In Leviticus 19:27-28 (KJV) we read Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard.[28]Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD. So then we are faced with the question, to shave or not to shave, and what does print any marks mean?

Fads, Foolishness, Tattoos and Beards

So Rastas (Rastafarians) claim their righteousness through their hair but it is not unusual to see a man with locks and his pants under his behind or sporting a tattoo. In recent years we have had Rastas with gnarled beards and hair, the prison pants culture with pants below the behind, men and women cross-dressing, powder around the neck and the list goes on. Could it all be connected? By the way this is not an attempt to pick specifically on Rastas but they are famous through Bob Marley as being concerned with righteousness. People who do not know Psalm 68 condemn them for using the word JAH as the name of their God.

Fads and Foolishness

While (at least in the case of Rastas) some seem to have a sincere desire for good, immodesty in dress conflicts with the Bible. God recognises that these fads have a pull on people and we are warned not to let them change us.

One of the key problems is human sexuality and that problem typically is manifested in adornment or lack of it. People want to look sexy above having respect for God.

The Bible reveals the underlying problem of people being more concerned about their own desires than their honour for their creator.

God does not want either men or women displaying what should be covered, in other words your underwear should be just that.

Something fishy

As far as hair is concerned , an indication that something smells will probably occur to Christians when they read

There is something more to this than just the superficial issue of looking how we want to. If you cannot shave then why are you allowed to cut your hair at all? If I clip my hair down to the skin with a scissors then why is that different from cutting it with a razor. So an atheist could say 'God does not make sense, bothering with foolishness while the world falls apart'. What did Paul know?

Shaving as Grooming

Joseph was undoubtedly one of the most extraordinary men that ever served God. His life shows that from an early age God revealed His will to him in dreams, yet Joseph shaved.

Joseph shaved and all the while God was working a miracle in his life. God revealed all sorts of things to Joseph and there is no record of Him saying that Joseph was wrong to shave. In 2 Samuel we find that Absalom cut his hair once a year and neither David, nor any prophet, never reprimanded him. So the problem is not short or long.

Now Job was a righteous man. He shaved and God said that he did not sin.

Job did not sin by shaving his head! So then why am I sinning if Job did not? It seems that Job performed a genuine act of mourning and was blameless.

Joseph showed that shaving was a normal practice of hygiene and propriety and Job used shaving as a sincere representation of mourning and humiliation. God Himself uses shaving to indicate great loss and being destitute. The razor is symbolic of the king of Assyria who will cause them to mourn bitterly. In my opinion the lack of hair was intended to show that men were helpless like babies, incapable of looking after themselves.

The word hiss means to whistle or hiss (as a call or in scorn) like saying 'phew'. 'Hired' is used as a reference to Ahaz having purchased the aid of the Assyrians with large sums of silver and gold, 2 Kings 16:7-8. God turns the Assyrian razor that they hired against them. Beyond the river is speaking of the Euphrates beyond which lay Assyria. History shows that a series of the rulers of the Assyrian empire, Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and especially by Nebuchadnezzar, brough Israel to penury.

Ezekiel used the degradation of being shaved to represent the condition of Israel that was imminent. God undoubtedly used the object lesson of shaving to link back to Isaiah's prophecy above.

They had used God's money from the temple to pay to hire Assyrians and now God shows that money cannot help them against Him. They will be helpless and humiliated.

Cutting Your Flesh and Mourning

You may remember that the legend of Nimrod includes him being cut into pieces. Cutting of the flesh is in honour of him and the cuts that he had. Mutilating other parts of the body or cutting the hair in unnatural styles also appear to relate to his dismemberment.

It appears that shaving in worship was part of a common practice in Israel but we see that in Babylonian captivity Israel conformed and combined shaving with some pagan adaptations. Ishmael had just killed Gedaliah whom Nebuchadnezzar (this is Nebuchadnezzar ii who we know from the book of Daniel) had made governor. Nobody knew but the next day some Jewish mourners came to bring offerings to God and he murdered them too. The point here is that they were doing what they understood as a right practice and one that was not condemned among the Jews.

Cutting the flesh is identified as a part of mourning in Moab. Making the cut was obviously intended to produce blood without causing serious injury. It seems to me that the smearing of the blood on their clothes is how someone would know that they had cut themselves.

Jeremiah also used the reference to cutting and shaving in grief to talk about the condition of Israel (Jeremiah 16:1-9) but God obviously did not expect them to indulge in that Moabite practice of cutting because it was already prohibited in the Law.

The most famous cutting-the-flesh incident is an extreme case in response to Elijah at Mount Carmel. Elijah had challenged the prophets of Baal before the people, to prove which God was supreme.

In this case it is obvious that the cutting was intended to produce blood and not for the purpose of making marks on the skin or incapacitating themselves.

Shaving and Purification

In Deuteronomy we learn that hair represents power or authority over a woman.

This principle is used in 1 Corinthians to explain that women should never remove their hair but that men should. A wife's hair shows that a man has authority over her and a man's lack of hair shows that there is no human authority over him.

Verses 14 and 15 makes it clear that Paul is talking about hair.

