So about tattoos?
Posted: Sat Mar 01, 2008 12:04 am
Okay so i HAD an idea to get one. I didn't know what exactly but i had an idea... it was going to be small. then i realized i hated needles. but then i talked to a few friends and they're trying to convince me it's biblically wrong. i say they are skipping a step in the interpretation. just saying so anyway here is the scripture and what a few commentaries say about it...
Lev 19:28
28 "'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.
NIV
TATTOO
A permanent mark or design fixed upon the body by a process of pricking the skin and inserting an indelible color under the skin. The moral and ceremonial laws of Leviticus declare "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you" (Lev 19:28). Any kind of self-laceration or marking of the body was prohibited among the Hebrew people. Such cuttings were associated with pagan cults that tattooed their followers while they mourned the dead.
(from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright © 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
Lev 19:26-28
Verse 28. [Cuttings in your flesh for the dead] Compare the margin reference. Among the excitable races of the East this custom appears to have been very common.
[Print any marks] Tattooing was probably practiced in ancient Egypt, as it is now by the lower classes of the modern Egyptians, and was connected with superstitious notions. Any voluntary disfigurement of the person was in itself an outrage upon God's workmanship, and might well form the subject of a law.
(from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database Copyright © 1997, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Lev 19:19-29
IV. A law against the superstitious usages of the heathen, v. 26-28.
4. The rites and ceremonies by which they expressed their sorrow at their funerals must not be imitated, v. 28. They must not make cuts or prints in their flesh for the dead; for the heathen did so to pacify the infernal deities they dreamt of, and to render them propitious to their deceased friends. Christ by his sufferings has altered the property of death, and made it a true friend to every true Israelite; and now, as there needs nothing to make death propitious to us (for, if God be so, death is so of course), so we sorrow not as those that have no hope. Those whom the God of Israel had set apart for himself must not receive the image and superscription of these dunghill deities. Lastly, The prostituting of their daughters to uncleanness, which is here forbidden (v. 29), seems to have been practised by the heathen in their idolatrous worships, for with such abominations those unclean spirits which they worshipped were well pleased. And when lewdness obtained as a religious rite, and was committed in their temples, no marvel that the land became full of that wickedness, which, when it entered at the temple-doors, overspread the land like a mighty torrent, and bore down all the fences of virtue and modesty. The devil himself could not have brought such abominations into their lives if he had not first brought them into their worships. And justly were those given up to vile affections who forsook the holy God, and gave divine honours to impure spirits. Those that dishonour God are thus suffered to dishonour themselves and their families.
(from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
Lev 19:19-29
Lev 19:28
28 "'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.
NIV
TATTOO
A permanent mark or design fixed upon the body by a process of pricking the skin and inserting an indelible color under the skin. The moral and ceremonial laws of Leviticus declare "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks upon you" (Lev 19:28). Any kind of self-laceration or marking of the body was prohibited among the Hebrew people. Such cuttings were associated with pagan cults that tattooed their followers while they mourned the dead.
(from Nelson's Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Copyright © 1986, Thomas Nelson Publishers)
Lev 19:26-28
Verse 28. [Cuttings in your flesh for the dead] Compare the margin reference. Among the excitable races of the East this custom appears to have been very common.
[Print any marks] Tattooing was probably practiced in ancient Egypt, as it is now by the lower classes of the modern Egyptians, and was connected with superstitious notions. Any voluntary disfigurement of the person was in itself an outrage upon God's workmanship, and might well form the subject of a law.
(from Barnes' Notes, Electronic Database Copyright © 1997, 2003 by Biblesoft, Inc. All rights reserved.)
Lev 19:19-29
IV. A law against the superstitious usages of the heathen, v. 26-28.
4. The rites and ceremonies by which they expressed their sorrow at their funerals must not be imitated, v. 28. They must not make cuts or prints in their flesh for the dead; for the heathen did so to pacify the infernal deities they dreamt of, and to render them propitious to their deceased friends. Christ by his sufferings has altered the property of death, and made it a true friend to every true Israelite; and now, as there needs nothing to make death propitious to us (for, if God be so, death is so of course), so we sorrow not as those that have no hope. Those whom the God of Israel had set apart for himself must not receive the image and superscription of these dunghill deities. Lastly, The prostituting of their daughters to uncleanness, which is here forbidden (v. 29), seems to have been practised by the heathen in their idolatrous worships, for with such abominations those unclean spirits which they worshipped were well pleased. And when lewdness obtained as a religious rite, and was committed in their temples, no marvel that the land became full of that wickedness, which, when it entered at the temple-doors, overspread the land like a mighty torrent, and bore down all the fences of virtue and modesty. The devil himself could not have brought such abominations into their lives if he had not first brought them into their worships. And justly were those given up to vile affections who forsook the holy God, and gave divine honours to impure spirits. Those that dishonour God are thus suffered to dishonour themselves and their families.
(from Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible: New Modern Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright © 1991 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)
Lev 19:19-29
but its an individual choice and if you really want one your going to get no matter what anyone says, but why not wait until your a little bit older:)