Posted on 01/19/2024 8:42:39 PM PST by Red Badger
Tattoos have been around for millennia. People got them at least five thousand years ago. Today they’re common everywhere from Maori communities in New Zealand to office parks in Ohio. But in the ancient Middle East, the writers of the Hebrew Bible forbade tattooing. Per Leviticus 19:28, “You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves.”
Historically, scholars have often understood this as a warning against pagan practices of mourning. But language scholar John Huehnergard and ancient-Israel expert Harold Liebowitz argue that tattooing was understood differently in ancient times.
Huehnergard and Liebowitz note that the appearance of the ban on incisions—or tattoos—comes right after words clearly related to mourning, perhaps confirming the original theory. And yet, looking at what’s known about death rituals in ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, Israel, and Egypt, they find no references to marking the skin as a sign of mourning. They also note that there are other examples in Leviticus and Exodus where two halves of a verse address different issues. So that could be the case here, too.
What tattoos were apparently often used for in ancient Mesopotamia was marking enslaved people (and, in Egypt, as decorations for women of all social classes). Egyptian captives were branded with the name of a god, marking them as belongings of the priests or pharaoh. But devotees might also be branded with the name of the god they worshiped.
Huehnergard and Liebowitz suggest that, given the key role of the escape from Egyptian bondage in ancient Jewish law, the Torah originally banned tattooing because it was “the symbol of servitude.” Interestingly, though, they write that there’s one other apparent reference to tattooing in the Hebrew Bible. Isaiah 44:5 describes the children of Jacob committing themselves to God: “One shall say, ‘I am the LORD’s’… Another shall mark his arm ‘of the LORD.’” Here a tattoo appears to be allowable as a sign of submission, not to a human master but to God.
Ancient rabbinic debates produced a variety of different theories about the meaning of the prohibition on tattooing. Some authorities believed that tattoos were only disallowed if they had certain messages, such as the name of God, the phrase “I am the Lord,” or the name of a pagan deity. Talmudic law developed around 200 CE says that a tattoo is only disallowed if it is done “for the purpose of idolatry”—but not if it’s intended to mark a person’s enslaved status.
The meaning of the prohibition on tattooing may have shifted over time, of course. But in ancient times, it might never have been about mourning practices at all.
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The Biblical Prohibition Against Tattooing By: John Huehnergard and Harold Liebowitz Vetus Testamentum, Vol. 63, Fasc. 1 (2013), pp. 59-77 Brill
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https://www.jstor.org/stable/23496450?mag=why-does-the-bible-forbid-tattoos
A permanent reminder of a temporary feeling...
“Tattoos are definitely the mark of low class self-mutilation. Trashy.”
It’s ironic that the people who can least afford these things are the ones who are more likely to have them. Ditto for exotic black ‘dos.
Definitely trashy.
“So are earrings.”
Dad forbade earrings. I first wore earrings in my mid-20s. Mom wore them after Dad died.
“another taboo of my late mother was cremation.”
Right. I spoke to the funeral parlor yesterday to prepare for my mother’s imminent arrangements (short of a miraculous recovery). He said he assumed she would be cremated. “No!”
Ping
The history of most cosmetics is rather sordid
“The history of most cosmetics is rather sordid”
It is. (Dad also forbade makeup.)
That leaves us with the moral law, which did not disappear with the sacrifice of Jesus. The next question is to what extent the moral law carries into the church age. If you hold to a dispensational view of scripture, you believe that only if the aspects of the moral law were ratified in the Gospels and Epistles are they applicable to the church in the present age. For example, Jesus and Paul confirmed Old Testament teachings on matters such as theft, sexual morality, and honoring your parents. On the other hand, they did not confirm the aspects of the moral law such as keeping the Sabbath in the manner the Jews did. If the New Testament did not confirm such aspects the moral law as prohibition against tattoos or cremation, it may be considered not covered by the New Covenant.
While these aspects are not covered in the Epistles or the Gospels, the Apostle Paul did state that the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, defacing the body with tattoos or piercings violates the concept of being such a temple. It also could be argued that cremation represents a violation of the concept of the body as a temple. However, all human bodies will decay as a matter of nature. Some argue that deliberate cremation is a denial of the bodily restoration of the deceased in Christ that will occur in the end times.
Every time I see a tattoo on a woman I wonder what drunken trip and circle of partiers did she have for that one.
Tattoo, I’d never get one but that’s just me. No what really grinds my gears are the EXTRA STRENGTH STUPID nose rings that young people are putting on their faces. Ugh.
In your mind they are.. it’s your opinion.
Theodore Roosevelt had one
Andrew Jackson had one
Churchill had one (So did his mother)
Thomas Edison had one
All low class?
I would use the word trashy, rather than low class. Wealth is no indicator of taste.
Still, people can do whatever they want with their money and to their bodies. I wouldn't get a tattoo. And I avoid women with visible ones. YMMV
profound
indeed, the only mark we should desire is to be sealed for His service
Or maybe it’s a personal choice. There are a ton of professional people with tattoos they place so no one notifies.
From a religious perspective it is my understanding is the faith that Christ fulfilled the law which “all have sinned” and was fulfilled for all believers in Christ this fulfilling all Old Testament law. Once the law is satisfied by “He who was without sin” there became “a new covenant”. The debate over tattoos and all laws of the Old Testament is irrelevant. The law is fulfilled to those who believe in Christ and accept him as his savior.
Art in any form is opinion, look at Hunters Biden’s art that sells for a half million.,.
Calling someone low class who has a tattoo or associate anyone with a tattoo as a criminal type etc shows stereotypical ignorance at the very least.
That was a small list of unexpected people with tattoos to prove a simple point.
Yes I’ve got tattoos but no one would know unless I was running around shirtless and I’m well beyond those days.
I con't care for rap "music" either.
Or spelling either, LOL!
Almost every cop I see these days, both male and female, are sporting a sleeve on one or both arms.
What’s that all about?
And the Old Testament also forbade eating pork and other meats - and a lot of other crap that isn’t forbidden under the New Covenant....
On the way home from the gym, I have to make a conscious effort not to stop on the way home to get a tatto
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