The circumcision of Jesus: five films
For the eighth day of Christmas: a look at how a few films have handled a line from Luke's gospel that underlines the humanity, vulnerability, and Jewishness of Jesus.
Happy New Year!
Today is the eighth day of Christmas, and that means today is the day when many Christians commemorate the circumcision of Jesus.
To mark the occasion, I have rounded up some clips from the very few films I can think of that have dramatized this event. But first, a few comments about the circumcision itself, which is mentioned very briefly in Luke 2:21.
That it happened, as a matter of history, seems simple and obvious enough. Most Jewish boys get circumcised a week after they are born. But why draw attention to the fact that Jesus was circumcised? Why make it a focal point of liturgy and drama?
The circumcision of Jesus is significant for at least three reasons:
First, it underscores the humanity of Jesus. As Leo Steinberg noted in The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, the “humanation” of God—the fact that God, in becoming Jesus, became a physical human being—is most evident in the fact that Jesus has gender. The biological sex of Jesus is proof that God has taken human form. Renaissance depictions of the Christ child often drew attention to his genitals to make this point, and the story of his circumcision does that, too.
Second, it underscores the vulnerability of Jesus. Some theologians have noted that the circumcision of Jesus marked the first time he shed his blood, years before he died on the cross, so in some sense it marked the beginning of his “sacrifice” for our salvation. It was, so to speak, the first of the many wounds by which we are healed.
Third, it underscores the Jewishness of Jesus. Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day of his life, in accordance with Jewish tradition going all the way back to Abraham (Genesis 17:12)—and, as far as I can tell, filmmakers only really began to pay attention to the circumcision of Jesus in the mid-1970s, at a time when people were becoming more and more sensitive to the fact that Jesus and his family were Jewish.1
And so we come to the films themselves.
First, and most obviously, there are the word-for-word adaptations of Luke. The first of these was produced by The Genesis Project between 1976 and 1979.
Here, the circumcision is performed by Joseph himself, apparently at home—and it’s worth noting that Joseph speaks some extra, untranslated dialogue in Hebrew. The English narration sticks to the biblical text, but the Hebrew dialogue goes beyond the film’s word-for-word format to add an extra layer of cultural authenticity.
You can watch this version of the circumcision here, starting at the 23:25 mark:
Much of the footage from the Genesis Project’s adaptation of Luke was re-used in the 1979 film Jesus—popularly known as “the Jesus film”—but the section dealing with Jesus’ birth was re-shot and streamlined significantly, and his circumcision was skipped almost entirely; it is mentioned briefly in a voice-over that plays over a scene of Joseph and Mary going to the Temple a few weeks later, and that’s it.
You can hear that reference to the circumcision here, starting at the 11:36 mark:
Another word-for-word adaptation of Luke was produced by The Lumo Project in 2015, and it, too, relegates the circumcision of Jesus to a voice-over that seems to play over footage from another scene, in this case from the night of his birth.
You can hear that reference to the circumcision here, starting at the 3:15 mark:
So much for the word-for-word adaptations of Luke. What about regular dramas?
By far the best-known film that dramatizes the circumcision of Jesus is Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, a 1977 miniseries that made a point of emphasizing the Jewishness of the family and culture within which Jesus was raised.
Here, because the circumcision story is combined with the prophecy of Simeon (which actually took place over a month later, as per Luke 2:22-24 and Leviticus 12), the circumcision seems to be taking place within the Temple, and it is performed by men who apparently specialize in this ritual. The men even begin by talking about how God gave this ritual to Abraham, and how it is “the seal in flesh of the covenant between the Lord and his people”. All of this fits with other scenes in the miniseries that emphasize the central role played by Jewish institutions in Jesus’ life.2
You can watch this version of the circumcision here, starting at the 54:12 mark:
The most recent film that dramatizes the circumcision of Jesus is Robert Savo’s The Savior, a Bulgarian-Jordanian film produced with an all-Arab cast in 2014.
Circumcision is “widely practiced” in the Middle East—not only among Jews and Muslims but among Christians, too—and Savo and his colleagues had already drawn special attention to the subject of circumcision in their films about Abraham and Moses, so it’s not surprising that they devote a scene to it here. They even go so far as to include a shot of the infant Jesus’ foreskin being dropped into a bowl!3
You can watch this version of the circumcision here, starting at the 12:54 mark:
And, that about covers it. Those are the five films I can think of that depict or address the circumcision of Jesus. Are there any others? If so, please let me know.
— This is a revised and expanded version of a post I first wrote on January 1, 2016.
An oft-cited milestone in this regard is the publication of Géza Vermes’ Jesus the Jew in 1973.
Note, too, how the shot here is composed, so that the eyes of the three men, and the hand of the man who is about to perform the circumcision, all converge on the same point, directing our attention to the baby’s (carefully obscured) genitalia. This is very similar to what the Renaissance artists did, as described in Steinberg’s book. I wrote in more detail about that in a 2013 post on cinematic depictions of Jesus’ nudity.
Evidently the close-up on the foreskin in the bowl isn’t for everyone. Another version of The Savior that I found online, at Vision Video’s YouTube channel, leaves that shot out… but it keeps the “plop” sound of the foreskin being dropped into the bowl.