"... Barnabas’s claim that the Jewish practice of circumcision was the result of an evil angel’s deception sounds shockingly harsh. While other early Jewish and early Christian texts describe demons as dishonest and find fault in the law, finding the origins of physical circumcision in demonic enlightenment is extreme. After all, even the Pauline understanding that circumcision was unnecessary for salvation but could still be practiced by Jewish believers was controversial in the first century ... Barnabas is surprising because it is harsher than what is found in other early Jewish and early Christian literature and because it is more severe than what Barnabas says about other Jewish customs elsewhere in the letter. This harshness suggests that the practice of circumcision may have continued to be a practice in and around the community that Barnabas was addressing ..."