Lepers also used ritual shaving to represent being cleansed from that awful disease (Leviticus 14:1-9) and in Numbers it is stated that shaving was to make them ritually clean (Numbers 8:7).

In general it is believed that separating a sacrifice in a vow, was a commitment that whatever happened to the sacrifice was expected to happen to the person making the vow, if he/she broke it.

Even in the New Testament the practice of making vows continued unobstructed. It is obvious that the issue is not the lack of hair but the ritual, if any, associated with it.

Just looking at a bald head does not say anything about motives.

Tonsuring

While a bald head did not constitute motives, there is no doubt when you see a tonsure that the person had no regard for God's word.

Tonsure

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tonsure

Tonsure is the practice of cutting or shaving some or all of the hair on the scalp, as a sign of religious devotion or humility. The term originates from the Latin word tonsra (to clip, or cut) and referred to a specific practice in medieval Catholicism, abandoned by papal order in 1972. Current usage more generally refers to cutting or shaving for monks, devotees, or mystics of any religion as a symbol of their renunciation of worldly fashion and esteem. Tonsure also refers to the secular practice of shaving all or part of the scalp to show support or sympathy, or to designate mourning.WikipediaTonsureWikipedia, the free encyclopediaWEBSept, 2015

The problem with tonsure is that God did not say that rounding from the inside is any different from rounding from the outside. He simply says Ye shall not round the corners of your heads,. Even now a tonsure can make one look strangely effeminate. Making that round for any reason is a deliberate attempt to represent something that God sees no virtue in.

This statement is sandwiched among some other serious pagan practices which indicates to us that this was something of ritual significance that placed it high among abominations. The indication is that the person cut off the edges of the hairline in an obvious fashion to demonstrate faith in some pagan deity. It is not fading the temples. The bible does have a way of describing your temples if it wants to

It is not like God cannot identify your temple if He wants to. He did in describing what happened to Sisera.

The indication is that Leviticus 19:27 referred to idolatry where the beard or head was shaped to honour a deity. This deity , for example in Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible is identified as Bacchus. Now in reading the Bible it is assumed that this refers to men alone but the worship of Bacchus had to do with being transvestite. Women cut their hair short and men let theirs grow long or otherwise groomed their hair to minimise their genders rather than enhance them. The boyish female haircuts of today with shaved temples and the Mohawks are throwbacks to these practices. The bald heads and ponytails of Japan also appear to be relics of idol worship. It is no wonder that Paul said the women should be careful with hair because of the angels (1 Corinthians 11:10) since the haircuts showed a rejection of their gender.

Just for completeness let us also look at the beard.

Now the word translated as 'mar' actually means 'ruin' or 'decay' and is variously translated based on the context. Technically it is saying that you should not ruin the hairline of your beard. If he wanted to say 'round' he would have said so. Ruin, on the other hand is contextual and subjective. What is ruin for one is an improvement for another so to me the meaning is to use common sense and do not do anything that people would consider stupid with your beard, but that does not mean that you let it grow as it pleases. One way to ruin a beard is to make it look girlish with curls.

The definitions that are given in this document are taken from Mickelson's Enhanced Strong's Greek and Hebrew Dictionaries unless otherwise indicated. Consider also the word translated as corners;

To better appreciate the significance of the instruction I suggest that we compare it with what the practice was in Egypt. This makes senses for several reasons including that this is the culture that they were being extracted from and that they were told not to return to it. A search for beards in Egypt shows that there was a practice of curving beards to shape them in honour of pagan gods. In death, the kings were frequently portrayed wearing the divine Osird form of the beard. This is the closest thing to rounding the corners that I have seen in ancient depictions. God never said that men had to wear beards, but if they did then it was wise to keep distance from adopting strange styles that might have religious significance.  

Hair to the gods

We have already covered Absalom, which shows that long hair on its own is not a religious problem, but girlishness in men is. God does not approve of being a transvestite Deuteronomy 22:5 The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. In the new testament Paul was undoubtedly referring to this Roman practise in Corinthians

Ludovisi Dionysus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The over-lifesize marble Dionysus with Panther and Satyr in the Palazzo Altemps,[1] Rome, is a Roman work of the 2nd century CE, found in the 16th century[2] on the Quirinal Hill at the time foundations were being dug for Palazzo Mattei at Quattro Fontane.[3] The statue was purchased for the Ludovisi collection, where it was first displayed in front of the Palazzo Grande, the main structure of the Villa Ludovisi, and by 1641 in the gallery of sculptures in the Casino Capponi [4] erected for Cardinal Ludovico Ludovisi in the villa's extensive grounds. By 1885, it had been removed to the new Palazzo del Principe di Piombino, nearby in via Veneto. With the rest of the Boncompagni-Ludovisi collection, which was open to the public on Sundays and covered in the guidebooks,[5] and where it had become famous,[6] it was purchased in 1901 for the City of Rome, as the Ludovisi collection was dispersed and the Villa's ground built over at the end of the 19th century.The formula, with somewhat exaggerated contrapposto, the god's right hand resting on his head, is based on the Apollo Lyceus, which is variously attributed and dated. This ivy-crowned Dionysus is accompanied by the panther that signalises his numinous presence, and a satyr of reduced size, a member of his retinue. Long locks of his hair fall girlishly over his shoulders and in his left hand he holds a bunch of grapes, emblematic of his status as god of wine.The original elements are the heads, torsos and thighs of Dionysus and the satyr. The arms of the satyr and the lower legs and base are modern that is, 16th-century restorations.WikipediaLudovisi DionysusWikipedia, the free encyclopediaWEBSept, 2015

