20 Responses

  1. Hahaha. Wonderful.

  2. Without recourse to the original Hebrew, and lacking any abilities to translate Hebrew anyway, I must take your quote at face value:

    “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. – Leviticus 19:28”

    Now it seems to me that the injunction is made against cutting people’s bodies or printing marks- “for the dead”, i.e. as tokens of mourning or memorial.

    And the nicely tattooed homophobic quote worn by the nicely tattooed homophobe in your picture is NOT, therefore, breaking the injunctions of Leviticus.

    The meaning seems, from the way I read it, to only prohibit markings, scarification based upon rituals to commemorate the dead. In living memory, it was common in parts of New Guinea for children to have a joint of a finger removed as a sign of mourning, a custom that happened in Upper Palaeolithic France, as evidenced by sprayed silhouettes of hands missing fingertips on cave walls.

    Maybe – an Israeli reader would be able to provide a proper interpretation of the original Hebrew injunction.

    That is – if they have not all been driven off by the hysterical hate-filled rants of certain regular commentators like Greg Bacon, that is……

    • it doesn’t say “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh [nor print any marks upon you]…for the dead”

      The “printing any marks” reads to me as a separate injunction to cuttings in your flesh for the dead.

    • I am an Orthodox Jew, and the Biblical law prohibits all tattoos regardless of their reason. The original Hebrew words for this are “ketovet kaaka”, lit. dug-out writing. The commenter who said the verse contains two separate injunctions is correct.

    • I agree…the statement is you should not cut for the dead, then it says or tattoo any marks on you. That means no flesh offerings for mourning and also do not tattoo. Any how, what irritates the bejesus out of me is that all these “christians” want to use the verses, when christians do not follow the old testament…that was before the time of christ, they follow the new. Jews and Catholics pull from the old testament. It’s sad they warp the bible to justify hate. Sad they don’t even know their own religion.

  3. EPIC RELIGIOUS FAIL!

    Good stuff, that has cheered me up of a Monday morn, although Adrian Morgan’s rather pedantic attempt to get involved here is odd.

    Anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of Judaism would know that tatoos and whatnot are frowned upon in the Bible.

    • Really Mr unpedantic Hoffman-Gill?

      In that case, please, in your ever so unpedantic fashion, please furnish ONE example of Biblical text or mishnah that proves your point?

      • It’s already there, 19:28 is against the tattooing of the body in all forms, ask any Jew and they’ll tell you but as I one, I’m telling you.

        The King James Bible makes it a wee bit clearer:

        “Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”

  4. Okay – I concede that I was wrong. Not by the reason of your own response, but due to pedantry.

    Having looked at varying translations:

    Revised Standard Version
    19:28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh on account of the dead or tattoo any marks upon you: I am the LORD.

    Young’s Literal Translation
    19:28 `And a cutting for the soul ye do not put in your flesh; and a writing, a cross-mark, ye do not put on you; I `am’ Jehovah.

    Amplified® Bible
    19:28 You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead nor print {or} tattoo any marks upon you; I am the Lord.

    American Standard Version
    19:28 Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am Jehovah.

    Darby English Version
    19:28 And cuttings for a dead person shall ye not make in your flesh, nor put any tattoo writing upon you: I am Jehovah.

    There appears to be no ambivalence.

    Anyway, thank you for your comments.

    I am just wondering why no-one nowadays follows the great advice given out in Numbers 31: 17-18:

    31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

    31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

    Monotheism – taken literally on its own terms – stinks…….

    • please provide the context of those verses so we can assess them fairly

      • Come on – this is a comments section. Did you ask Richard for a context for his Leviticus quote?

        My quote from Numbers 31: 17-18 related to God’s instructions to kill the Midianite children.

        If you want context, here is the entire chapter:
        http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Numbers+31&version=KJV

        No matter how one spins it, the chapter is about Moses (acting as a channel for the Word of God, accompanied by Eleazar the priest and the princes of the congregation) demanding that innocent war captives, specifically male children and women who were not virgins, should be killed.

        When Mohammed (who also was the messenger of God) went around slaying his male captives, he first made sure they had pubic hair (see ibn Ishaaq on he Banu Qurayza) and in his “mercy” the women captives and their infants were distributed as “war booty”.

        Somehow, judged from a modern perspective, prophets don’t come across as being very nice people……

        If they were alive today and acting in the same manner, Moses and Mohammed would both be in jail for war crimes.

  5. Ha ha!

    Now Leviticus 19:28 *would* make a great tattoo.

  6. Why not just start taking literally more of the OT verses?

    We can start putting to death those who work on Sunday and wear certain types of cloth!

    I wonder if JC was back on Earth today and was still running around with only guys and not married and people saw him washing the guys, do you think that ‘gawdly’ men like John Hagee and Tim LaHaye would accuse JC of being a homo?

    And then stone him? Not the Bob Dylan type of stoning.

  7. “We can start putting to death those who work on Sunday ….”

    Shouldn’t that be on a Saturday!!?

  8. Shouldn’t that be on a Saturday!!?

    Probably, but I had just been the victim of a vicious ‘stoning!’

  9. It actually says Leviticus 18:22 so who ever wrote this, FAIL

  10. Pardon James, your comment makes no sense.

  11. […] Leviticus FAIL « Bartholomew’s Notes on Religion […]

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