(March 31, 2019 at 4:46 pm)Ashwin39 Wrote: This is a bit strange .
I thought if Jesus Christ was Circumcised , The followers of Jesus should be Circumcised too .
I am not sure when this tradition changed .
I will have to read more .
This is an example of the big changes that happened when Christianity got started.
At the very beginning the disciples were Jewish, and there was some discussion about how much followers of Christ had to keep Jewish law. If you read the New Testament looking for examples of this, you see that there are several cases. In the gospels, Jesus himself says that Jewish diet laws don't count any more. Then in Paul there are other examples.
If you want to be practical and a bit cynical, you can say that it's easier to get new followers when the rules are easier. Roman people really liked seafood.
On the other hand, the Christian movement is a kind of internalization. The specific laws that used to apply get turned into more general rules like "love everybody" or "the law isn't in a book it's in your heart." In a way this is more difficult, because it's easier to go through a checklist of rules than to be confident that you have actually loved your neighbor.
(All of this is what Christians say. Obviously, Jews will have a different explanation about what the rules mean.)
One way I think of it: when your child is six years old, it doesn't make sense to say to him "be careful." He doesn't know what "careful" is. So you say specific things like "don't talk to strangers," "come straight home," etc. When he's older you can say things like "be good" and he'll know a little better what that means.
