3Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?"Eunuchs in India
4"Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female,'[a] 5and said, 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh'[b]? 6So they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate."
7"Why then," they asked, "did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?"
8Jesus replied, "Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for marital unfaithfulness, and marries another woman commits adultery."
10The disciples said to him, "If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry."
11Jesus replied, "Not everyone can accept this word, but only those to whom it has been given. 12For some are eunuchs because they were born that way; others were made that way by men; and others have renounced marriage[c]because of the kingdom of heaven. The one who can accept this should accept it."
- Source: Matthew Chapter 19
In India, nearly half a million people live as eunuchs (or Hijras), not man or woman, but considered an entirely separate gender.
Egyptian Third Gender
Inscribed pottery shards discovered near ancient Thebes (now Luxor, Egypt), and dating from the Middle Kingdom (2000-1800 BCE), contain a listing of three genders of humanity: males, eunuchs, and females, in that order. (See Sethe, Kurt, "Die Aechtung feindlicher Fürsten, Völker und Dinge auf altägyptischen Tongefäßscherben des mittleren Reiches," in: Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Klasse, 1926, p. 61.)Born Eunuchs: Homosexual Identity in the Ancient World
In the Egyptian story of the creation of the archetypal beings (gods), the first being is male and female, and its name is Atum. Through asexual reproduction, Atum divides and creates two other beings, Shu and Tefnut. These two in turn produce another pair, Geb and Nut. Finally, Geb and Nut, the earth and the sky, combine and produce the two pairs of Isis and Osiris, and Seth and Nephthys. Isis exemplifies the reproductive female, Osiris the reproductive male, Seth the nonreproductive eunuch, and Nephthys the unmarried virgin.
Source: Egyptian Third Gender
Thesis with works cited, annotations and listed citations of Eunuchs in secular and Christian literature.
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