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In an episode of The Big Bang Theory, eternal loser Howard tries to impress goth girls with some fake tattoos. “They’re called tattoo sleeves. Put them on, have freaky sex with some freaky girl with her business pierced, take them off, and I can still be buried in a Jewish cemetery.”
Despite their near-ubiquity today, there is a long-standing prohibition against tattoos in Jewish and, according to some, Christian religious traditions. The prohibition against tattoos is mostly based on the Judaic laws found in the Old Testament, specifically Leviticus 19:28.
“You shall not make gashes in your flesh for the dead, or incise any marks on yourselves.”
But, like everything in the Bible, it must be remembered that these verses have not only been translated, often multiple times, but read today in a cultural context very far removed from when they were written. Leviticus appears to have reached its final composition some time between the sixth and fourth centuries BC, but its origins reach much further back in time. It probably originates in a time when the new Judaic religion was establishing itself in the Levant, contending with the practises of neighbouring cultures and religions, especially the Canaanite cult of Ba’al.
These included eating blood (Leviticus 19:26), cutting their hair in the style of the pagan priests (Leviticus 19:27), and disfiguring their bodies that God had created (Leviticus 19:28). They were not to disfigure the divine likeness in them by scarring their bodies. These foreign practices also included devoting one’s daughter to prostitution (Leviticus 19:29), seeking knowledge of the future from a medium (Leviticus 19:31), and failing to honor the aged (Leviticus 19:32).
One of the great concerns of the Pentateuch, of which Leviticus is a part, is the possibility of the Israelites backsliding into worshipping other gods.
Each of these verses include some kind of pagan ritual that was in worship of a pagan god.
This is what Leviticus 19:28 is talking about, ancient pagan worship. The Canaanites would cut their body as part of a ritual in worship of their gods. They would brand themselves as belonging to a pagan god. They would slash their bodies for ritualistic purposes.
Rethink Now
Ritual scarification is common in many cultures. Which seems very different from modern day tattooing, notwithstanding a brief fad for scarification as the latest in body fashion in the late ’90s.
Some scholars, though, argue that the ancient Hebrews may have been averse to tattoos for a very different reason.
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.
In other words, tattooing may have seemed to the writers of the Torah as a reminder of the Egyptian bondage that forms such a large part of the narrative of the Old Testament.
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.
If there’s one thing rabbinical scholars love, it’s a good, old-fashioned debate. Naturally, then, there are wildly varying rabbinic interpretations of the prohibition (or otherwise) 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.
JStor Daily
In any case, for Christians, the prescriptions of the Old Testament are, to quote Pirates of the Caribbean, “more what you’d call ‘guidelines’ than actual rules”. Still, some Christians argue that the New Testament, as well, forbids tattoos. Specifically, 1 Corinthians 6:19-20.
The other go-to argument against Christians getting tattoos is that our bodies are God’s temple. Thus if we get a tattoo we are causing damage to something sacred.
But is that taking Paul’s words as badly out of context as the writers of Leviticus?
At first glance that might make sense. Our bodies are a temple and we should care for it. But what about all the other things we do that damage our body? […]
But the biggest problem with this argument is that it ignores the context of Paul’s words. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20 is talking about sexual immorality. It has NOTHING to do with tattoos or anything of the sort. Paul is not asking the question, are tattoos sinful? Rather, he is warning Christians to flee from sexual immorality.
Rethink Now
So, I guess that rules out “Boner Garage”, at least.
