Tuesday, September 7, 2010
The bible and tattoos
While looking for information on my research paper topic (cosmetic surgery) I found that another highly debated topic between Christians was tattoos. I found this interesting because I know two people that recently got religious tattoos. Both of these guys are extremely proud of their tattoos and are sure to take off their shirt and show it off whenever possible. When I asked them why they got these tattoos, their response was that they were a reminder of their faith. To me that seems a little silly. Does a good Christian really need to spend money and endure some pain to be reminded of their faith? Also, the bible has specific versus against tattoos such as Leviticus 19:28 which says that a person shouldn't put any marks on their body. When I asked one of the guys about this, their response was basically that the meaning of tattoos have changed over time and thus the bible is outdated on the issue. This had me very confused. How come some rules of the Bible such as thou shall kill have stood the test of time while the rule on tattoos was outdated. It seemed like my friend was manipulating religion to fit his situation.
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The question of manipulating the Bible is a good one and should drive us back to the Bible to think more carefully about our understanding, whether we end up confirming our own position or changing it. Taking in the context in which it is written, reading what commentaries say, examining current arguments, is Leviticus 19:28 more like the prohibitions against mixing flax and linen, etc., which we ignore, or more like the command not to covet (which we may ignore, but at least pay lip service to)? We have someone in the class working on this topic and it will be interesting to see what they have to tell us.
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