only Cyprian adds to these two arguments, ‘that sign does not benefit women’ (tune quod Mud signaculum feminis non proficit: adv. Iud. 1.8). Zeno of Verona does develop a contrast between Eve and Mary, who is both the source of salvation and a woman for whom physical circumcision was impossible; for him circumcision denotes not salvation but the ‘place and chief source of sin’ (locum caputque criminis monstrat: Tract. 1.3.8–9,19). For Aquinas this was why circumcision was limited to males (Dexinger, F., art. ‘Beschneidung: III. Nachtalmudisches Judentum’, TRE. 5. 722–4, 724)Google Scholar. Most commentators on Justin's use of the OT also ignore these arguments, an exception being Shotwell, W., The Biblical Exegesis of Justin Martyr (London: SPCK, 1963) 124–5.Google Scholar

⁶ There is a considerable bibliography on this: see Skarsaune, O., The Proof from Prophecy: a Study in Justin Martyr's Proof-text Tradition (NT.S 56; Leiden: Brill, 1987)Google Scholar; Hruby, K., ‘Exégèse rabbinique et exégèse patristique’, RSR 47 (1973) 341–69.Google Scholar

⁷ This applies explicitly to the argument from nature.

⁸ Recutita sabbata: in Stern, M., Greek and Latin Authors on Jews and Judaism (Jerusalem: Israel Acad. of Sci. & Hums., 1974–84) 1.436–7Google Scholar. Pagan authors are of course aware that the Jews were not alone in being circumcised, and some claim that the Jews adopted the practice from the Egyptians (so Herodotus Hist. 2.104.1–3; Diodorus Siculus Bibl.Hist. 1.28.3; (Origen) c.Cels. 1.22; = Stern, Authors 1.2,169; 2.233).

⁹ See Marcus, J., ‘The Circumcision and the Uncircumcision’, NTS 35 (1989) 67–81, 73–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁰ Strabo Geog. 16.2.37; 4.9; 17.2.5 (Stern, Authors 1.300, 312, 315). Έκτέμνειν is used of women.

¹¹ See Wegner, J. R., Chattel or Person. The Status of Women in the Mishnah (New York: OUP, 1988) 146–59Google Scholar; see further below, pp. 367–8.

¹² In the post-Talmudic period the epithet referred to a non-Jewish woman, sometimes to a Christian as opposed to a Moslem.

¹³ See mNed 3.11: ‘uncircumcised is used as a name for the gentiles’ and so is inapplicable to an uncircumcised Israelite but is applicable to a circumcised gentile. Here there is no reference to women.

¹⁴ others disagree because a woman is not ‘ subject to the observance’ (: Gen 17.9); the similar argument in bHull 4b as to who may perform shechita offers no parallel to the place of women.

¹⁵ Only extant in the Armenian. The LXX renders the subject πν ρσενικόν.

¹⁶ Philo is not alone in linking circumcision with procreation; Gen.Rabb. 46.4 makes a direct link because God's covenant with Abraham included the promise of progeny. When Josephus says the purpose of circumcision was to prevent mixing he too may be making this sort of connection but with a view to the prohibition of intermarriage.

¹⁷ In Gen.Rabb. 11.6 the same question is asked by a philosopher, in Pes.Rab. 23.4 on Exod 20.10 by a pagan, and the questions by Aquila and the Roman matron are added.

¹⁸ See O. Skarsaune, Proof from Prophecy, 294, 70–2 who argues that Justin is developing earlier polemic.

¹⁹ Gen.Rabb. 46.5; the argument is repeated at 46.13 in the name of R. Isaac, a fourth-generation Tanna, and so contemporary with R. Judah. It is there followed by a reference to those who disguise their circumcision with specific mention of those who did so in the time of ‘ben Kozebah’.

²⁰ Justin, dependent on the Greek, believes it to be a matter of an additional a for Abraham, and p for Sarah.

²¹ So Friedländer, M., Patristische und Talmudische Studien (Wien, 1878) 96–9Google Scholar; K. Hruby, ‘Exégèse rabbinique’, 348–50, neither of whom refer to the ‘female’ argument.

²² See Skarsaune, Proof from Prophecy, 293–5, 324–6. The revolt is explicitly mentioned in Gen.Rabb. 46.13 (see n. 19) and forms a significant undercurrent to Justin's Dialogue.

²³ Geog. 16.2.37 = Stern. Authors 1.295.

²⁴ So Cohen, S., ‘Respect for Judaism by Gentiles according to Josephus’, HThR 80 (1987) 409–30, 430Google Scholar; ‘The Origins of the Matrilineal Principle in Rabbinic Law’, AJSR 10 (1985) 19–53, 53.Google Scholar

²⁵ Cohen, So, ‘Crossing the Boundary and Becoming a Jew’, HThR 82 (1989) 13–33Google Scholar; in Philo de Virt. 39.219–40.220 Abraham is the standard of proselytes, Tamar, who joined by marriage, the prime example of women who moved from darkness to light. On inscriptional evidence from Cyrenaica of possible slave women who have become Jewish through adoption see Lüderitz, G., Corpus jüdischer Zeugnisse aus der Cyrenaika (mit einem Anhang von Joyce Reynolds; BzTAVO B53, Wiesbaden: Reichert, 1983)Google Scholar nos. 12, 31d, 43c.

