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By Robert Chandler, December 24, 2011 3:04 AM

It’s Christmas Eve and a young(ish) man’s thoughts turn to Jesus’ foreskin. Seriously. The Christian savior’s sliced sleeve has a huge following beyond the usual fetishists. The holy hood has been sought after, prayed to and has been the subject of debate for hundreds of years. I can’t remember when I first came across this story. It may have been while reading Bud Berkeley’s excellent book,  Foreskin: A Closer Look.

Here are some facts from around the web:

Free Thought Blogs tells us some astute theologian — or was it a businessman? — realized that not all of Jesus’ body could have been actually transported up to Heaven. Jesus was, after all, a faithful Jew, and as such, he would have been circumcised like every other boy. So where was his foreskin? Whatever happened to that bit of divine flesh? And thus began a search for a very odd “Holy Grail” which resulted in not one, but up to a dozen different holy foreskins, each competing to be the genuine article. Of course, one presumes that they could not all be genuine and I am not aware of anyone who tried to argue that the unusual bounty was a miracle akin to the loaves and fishes.

Slate.com asks, “Did the Vatican steal Jesus’ foreskin so people would shut up about the savior’s penis?” They go on to explain, the relic had a strange history. It was discovered in Calcata in 1557, and a series of miracles soon followed (freak storms, perfumed mists engulfing the village). The church gave the finding a seal of approval by offering a 10-year indulgence to those who came to venerate. Lines of pilgrims stretched from the church doors to beyond the walls of the fortress town. Nuns and monks from nearby villages and monasteries made candlelit processions. Calcata was a must-see destination on the pilgrimage map. These folks love foreskin!

Always useful Wikipedia has a whole entry for the Holy Prepuce. (Maybe that’s what I should have named this site.) They inform us that the Feast of the Circumcision of Christ, [is] still celebrated by many churches around the world, accordingly falls on January 1. They go on, According to the author David Farley, “Depending on what you read, there were eight, twelve, fourteen, or even 18 different holy foreskins in various European towns during the Middle Ages.”

Author David Farley even wrote an entire book about finding the ultimate ‘skin called An Irreverent Curiosity: In Search of the Church’s Strangest Relic in Italy’s Oddest Town, about his search for the Holy Foreskin of Calcata. He sums up the story nicely in an article for The Daily Beast saying that he wanted to learn about Jesus’ foreskin, the snipped off tip of the Redeemer’s manhood, severed from the Savior on his eighth day of life, as mentioned in Luke 2:21. I wanted to tell him that up until recently the Catholic Church celebrated this bizarre but historically revered relic every January 1. And that there’s a medieval hill town near Rome that was—and, in a way, still is—the epicenter of these New Year’s Day celebrations of all things holy and foreskin.

People have found my passion for the intact dick a little weird, but the obsession shared by so many Christians over a two-thousand year-old flap of flesh makes my craving seem very tame. Writing this way too early on Christmas Eve morning, I’m wishing that the baby Jesus had been able to keep his foreskin. And enjoyed it in good health.

Top illustration by Peter Cross for the graphic novel American Jesus Volume 1: Chosen. Photograph: Myselfifixction, Self-Portrait by Tony Ward, 2005 from the Antebellum Gallery blog.

Comments (17)

By Robert Chandler, July 12, 2011 5:28 PM

Here’s a strange thing I saw on a comic book news site called Bleeding Cool News. (If you like comics, it’s the best news site out there!)

Again, someone is calling an intactivist anti-semitic. Seems like some are trying to quiet the anti-circ movement by calling anyone who speaks up against genital mutilation anti-Jew. It’s just not true. Religions are all equally stupid. Ancient rituals that demand body parts sliced off in the name of fictitious deities are crazy no matter what religion or reason.

The Foreskin Man comic book has been attacked non-stop for the past few weeks for their portrayal of a mohel (the evil Monster Mohel—a wicked Rabbi) in what many are calling a negative Jewish stereotype. They may be right. The creators of Foreskin Man may regret having gone too far. Sometimes we go to far when we are passionate about a cause. I know I have. But is Foreskin Man a Jew-hater? Or does he just hate this one aspect of Jewish, Muslim and American culture? I’m worried that this guy is taking so much fire when there are real anti-semites out there. It’s like when gay group GLAAD inexplicably goes after gay-allies like Kevin Smith or Family Guy when there are real homophobes on the air, in sports and on the radio. Some reports are saying that the portayal of the one mohel in the Foreskin Man comic book has derailed the anti-circ laws in San Francisco and Southern California. It’s become a really big deal. Or maybe it’s just a slow news cycle.

What do you think? Is Foreskin Man anti-semitic? Or is this a bunch of hot air over nothing?