Tag: Naked

Book Plunge: Christian Body — Naked Baptisms

Did Baptism used to be a lot more graphic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So the main point I want to emphasize in Frost’s next section is baptism. I do want to say that for a section about clothing standards in biblical times, no biblical scholars are cited. It’s getting rather tiresome. What Frost points out towards the end is baptism and that it was done in the nude.

Here’s what St. Cyril said about it:

2. As soon, then, as you entered, you put off your tunic; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds. Colossians 3:9 Having stripped yourselves, you were naked; in this also imitating Christ, who was stripped naked on the Cross, and by His nakedness put off from Himself the principalities and powers, and openly triumphed over them on the tree. For since the adverse powers made their lair in your members, you may no longer wear that old garment; I do not at all mean this visible one, but the old man, which waxes corrupt in the lusts of deceit. Ephesians 4:22 May the soul which has once put him off, never again put him on, but say with the Spouse of Christ in the Song of Songs, I have put off my garment, how shall I put it on Song of Songs 5:3? O wondrous thing! You were naked in the sight of all, and were not ashamed ; for truly ye bore the likeness of the first-formed Adam, who was naked in the garden, and was not ashamed.

3. Then, when you were stripped, you were anointed with exorcised oil , from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive-tree, Jesus Christ. For you were cut off from the wild olive-tree , and grafted into the good one, and were made to share the fatness of the true olive-tree. The exorcised oil therefore was a symbol of the participation of the fatness of Christ, being a charm to drive away every trace of hostile influence. For as the breathing of the saints, and the invocation of the Name of God, like fiercest flame, scorch and drive out evil spirits , so also this exorcised oil receives such virtue by the invocation of God and by prayer, as not only to burn and cleanse away the traces of sins, but also to chase away all the invisible powers of the evil one.

4. After these things, you were led to the holy pool of Divine Baptism, as Christ was carried from the Cross to the Sepulchre which is before our eyes. And each of you was asked, whether he believed in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, and you made that saving confession, and descended three times into the water, and ascended again; here also hinting by a symbol at the three days burial of Christ. For as our Saviour passed three days and three nights in the heart of the earth, so you also in your first ascent out of the water, represented the first day of Christ in the earth, and by your descent, the night; for as he who is in the night, no longer sees, but he who is in the day, remains in the light, so in the descent, as in the night, you saw nothing, but in ascending again you were as in the day. And at the self-same moment you were both dying and being born; and that Water of salvation was at once your grave and your mother. And what Solomon spoke of others will suit you also; for he said, in that case, There is a time to bear and a time to die Ecclesiastes 3:2; but to you, in the reverse order, there was a time to die and a time to be born; and one and the same time effected both of these, and your birth went hand in hand with your death.

And yet even in this there is some dispute. There is some belief that there were deaconesses who handled the baptism of the women, for instance. Let’s point out a few things.

Nudity here was for a specific purpose. It was not the norm. If Frost wants to show the early church didn’t have the standards we have about clothes, then we have to ask why did they dress again? If nudity represents freedom in Christ, why did they not stay that way?

These are questions Frost doesn’t wrestle with, but I do. Frost needs to point to normative behavior. He is not doing that. He is pointing to the way people dress for a specific event. You might as well say wearing a costume on Halloween or for a Masquerade Ball shows how people dress normally.

If anything, I think this actually hurts Frost’s case and again, he doesn’t point to any biblical scholars. By the way, he also ignores something else. Archaeologists have regularly dug up pottery in ancient Israel. They have also dug up an abundant number of loom weights. Thus, Israelites were apparently busy making a lot of clothes.

I wonder if Frost knows that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body – Clothing Standards Worldwide

How do cultures view clothing? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s hard to talk about clothing standards worldwide in a few pages. One would think that would take a whole book in itself. Early on, he says that ancient Chinese women were insecure about their feet and would only uncover them for their husbands. My problem here is no source for both claims. Suppose I grant for the sake of argument they didn’t uncover their feet. How does Frost know it was from insecurity? Does he have any Chinese writings that say that?

I remember reading once in Chesterton that someone in the future could think that because we put flowers on gravestones, that would mean we thought the dead could smell flowers. No one places the flowers on a grave hoping their beloved dead likes the smell. We do it for different reasons. Now it could be that the Chinese women were insecure about their feet, but he needs to show that. It could be that feet were seen as special and they wanted to save that for their husbands.