²⁶ See Brooten, B., Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue (BJS 36; Chico, Calif.: Scholars, 1982) 144–7.Google Scholar

²⁷ It is interesting that the text already discussed, Genesis Rabbah (46.10), tells the story of Monobases and Izates who circumcise themselves on reading Gen 17.11. Rabbinic sources know of Helena's piety but not of her conversion. On the impossibility of harmonising Josephus and the Rabbinic traditions see Schiffman, L., ‘The Conversion of the Royal House of Adiabene in Josephus and Rabbinic Sources’, in Feldman, L. & Hata, G., ed., Josephus, Judaism and Christianity (Leiden: Brill, 1987) 293–312Google Scholar. Schiffman suggests that Josephus' account may stem from propaganda designed to affirm the validity of the House of Adiabene's conversion against doubts by Jews of Nisibis (307).

²⁸ Josephus appears to treat the Roman Fulvia as a proselyte (νομίμοις προσεληλυθυîαν τοîς Ίουδαϊκοîς) but the construction of the sentence obscures the relation between her becoming such and her meeting the three charlatans who duped her (Ant. 18.3.5 [81–4]). Presumably she was not included in the subsequent exclusion of Jews from Rome. The women of Damascus who according to B. J. 2.20.2 (559–61) ‘had gone over to Jewish worship’ (ύπηγμένας τῇ Ίουδϊκῇ θρησκεία) are unlikely all to have been proselytes. See Cohen, ‘Respect for Judaism’, 417, 420.

²⁹ Goodman, M., ‘Proselytising in Rabbinic Judaism’, JJS 40 (1989) 175–85Google Scholar; ‘Jewish Proselytizing in the First Century’, in J. Lieu, J. North, T. Rajak, ed., The Jews among Pagans and Christians in the Roman Empire (London: Routledge, 1992) 53–78Google Scholar; Cohen, S., ‘The Rabbinic Conversion Ceremony’, JJS 41 (1990) 177–203Google Scholar, who argues that the needs of women may have been one of the factors in prompting a structured ceremony.

³⁰ bYeb. 47a. For the date see Cohen, ‘Rabbinic Conversion Ceremony’, 186–7.

³¹ However, the propriety of arguing ‘from the impossible’, i.e. from the non-circumcision of the women, is contested.

³² He acknowledges his dependency on the ‘old man’ to whom he owed his conversion. In ch. 46, which introduces the righteous women, discussion centres on those aspects of the Law which can be observed in the post-destruction situation and also considers those who believe in Jesus and adhere to the Law. These too might be seen as loosely ‘missionary’ situations.

³³ Generally, the literature of the period shows no consistent way of dealing with Sarah and the others, even when rewriting or commenting on the Genesis narratives. However, in some traditions Abraham and Sarah convert proselytes – Abraham the men and Sarah the women – on the basis of an exegesis of Gen 12.5 where Abraham brings to Canaan ‘those whom they had made’ (Gen.Rabb. 39.14 in the name of R. Hunia). Among the proselytes who take the name ‘Sarah’ should be noted Beturia Paucla who died at the age of 86 after 16 years as a proselyte and whom the communities of Campus and Bolumnus honoured as ‘mother of the synagogue’ (CIJ 523). Sarah is the third most popular female name in surviving Jewish sources, and the most popular one to be found in both Palestine and the Diaspora: see Mayer, G., Die jüdische Frau in der hellenistisch-römischen Antike (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1987) 41–2.Google Scholar

³⁴ The implicit exclusion of women was one of the arguments forwarded against the maintenance of circumcision: see Holdheim, S., Geschichte der Entstehung und Entwicklung der jüdischen Reformgemeinde in Berlin (Berlin, 1857)Google Scholar. Plaskow, J., ‘Bringing a Daughter into the Covenant’, in Christ, C. & Plaskow, J., ed., Womanspirit Rising (New York: Harper & Row, 1979) 179–84Google Scholar charts the attempt to develop parallel rites for girls to affirm their place in the covenant. See also Archer, L., Her Price Is beyond Rubies (JSOT.S 60; Sheffield, 1990) 29–34.Google Scholar

³⁵ Peritz, I., ‘Women in the Ancient Hebrew Cult’, JBL 17 (1898) 111–48, 136Google Scholar argued that originally both men and women were circumcised; see also Winter, U., Frau und Göttin (Freiburg & Göttingen: V. & R., 1983) 44–6Google Scholar. For circumcision as symbolising supplanting see Teubal, S., Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis (Athens, Ohio: Swallow, 1984)Google Scholar; Lemer, G., The Creation of Patriarchy (New York & Oxford: OUP, 1986) 190–3Google Scholar; Delaney, C., ‘The Legacy of Abraham’, in Bal, M., ed., Anti-Covenant. Counter-Reading Women's Lives in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Almond, 1989) 27–41Google Scholar who notes parallels with the Kronos myth in the (almost-) sacrifice of the son, the ‘castration’, and the establishment of a new religion.

