A study called The Circumcision of Jesus Christ pioneers a new flavour of interdisciplinary research: urology at last joins forces with theology. The study, published in the Journal of Urology, focuses on what happened to Jesus’s foreskin during and especially after biblical times.
Lead author Johan J Mattelaer brings a broad perspective to this narrow topic. Mattelaer, a past chairman of the History Office of the European Association of Urology in Kortrijk, Belgium, and professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, earlier wrote a book called The Phallus in Art and Culture.
For the Jesus circumcision study, Mattelaer and colleagues Robert A Schipper and Sakti Das delved into 2,000 years’ worth of religio-phallocentric writings, paintings, sculpture, music and theological disputes.
So begins this week’s Improbable Research column in The Guardian.