He later says a statement I am unsure how to interpret.

Truly, culture is contrived without substance and completely arbitrary. It is whatever people think it is.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 164). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

What does this mean? Does this mean that a culture has nothing that defines it? Does it mean it can be whatever people want it to be? Someone could think we live in a dystopian Handmaid’s Tale in the West and I could think we live in practically Sodom and Gomorrah and we’re both right? This is a kind of statement that needs to be explained, but Frost does not do that.

Now Frost goes on from here to list several different cultures. I have written on this in past looks at this book and my same standards still apply. I would like to see more up-to-date scholarship on this area and I would like to have a philosophical explanation of Natural Law theory.

Keep in mind, I could fully accept that there could be cultures where different parts of the body are seen as erotic to them that we do not find erotic at all, and vice-versa. There would also be some cultures where clothing would be an absolute necessity, such as people who live in extremely cold climates.

If clothing is the cause of the sin of lust as Frost seems to think, are those cultures bound to struggle with sin due to the effects of clothing? Once again, and I know this is a radical suggestion, but could it be the problem is not clothing but that the problem is that the heart of man is sinful?

Frost seem to have gone from one extreme to another and I think both extremes are problematic. I have a problem with a nudist culture, but I also have a problem with a culture that tries to hide all bodily beauty, such as the way Muslims treat women and require them to wear full covering even in hot weather. The answer lies in the middle.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body — Unclothed Cultures

What about unclothed cultures? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It’s really sad that this is in the book that Frost decides to cite other sources. When he’s talking about the Bible and archaeology and other such things, he cites no sources. When he gets to talking about anthropology, he does.

What Frost cites are reports from the late 1800’s about places around the world where nudity was supposedly the norm and yet people were quite virtuous.

I’m not an anthropologist nor do I play one on TV. However, that being said, I want to make a few observations.

First off, natural law applies to everyone. Everyone has some standards of right and wrong and there are universal moral truths that we all know and can’t not know. Some of us can suppress them and usually we try to redefine reality to fit our moral beliefs. Hence, when it comes to abortion, you’re not aborting a human person say defenders of the practice, you’re aborting a fetus (Supposedly taking that to mean something non-human) or a parasite.

Second, there was a tendency to try to break away from biblical morality at the time. Consider works later on like Coming of Age in Samoa which was found to be massively wrong later on. The goal of many was to show these people didn’t have biblical morality and yet they lived in a paradise and it was much more closer to the idea of free love.

Third, I get suspicious that all of these sources are dated to the late 1800’s. Is there nothing from more recent research that can further back and expound on this? Have these societies now somehow become totally corrupt?

Fourth, all societies have some kind of modesty standards in what behavior is acceptable for men and women. There is not a society out there that is “Anything goes.” All of them have a morality of some kind that is to be upheld. Someone like Frost can say it is different from ours and to be sure, it could be, but it is still a standard.

Right now, I am also thinking of the second time I went to the National Conference on Christian Apologetics. We had a speaker that spoke of witnessing to a tribe whose name I can’t remember right now, but he talked about bringing the gospel to them. At one point, there was a man among them who converted and after he did, he was given a name that meant “Does not chase after women.”

Bringing a society clothing will not ruin them. If you think clothing leads to a downfall in society, you’re missing the main point. Sin leads to the downfall of a society and the only way to eliminate that problem is not by going nude. It is by turning to the cross and coming to Jesus. If a culture can be Christian somewhere in another country and have different clothing codes than mine and still honor Jesus and honor the marriage bed, good for them. In the same way, we can honor Jesus in our clothing culture and honor the marriage bed just as much.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body: Exodus and Ruth

How was Ruth gleaning? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Today, we are going to look at some various passages. The first two are related and are from the Pentateuch. In Exodus 22:26-27 we read:

26 If you take your neighbor’s cloak as a pledge, return it by sunset, 27 because that cloak is the only covering your neighbor has. What else can they sleep in? When they cry out to me, I will hear, for I am compassionate.

and in Deuteronomy 24:13 we read:

Return their cloak by sunset so that your neighbor may sleep in it. Then they will thank you, and it will be regarded as a righteous act in the sight of the Lord your God.

In both of these cases, a person has their cloak taken from them as a pledge that they will do X for the person they are giving it to and the borrower is told to make sure they can at least sleep in it at night. What can we get from this? If we go and say this person had nothing else, then this is a poor person and all they have is a garment.