³⁶ See Brooten, B., ‘Judinnen zur Zeit Jesu’, ThQ 161 (1981) 281–5Google Scholar who shows that Christian misreading of the sources is often also involved in claims that women were severely restricted in their participation in religious life; eadem, Women Leaders in the Ancient Synagogue. It is also important to distinguish between the expectations of male-authored legal sources, the situations implied by narrative or prophecy, and the realities of women's experience, see Bird, P., ‘Images of Women in the Old Testament’, in Gottwald, N., ed., The Bible and Liberation (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1983) 252–88Google Scholar. However, see also p. 361 and n. 11 above.

³⁷ Both quotations come from the debate over the ordination of women to the priesthood: 1972 ACCM Report on ‘The Ordination of Women to the Priesthood’ quoted in J. Field Bibb, Women Towards Priesthood (Cambridge: CUP, 1991) 108Google Scholar; Thrall, M., The Ordination of Women to the Priesthood: A Study of the Biblical Evidence (London: SCM, 1958) 44Google Scholar. See also Muddiman, J. & G., Women, the Bible and the Priesthood (London: MOW, 1984) 3Google Scholar who speak of only adult males being properly members; also the more nuanced discussion of Hayter, M., The New Eve in Christ. The Use and Abuse of the Bible in the Debate about Women in the Church (London: SPCK, 1987) 67–70Google Scholar who sees a development by which women lost theological status ‘in later Judaism’, and argues that it was women's susceptibility to regular uncleanness which excluded them from eligibility for the priesthood.

³⁸ Fiorenza, E. Schüssler, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (London: SCM, 1983) 210Google Scholar; Witherington, B. III, Women in the Ministry of Jesus (SNTS.MS 51; Cambridge: CUP, 1984) 127Google Scholar offers a similar argument. It is easy to see how this can then be used to justify a female ministry in the Christian church which has transcended the Law.

³⁹ This has been rarely asked, but see Portefaix, L., Sisters Rejoice. Paul's Letter to the Philippians and Luke–Acts as Received by First-Century Philippian Women (CB.NTSer 20; Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell, 1988) 136Google Scholar, who argues that circumcision would present women with both anxiety and added tension within a mixed marriage. That in some settings women were treated on equal terms with men, probably in Corinth and even in Paul's assumption of mutual responsibility in 1 Cor 7, is not being denied here. However, the impulses behind this are less clear and are not related to the debates over circumcision.

⁴⁰ See the articles by Teubal, Lemer and Delaney cited above in n. 35. On the necessity of the shedding of blood in circumcision see Vermes, G., ‘Circumcision and Exodus IV.24–26’, in Scripture and Tradition in Judaism (SPB 4; Leiden: Brill, 1973) 178–92Google Scholar, who argues that the Pauline association of baptism with sacrifice through participation in the sacrificial death of Christ is a development from the Jewish doctrine of circumcision. L. Archer has recently attempted to present as the ‘flip-side’ of male circumcision the woman's involuntary, ‘natural’ shedding of blood, blood which is deemed impurity and which excludes her from participation in the sacred and in some senses from the community, thus reinforcing the private as her proper sphere: ‘Bound by Blood: Circumcision and Menstrual Taboo in Post-Exilic Judaism’, in J. M. Soskice, ed., After Eve. Women, Theology and the Christian Tradition (London: Marshall Pickering, 1990) 38–61Google Scholar; eadem, , ‘“In Thy Blood Live”: Gender and Ritual in the Judaeo-Christian Tradition’, in Joseph, A., ed., Through the Devil's Gateway: Women, Religion and Taboo (London: SPCK, 1990) 22–49Google Scholar. Although there are problems with her analysis, an examination of the fate of menstrual taboos within Christianity would be revealing; see Cohen, S., ‘Menstruants and the Sacred in Judaism and Christianity’, in Pomeroy, S., ed., Women's History and Ancient History (Chapel Hill & London: Univ. of N. Carolina, 1991) 273–99Google Scholar; Wendebourg, D., ‘Die alttestamentlichen Reinheitsgesetze in der frühen Kirche’, ZKG 95 (1984) 149–70, 159, 164–7.Google Scholar

⁴¹ There is nothing to suggest that Justin himself recognized the implications of his own argument.

⁴² For a careful analysis and argument that the text does mean what it appears to mean see Porter, S., ‘What Does It Mean to Be “Saved by Childbirth” (1 Timothy 2.15)’, JSNT 49 (1993) 87–102.Google Scholar