Eunuchs ancient and modern
in Epiphanies
This discussion was created from comments split from: Trump officially Fucks Trans Kids Over.
Comments
Could you explain -for a vole of little brain -please?
Look up the story of Phillip and the Ethiopian Eunuch. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts 8:26-40&version=ESV
Umm... I think if you ask most trans people they will tell you that it's emphatically not a choice, any more than being gay is. Gender affirming care is a choice.
Not quite accurate. Matthew 19:6-12 has this report:
What does this passage say about whether people are or aren't 'in the image of God'?
Even me.
PTL!
A little bit of reading around the subject suggests there are people today who undergo (or who are planning to undergo) voluntary castration for a wide variety of reasons. The gender identity of such people varies - they could be transitioning to female, continuing to identify as male, or identifying as "eunuch" (at least privately or in their own community, if not publicly).
In other words, "eunuch" seems to be recognised gender identity, and a bible passage about eunuchs might not be the best way of framing such a discussion.
Historical eunuch culture was quite different to the current culture of people who self-identify as eunuchs, in the same way that traditional ethno-specific third genders are quite different to a modern concept of nonbinary genders where someone might identify as a third gender. There are certainly overlapping features, they are related concepts but also very much not the same.
I think @Alan Cresswell needs to explain what he meant. Particularly as he made a comment that my Bible knowledge is lacking.
And, it's clear that this convert was both Ethiopian and a eunuch. It's also almost certain that the passage is included in part as a fulfilment of the prophecy of Isaiah 56 (that both foreigners and eunuchs will find a place in the Temple courts).
The point of contention is the relationship between the group of people called "eunuchs" in this passage (and the Matthew 19 passage @Pomona mentioned) and the group of people who we would call "trans" and/or "intersex". As @Pomona has already said, there are good reasons to conclude that eunuchs would now be called trans and/or intersex. Even if this Ethiopian doesn't fit into a modern understanding of trans, they would certainly not be considered cis-gendered.
This passage certainly should result in us opening our arms to welcome all who accept the gospel message. Philip doesn't come up with any reasons why the Ethiopian shouldn't be baptised, he just climbs out of the chariot into the water and baptises them. Likewise, we shouldn't be putting barriers to people who believe in the gospel, no one is excluded for their gender or sex, their sexuality, race or any other reason. Anyone who claims to be following Christ, but would deny acceptance into the church of anyone, needs to spend a long time meditating on this passage.
And I think I can see why someone would want to use an established term, that captures at least something of the essence of who they are, rather trying to create a definition or a description from scratch.
Meanwhile, This seems to be rather stretching what Pomona said:
*modernity in the sense of the Modern Era aka anything after the French Revolution or thereabouts
Being enslaved and castrated is cruelty and domination inflicted by those with power over you It is not a reflection of who an individual knows they are born to be.
You said "the first recorded Gentile convert would today be classed as trans".
And you followed that up by a comment that that comment should have made most posters here think of the passage in Acts 8.
Both of which I still disagree with.
Yes, I didn't imply otherwise.
We know that various cultures at various times in history have created eunuchs for reasons that have nothing to do with gender identity. So the general eunuch therefore transgender inference that you seem to have thought should be obvious to everyone in your original posts does not make sense.
There is probably information out there about the role of eunuchs in first-century Ethiopian culture - I tried to look it up quickly before my last post but Google was not helpful (it's only interested in our biblical eunuch). I imagine that if eunuchism had actually been a way of managing transgenderism in first-century Ethiopia that would be unusual enough that it would form part our general historical knowledge about transgenderism. So subject to being corrected by somebody who has actually looked this up, I would guess that non-zero chance that the Ethiopian eunuch was trans was pretty much the same non-zero chance that anyone is trans. Which obviously is important for Christians to respect but has nothing to do with the Ethiopian eunuch per se.
I had always thought that the second sign in John 4:46ff where Jesus heals the son of a Royal Official and the whole household believed would be regarded as the first Gentile converts. Would the household, including slaves, have been Jewish?
I think this take swings a little bit too far in another direction (I don't mean in a bigoted way or anything like that, which is why I say a different direction rather than the opposite direction). The status of eunuchs within the Bible *is* an important thing for many trans and nonbinary Christians. There are a few different aspects to this, but imo the most important one is that eunuchs did formally occupy a third gender space within society regardless of any individual eunuch's perspective on their own gender (if they even had one, which in cultures where gender was about a public role rather than individual identity is not a given). People who would have been considered something Other than male or female explicitly being given high status and blessings in the Bible is really, really important - both for trans and nonbinary Christians, and also when considering how churches and society talk and behave about gender.
It is, imo, reasonable to read the Ethiopian eunuch as a representation of transness in the Bible - but whether they would be recognisably trans or not is almost besides the point. The entire reason for their high status in the Kandake's court is their third gender status (which would generally be more similar to traditional ethno-dependent third genders), and that kind of formal and explicit acknowledgement of people with third gender status being part of the new Church in the Bible is important in its own right imo. The eunuch doesn't need to be recognisably trans for that to still be highly disruptive to cissexism in the Church.