This would mean that if anything, a poor person would at least have clothing as his last possession, hardly what we would expect from a heavily nudist Israelite culture. Second, this is not at all saying that this is ideal. Frost is still on a hangup that Christians would consider this immoral. No. If you don’t have a garment and you are poor and in need, that is not immoral. Now if you do have a garment and yet you go gallivanting down the street, especially in the sight of children, that is something different.

Then we get to Ruth. Frost tells us that in Ruth 3:3, the word for best describing clothes is not there. Many translations do have it. I don’t have Hebrew qualifications and I don’t think Frost does either as he gives me no reason to think he’s an authority and has cited no biblical scholars. If many translators are putting the word best in there and Frost thinks they shouldn’t, it is up to him to make the case why they shouldn’t. That being said, in verse 15, he asks her to bring him the shawl she is wearing and it is a different Hebrew word.

He also says that Ruth would have been gleaning in the nude as was the norm. The problem is that nowhere does Frost demonstrate this. He just says it. There aren’t any Bible scholars cited or any archeologists cited. No evidence is given. Also, if Frost wants to convince us that these nudist societies were safe places in the past, then why did the men need to be instructed to not touch Ruth?

So Frost says this and then says the translators shoehorn the word best into the text in 3:3 because of our sensibilities. Really? Since when did Frost gain the ability of mindreading? He could be right, naturally, but he needs to show that. Could it be that maybe Hebrew translators know something he doesn’t?

What about in 1 Cor. 12 where Paul talks about our unpresentable parts? Frost says this refers to things like scars and warts and means “Less beautiful.” However, Ben Witherington says:

Verses 21ff. stress that no particular body member can devalue another or declare it to be of no worth. This then applies to people with gifts differing from one’s own. In vv. 22–24 Paul speaks of the weaker, less honorable, and even indecent body parts, referring at least in the latter case to the genitals, while the weaker organs may be the tender inner organs. His point in v. 23 is that these seemingly less honorable parts get more attention, being protected with more clothing. The “presentable” parts by contrast would be those that are not clothed. God composed the body by giving the parts that were lacking in appearance even more honor, bestowing on them the most crucial of functions, that is, reproduction. With this Paul is alluding to weaker and perhaps less apparently gifted Christians. His point in any case in v. 25 is that differences or divisions (schisma again) in the body are avoided by making the body of multiple interdependent parts.

Ben Witherington III, Conflict and Community in Corinth: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary on 1 and 2 Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1995), 259.

It’s also difficult to see how scars and warts would make sense. Neither of those are essential parts of the body. The genitals and other parts are. I see no basis for less beautiful and again, Frost cites NO biblical scholars on these points.

Frost also says that in Luke 17, the servant coming in is told to clothe himself. The word there is actually the word gird. It could indeed mean as many translators seem to say, to dress properly. It would be saying to get out of your work clothes and be fitting for the table. Frost says that the workers worked in the nude, but again, no citations. He starts off with his assumption and then goes from there.

He also says that in John 20 at the resurrection, Jesus would have been naked seeing as the linen cloths were still in the tomb. Actually, the Jewish Virtual Library says that Jews were buried clothed. The linen cloths were burial cloth and not clothing. Clothing would be used to preserve purity, even of a corpse.

He also says that in John 13, Jesus went naked to wash the feet of His disciples. Okay. And? He also immediately when done put his clothes back on before rejoining them. Why didn’t He just stay that way if this was the ideal? What was seen as worthy of emulation in Jesus was not nudity, but servanthood. It is even questionable if the word means He was completely naked or just removed outer garments, but I am going with the worst-case scenario for my side. For some reason, the early church never seemed to embrace nudity as normative.

Next time, we’ll look at how Frost concludes this part of his book.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

 

Book Plunge: Christian Body: The Naked Prophet

What can we learn from Isaiah’s naked wanderings? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When we go to Isaiah 20, we find out it starts off with this:

In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it— 2 at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, “Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.” And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.

3 Then the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared—to Egypt’s shame. 5 Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be dismayed and put to shame. 6 In that day the people who live on this coast will say, ‘See what has happened to those we relied on, those we fled to for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”

What does Frost have to say about this?

Again, I have scoured every commentator I could find on this passage and almost without exception every one of them is quick to insist that this passage surely cannot possibly mean what it plainly says.

Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 97). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

So I opened up my Logos to see what was said. I am keeping in mind Frost’s book was published in 2018 so I will only be using material that was available then.

(a) Isaiah went about in a sackcloth coat for an unstated period, perhaps because this was a prophet’s garb (2 Kgs. 1:8), or perhaps as a sign of mourning for events he prophesied;

(b) then three years ago, which would be the beginning of the independence movement, he cast off his sackcloth coat;

(c) for three years he has thus gone about at least coatless—no joke in a Jerusalem winter;

(d) just now the Assyrians’ defeat of Ashdod leads to the threat that Egypt and Cush (and other peoples associated with them) will also be transported.

John Goldingay, Isaiah (ed. W. Ward Gasque, Robert L. Hubbard Jr., and Robert K. Johnston; Understanding the Bible Commentary Series; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012), 122.

This one could indicate nudity. Not for sure.

How about another one?

The date the “supreme commander” (cf. 2 Kgs 18:17) of Sargon’s army captured Ashdod was 711 BC. This date appears to be the year (v. 2 “at that time”) that God directed the prophet to perform a sign act of going naked for three years to warn his audience in Judah. Isaiah’s radical actions symbolically point out that the Assyrian defeat of Ashdod has serious implications for Judah. Ashdod’s reliance on the Egyptians for protection from Assyria should serve as a lesson for Judah’s future military policy (vv. 5–6).

Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1–39 (ed. E. Ray Clendenen; The New American Commentary; Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2007), 365.

Hmmmm. Smith didn’t seem to hesitate.

This one is from 2017, just a year before Frost wrote:

While the strongest pronouncement of these judgments is to Egypt herself, God is also sending a message to Judah and to any small nation that, threatened by the vicious Assyrian Empire, is tempted to rely on Egypt for help. Judah should know better, but Isaiah 30:1–7 clearly reveals emissaries traveling across the desert with money to buy an alliance with Egypt. We will speak more in due time about that sinful unbelief on Judah’s part. But other small nations in that region were also tempted to turn trembling to Egypt’s might for aid from the Assyrians. Isaiah 20, one of the strangest chapters in the whole book, shows God’s command to his prophet, Isaiah, to act out Egypt’s humiliation by going around naked and barefoot for three years as a sign against Egypt and Cush. The message was clear: Egypt is no refuge against the terror of the Assyrian Empire and its expansionist ambitions. Assyria will defeat Egypt and humiliate her completely. Then all the people will realize how foolish it is to rely on the strength of man and not on God.

Andrew M. Davis, Exalting Jesus in Isaiah (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2017), 113.

He doesn’t say what Frost says.

Dr. Lange wrote in 1877. Maybe they were a bit more prudish then and he would hesitate to mention nudity.

1. In the year when the Tartan, i.e. commander-in-chief of king Sargon of Assyria, came against Ashdod to besiege the city—which he also took after a comparatively short siege,—Isaiah received commandment from the LORD to take off his garment made of bad sack linen and his sandals, and to go about naked and barefoot (vers. 1, 2). For the incredible thing shall happen that the Egyptians and Ethiopians, shall be compelled to go into captivity naked and barefoot, like Isaiah goes about, (vers. 3, 4). Thereupon all inhabitants of the sea-board of Palestine, will, with terror and shame, be sensible how wrong they were to confide in the power and glory of Ethiopia and Egypt (ver. 5). They will say: Thus it has gone with the power from whom we expected protection; how now shall it go with us? (ver. 6).

John Peter Lange et al., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Isaiah (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 231.

No. He seems to say that also…

I’m pretty sure Calvin wrote before 2018.

2. Go and loose the sackcloth from thy loins. In order to confirm this prophecy by the use of a symbol, the Lord commanded Isaiah to walk naked. If Isaiah had done this of his own accord, he would have been justly ridiculed; but when he does it by the command of the Lord, we perceive nothing but what is fitted to excite admiration and to strike awe. In this nakedness, and in the signs of a similar kind, something weighty is implied. Besides, the Lord does nothing either by himself or by his servants without likewise explaining the reason; and therefore the Prophet does not merely walk naked, but points out the design which the Lord had in view in ordering him to do so. In other respects false prophets imitate the true servants of God, and put on varied and imposing shapes, to dazzle the eyes of the multitude, and gain credit to themselves; but those symbols are worthless, because God is not the author of them.

John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (vol. 2; Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 86.

