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
To tattoo or not tattoo, that is the question.................
Tattoos are a really good idea.
They give the monkey-see/monkey-do crowd a means of self-identifying so normal people can avoid them.
Maybe the collective desire of more and more people to get tattoos is a subconscious mourning for the death of Western Civilization.
I always took that verse to be referring to making marks by cutting yourself, not tattoos. I don’t like tattoos, but I never thought of them as forbidden.
Tattoos are definitely the mark of low class self-mutilation. Trashy.
Seems more an embrace of the impending barbarianism.
nothing worse than seeing a pretty girl with a tattoo. Instant turn off.
Tats used to be found only on military, bikers and criminals.
Now they are on teenagers...................
Tramp Stamp....................
If God wanted us to be able to camouflage standing in front of a wall of graffiti, we would have been born that way.
IMO, if God commanded it for Israel, unless there is a specific reason, it’s probably a preference God has, that could logically be extended to everyone. The dietary kosher laws had a specific reason to separate Israel from other nations. Tattoos...don’t know.
But if our bodies are temples of God and God designed them, I think we need to think twice before permanently altering them. I hardly ever see a tattoo without thinking, that person would look better without that.
And then of course the effects of aging, dolphins turning into killer whales, unicorns with age spots, mermaids with wrinkles, etc.
All tattoos should be temporary so you can play find the tattoo more than once.
Exodus Chapter 21 1 Now these are the judgments which thou shalt set before them. 2 If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. 3 If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. 5 And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: 6 Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.
Yep
I appreciate the crazy/unstable marking themselves for easy reference.
And no not every tattooed person is that, but appealling to common sense, I know it when I see it.
To wit, the photo accompanying the story blurb above, is an example of crazy.
Ye shall not suffer to be marked as a slave, but rather as free men and women of God.
Ping!......................
My tribe’s sneaker god Nikadidas can beat your tribe’s music god Autotoneloc.
Perhaps tattoos are visible and indelible expressions of the profound impressions that idols have made on one’s heart.
That’s my reason for having a disgust of tattoos.
They generally belong to low class people of questionable values who cannot be trusted. Like criminals and scumwads.
That picture upthread is creepy.
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