Biblical Views: Unholy Ink: What Does the Bible Say about Tattoos?

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For those of us over 50, any mention of a person with tattoos often brings to mind a rowdy sailor or a motorcycle gang member. Over the past generation, however, the art of tattooing has become part of mainstream culture, part of a larger phenomenon that includes the art of body piercing. It is not just young people who engage in this form of body art; many of those who have tattoos are at the social forefront of society: mothers, business people and sports stars. One cannot view an NBA game without seeing multiple tattoos on some of the […]

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Endnotes

John Huehnergard and Harold Liebowitz, “The Biblical Prohibition against Tattooing,” Vetus Testamentum 63 (2013), pp. 59–77. Their ideas are a further development of a discussion by Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 17–22 (New York: Doubleday, 2004), pp. 1,694–1,695.

For example, see Dennis Pardee, Ritual and Cult at Ugarit (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), pp. 85–88.

See A. Guillaume, “Is 44:5 in the Light of Elephantine Papyri,” Expository Times 32 (1920–1921), pp. 377–379. Guillaume cites a number of Biblical passages that may allude to the practice: Ezekiel 9:4; Revelation 7:3; 13:16; 20:4; and possibly Galatians 6:17.

See Muhammed A. Dandamaev, Slavery in Babylonia from Nabopolassar to Alexander the Great (626–331 B.C.), Victoria A. Powell, trans., revised ed. (Dekalb: Northern Illinois Univ. Press, 2009), pp. 474–489. The Old Babylonian period Code of Hammurabi makes reference to the illegal shaving of a fugitive who had a slave’s hairstyle (laws 226–227; see Martha T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995], p. 124). Babylonian contracts and letters occasionally mention incisions (i.e., tattoos) on hands, arms and legs of servants; see the examples listed by Huehnergard and Liebowitz, Vetus Testamentum 63 (2013), 72.45–48. The Israelite practice of marking a perpetual slave is mentioned in Exodus 21:6 and Deuteronomy 15:17.

Herodotus (Histories II.13) describes a similar custom for Egyptians: “If a runaway slave takes refuge in this shrine and allows the sacred marks, which are the sign of his submission to the service of the god, his master, no matter who he is, cannot lay hands on him.” (See Aubrey de Selincourt, trans., Herodotus, the Histories (London: Penguin, 1954), p. 171. Also, see Philo, Laws I:58 and Lucian, De Dea Syria 59. W. Hayes (The Scepter of Egypt, Part 2 [New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1953], pp. 219–221) describes various tattoo marks on female figures from various periods. In addition, James Breasted cites some examples of branding captives (Ancient Records of Egypt: Historical Documents from the Earliest Times to the Persian Conquest, vol. 4 [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1906–1907], par. 405).