I think this is sufficient to show that there are plenty of commentators who don’t hesitate to say that Isaiah was naked.

This seems to be much of Frost’s point, but then says God would not have commanded Isaiah to do this if it was something sinful. True enough, but at that point, Frost stops. He never asks the important question.

Why did God command Isaiah to do this?

The fact that Isaiah was commanded should show that this was not normative. “Isaiah. I command you do to that thing you always do where you walk around naked.” No. This was something unusual to the society so they would have noticed. What’s the point?

Isaiah was saying this is what is coming for them. They think what is happening to him is shameful. That same thing will happen to them! Indeed, it did. Captives were often led away naked just for the point of shaming them further. Again, Frost only seems to see either sinful or celebrated. He never sees anything else. I don’t think he has any understanding of honor and shame at all.

Well, we’ll see what he has to say next time.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: Christian Body: The Naked King

What can we learn from Saul going buff? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Frost turns to 1 Samuel 19. In this, he recounts how Saul appeared before Samuel and stripped down to nothing and prophesied. Thus, Frost says we have not only Saul going nude, but this is under God’s direction. No one is reacting with disgust or talking about impropriety. Case closed! Right?

Here, Frost has badly misread Scripture.

If you go and read the whole passage, Saul is out for blood. He is trying to eliminate his rival to the throne, David. David flees to Samuel and tells him all that is happening and David stays with him. Saul sends men to Samuel who end up prophesying. Then another group goes to Samuel and the same thing happens. Finally, Saul goes himself.

It is here where we get the most detail. At this point, the Spirit of God comes upon Saul and he ends up stripping naked entirely and prophesying. So what is going on here?

A few commentaries could have helped Frost out:

But in a climactic tour de force, the Spirit of God made a mockery of the most ardent efforts of David’s opponent. Saul’s first servants had not begun prophesying until they arrived at Naioth; however, Saul began prophesying as “he walked along” some distance from Naioth. Then when he actually arrived at his destination, the Spirit of God so overwhelmed him that “he stripped off his robes” (v. 24) as he continued to prophesy “in Samuel’s presence.” The triple employment of the Hebrew phrase gam hûʾ (lit., “even he”; not fully noted in the NIV) in vv. 23–24 emphasizes the fact that Israel’s most powerful citizen was subjugated by the power of God.
Saul’s loss of royal attire in the presence of God’s Spirit presented a powerful image confirming the prophetic judgments Samuel made earlier (cf. 15:23, 28). God had rejected Saul as king, so in God’s presence Saul would not be permitted to wear the clothing of royalty. Saul had “rejected the word of the LORD” (15:23), so now in an ironic twist he would be condemned to be a mouthpiece for that word.
Saul remained “naked” (Hb. ʿārōm; NIV, “that way”; a grave shame in the ancient Near East) and in a prophetic trance “all that day and night.” His actions, so out of keeping with his background and character, gave new life to the proverb coined when Saul was first anointed king over Israel (cf. 10:11), “Is Saul also among the prophets?” As Youngblood points out, the proverb now also distances Saul from the royal office.

Robert D. Bergen, 1, 2 Samuel (vol. 7; The New American Commentary; Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1996), 210–211.

And

The final and rather strange incident in this chapter describes David’s flight to Samuel, who becomes the first of many people with whom David will take refuge. Saul hears of David’s location and sends messengers. God himself protects David by throwing the messengers into a prophetic trance repeated times. Finally, Saul himself goes and his journey to Samuel at the beginning of his career is repeated. However, his experience at the beginning of his career is reversed. There the Spirit came upon him as validation of his appointment as king but now the Spirit comes upon him in such a way as to protect his replacement and confirm his rejection. Saul’s isolation is vividly presented as he strips off his clothes and lies naked and humiliated for a day and a night.

Andrew Reid, 1 & 2 Samuel: Hope for the Helpless (Reading the Bible Today Series; Sydney, South NSW: Aquila Press, 2008), 109.

It is quite alarming that Frost takes a message of judgment and rejection and turns it into a message of celebration. Saul does not go nude to show the glory of the human body. He goes nude because he is not worthy of royal clothing and he is to be shamed.  This also then furthers the idea that in ancient Israel, nudity in public was seen as shameful.

