Endnote 4 – Biblical Views: Unholy Ink: What Does the Bible Say about Tattoos?

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.