Why did priests wear underwear? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
In this section, we’re going to interact with Frost and another writer as well online who engages with this verse. If God wanted the priests to wear garments in their work, it seems that God is opposed to nudity. Right?
To begin with, let’s see what it would mean to say God is opposed to nudity. Most of us are not, provided it is in the proper context. Taking a shower at home or having sex with your spouse? Go ahead and get naked. Want to go swimming in your own private pool or lake away from watching eyes in the buff? Go ahead. Again, this is the private and public sphere distinction.
Frost points to an idea of purdah. You can go to the link for more on that, but it seems like Frost is speaking in extremes. It’s either you hold to a doctrine that everything must be covered entirely, or you go completely naked. Frost tells us that if God wanted a purdah doctrine, he had thousands of years and pages in to tell us.
Because apparently Frost needs a strict command that says “Hey guys, can you wear clothes? That would be kind of cool!”
A more thorough look at this comes from someone online named Mud Walker who I was pointed to by the person who got me started on this. His page is called Renude Life. You can find a link to his argument here.
He states at the start that biblical scholars agree that garments in those days were loose and easily blown aside. Maybe that is so. The problem is he doesn’t tell us any biblical scholars who say this.
He says that nudity and sexual intercourse was common in pagan services. None of this is given with any citations, though I would not be surprised, especially with sexual intercourse. He also tells us that since the priests used these garments, we may assume that they were naked the rest of the time.
In other words, if you have some work clothes that you wear just when you go to work, it’s safe to assume the rest of the time you’re naked.
Mud Walker tells us that simple nudity was common in the ancient world. One illustration of this is a fresco of Pharaoh’s daughter finding Moses while bathing. Well, Pharaoh’s daughter is naked, which tells us that people in ancient times were naked when they bathed. That’s not much of a stretch.
A link from that part takes you to this page. In this, you find that the term to expose someone’s nakedness was a euphemism for sexual intercourse. At times, yes. Definitely in Leviticus 18 and 20. The only link there takes you to recommended resources, which means Mud Walker has presented us with no hard data on this.
Not only that, but we have Scripture that says otherwise.
Consider Deuteronomy 29:5
Yet the LORD says, “During the forty years that I led you through the wilderness, your clothes did not wear out, nor did the sandals on your feet.
I looked it up. The word for clothing means, get this, clothing. The same word is used when the Gibeonites approach Joshua in Joshua 9 and talk about how their clothes are damaged from their long travels, which they faked entirely. Nothing from Joshua saying “Guys. We’re in the wilderness. Just go nude like we are.”
“But Nick, you haven’t cited any biblical scholars!”
Fair enough. So let’s see what Pilch and Malina have to say about this:
Analogously, great concern was shown for the dress of the priest who offered sacrifice, first that he not have to ascend stairs less his nude loins be revealed in sacred space (Exod 20:26), and then that he wear breeches to forestall accidental exposure (Exod 28:42). Thus nudity was linked with issues of purity and pollution in myth and practice. As Genesis and Exodus indicate, if we would understand the cultural perspective of the ancient Israelites and Judahites toward nudity, we must see the issue through the eyes of two complementary models, namely, honor/shame and purity/pollution.
Pilch, John J.. Handbook of Biblical Social Values, Third Edition (Matrix: The Bible in Mediterranean Context 10) (pp. 118-119). Cascade Books, an Imprint of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Kindle Edition.
Unfortunately, the authors we are interacting with do not show any interaction with honor/shame material or purity/pollution material. Frost comes at this with a Western mindset that says it has to be spelled out explicitly. Scripture doesn’t work that way. It is a modern approach that is quite good at creating fundamentalist atheists, but not so much serious studies in Scripture.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
Support Deeper Waters on Patreon!