How does Frost so badly misread this? I can only speculate he got what he wanted to see.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Book Plunge: Christian Body: Leviticus 18 and 20

What does the holiness code have to say? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

So we all know this passage. What most of us probably know about it is it condemns same-sex behavior. Frost in this section says that terms used in this chapter are euphemisms for having sex. With that, there is no disagreement. Sex is often spoke of in such terms.

When I was growing up, I remember a movie being advertised called Sleeping With The Enemy. Now for me, I thought this was a bizarre title, but I was an elementary schooler. How was I to know any better. Why would you sleep with an enemy like that? For me, sleeping with someone meant going to bed next to them. Now I know far better what it really meant!

Frost does tell us that people still could bathe together in public baths and be out in the nude regularly and says the documentation will come later. That will be accepted for now and I will see what he says when I get there. That being said, Frost still makes the mistake of assuming that the culture in ancient Israel was just like our culture or at least similar enough.

We are very individualistically based and we set the rule for ourselves. You obey the law not so people will think well of you so much as you want to be a good guy and not go to jail. Even if we granted that nudity was far more common in the ancient society, there would have been other controls set in by the group to make sure ogling didn’t take place. It is questionable that such is the case in a pornified society such as our own.

Frost also contends that in our society, we think looking at a naked person, at least of the opposite sex, is sinful. No. That in itself is not sinful. If I walk down the street and a woman suddenly jumps out in front of me completely nude in an attempt to flash me, I have done nothing wrong. I cannot help that. If I chase after her to at least ogle her, or perhaps even more, then yes, I have done something wrong. The looking itself is not a sin.

Frost keeps regularly going with this idea that nudity in itself is sinful when it obviously isn’t. So far, he has not dealt with a distinction between a private and a public sphere and he has not interacted with any scholarship on the topic. If you want to understand the biblical culture, you also need to understand them as an honor-shame culture and not a guilt-innocence culture. The group did what they could to censor unwanted behavior and individualism would have been frowned upon.

So again, that is another day and another post. I walk away once more convinced that Frost hasn’t really done the deep looking that needs to be done on an important topic, and I do not doubt that this is an important topic. The church needs a better understanding of the nature of the body, love, lust, sex, and marriage. So far, I am skeptical I will find it here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Christian Body: Exodus 20:26

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)

Book Plunge: Christian Body — Genesis 9

What does the story of Noah and the vineyard have to tell us about nudity in the Bible? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Frost doesn’t say much about the story in Genesis 9 which is understandable. The story involves Noah drinking a vineyard and getting drunk and lying down naked. Ham sees him and tells his brothers who walk in backwards and cover up Noah so they won’t see their father’s nakedness.

I do agree with Frost that this is not talking about moral behavior entirely. Very few of us would think it is an important exhortation in the Bible that if you ever learn your father is sleeping drunk and naked you should walk in backward with your brother and cover him up. Let’s hope that this wasn’t a common problem in ancient Israel, or anywhere else for that matter.

Yet when we read the story and read that when Noah woke up we can be confused. He lays a curse on the descendants of Ham? Why? He saw his Dad naked. Perhaps embarrassing, but didn’t he do what he should have done by telling his brothers and having them take responsibility?

A Western reader might think so, but here I agree with Frost again in that something more than voyeurism is going on here. Gagnon suggests that this is a case of male-on-male incest. Not only is this incest, it is incest involving one’s own father. You can read his article covering this and other issues for free here.

Thus, the story is stressing that this is where the problems with the Canaanites began. With Moses being the author, he would have known about these people and he is stating this is their history. It goes all the way back to their ancestor Ham.

So that’s a wrap then. Right?

Not yet.

I have stated that there is a difference between the private and public sphere of life. Noah wasn’t just asleep and naked. He had done so in a way that was disgraceful to him and to see his nakedness would be to take advantage of him. It would be to bring shame upon any who did so. Hence, Shem and Japheth properly honor their father. They don’t just walk in and throw a blanket on him. They come in backwards so they can make sure that they don’t even see their father naked.

Were they just prudes who didn’t appreciate the beauty of the human body? No. They were sons who honored their father and knew his nakedness was not meant to be put on display for them.

Frost says that there is no “Thus sayteh the Lord here”, but I wonder what such a “Thus sayeth the Lord” could even be about. I do agree with him that nudity is not the main point of the passage. It is about the history of the Canaanites starting with their ancestor Ham and how this started right after the flood.

Next time we look at this book, we will discuss Exodus 20:26 and how a priest was to approach God.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)