And at Sept 10, 2015 from

Dionysos

DIONYSOS (or Dionysus) was the great Olympian god of wine, vegetation, pleasure and festivity. He was depicted as either an older bearded god or a pretty effeminate, long-haired youth. His attributes included the thyrsos (a pine-cone tipped staff), drinking cup, leopard and fruiting vine. He was usually accompanied by a troop of Satyrs and Mainades (female devotees or nymphs).

THEOI GREEK MYTHOLOGYDIONYSUSTHEOI BREEK MYTHOLOGYWEBSept 10,2015

We also spoke of 1 Corinthians 11:14-16 where Paul referred to the 'practice' of long hair. Paul would have know of the worship of this deity and could have been referring to this 'practice'.

Back to Corinthians

Space will not allow me to cover the breath of the influence of Bacchus or Dionysus, a deity who had been raised as a girl and was one of the god's worshipped in Corinth.

Maenadad

In Greek mythology, maenads were the female followers of Dionysus and the most significant members of the Thiasus, the god's retinue. Their name literally translates as "raving ones." Maenads were known as Bassarids, in Roman mythology after the penchant of the equivalent Roman god, Bacchus, to wear a bassaris or fox-skin.  Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaMaenadad Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaWEBSept 2015

These mad women were associated with liberated women. Bacchus worship was open to all which differentiated it from the class distinctions of emperor worship and other religions that exalted the elite in society. Interestingly, they practised secret activities, called teletai or orgia, which took place in the mountains, where they immersed themselves in ecstatic dancing, singing and revelling. The spirits that induced this behaviour was wine but today it may be another kind of spirit. The worship is associated with the Greek word olulugia which is said to mean the sound which women make to exult in worship.

The Greeks were the ones who coined the word ecstasy, referring to when the person entered an altered state of mind. The word "ecstasy" comes from the Greek words ek :out and stasis or standing still, producing to stand outside oneself. The principle of out-of-body experiences is a hallmark of modern culture whether in religion or recreation. Then as now it is hailed as being in communion with the gods. Thus the worship of Bacchus provided both a rallying point for protest and an opportunity for sexual and other freedoms.

Specifically to priests

We saw God speaking to the general population in Leviticus 19 but He also spoke specifically to priests.

In Ezekiel's vision of the coming Kingdom, priests were not allowed to either shave their heads bald or wear their hair long.

Both of those had religious symbolism as even today with monks. Being in a religious group does not absolve people from contravening God's laws.

For the dead

Some of God's prohibitions had to do with mourning rituals. I cannot figure out what baldness between the eyes really means. Nothing that I have read sounds conclusive.

God does allow people to grieve but cutting the flesh is not acceptable.

Isaiah 44:5 & Ezekiel 9:4

Somehow it is imagined by some that these two scriptures encourage us to mark ourselves for God.

It shows a complete disregard for the context of the verses. These verses are prophetic. In Isaiah it is talking about what will happen when God restores Israel. The verse literally talks about writing on ONLY the hand and that is symbolic. Even if it wasn't the hand does not include the shoulder or legs or anything else. The hand symbolises what we do so it meant that you will devote everything that you do to God and that by extension means that you will seek out what He wants and do that in deference to what you want. In Ezekiel it is talking about a similar time that has a parallel in the book of Revelation where God sends a messenger to distinguish His people supernaturally. It is talking about just before God condemns those who do not honour Him to endure a terrible period on the earth.

Some go so far as to suggest that Christ has tattoos on his thigh.

Now what about tattoos

Young people are ever driven by waves of emotion to act hastily, and invariably it is motivated by Satan. People wear a million earrings or nose rings or tongue rings otherwise they want a million tattoos. If you want these things what is your motivation? Is it to honour God? I doubt it. If we examine our motivation for our desire it goes a long way in helping to discern the truth. Our whole lives are to be a living sacrifice to God, that means that whatever we do should honour him.

God wants the Best

God made it clear in His word that He wants our best. In every Old Testament ritual of a sacrifice to God it was clearly specified that it must be without blemish. For example:

The lamb represented Christ of course but it also represents us as Christians. That is what Christian means: someone who imitates Christ.

Paganism is all around us. The Christian wants to steer clear but unfortunately extremists cloud the issues by focusing on the substance without understanding the spirit. The society drives us to see teh world through pagan eyes. There is always some new high priest or high priestess promoting the virtues of the new aberrant behaviour: hippie love, getting high, being unhealthily thin, health foods and the list goers on. Underneath the camouflage of lies and half-truths the fact is that these things are not new and Satan is still Satan whether you call him Bacchus or otherwise. God has pronounced a curse on the people of the earth because they turned to Satan and rejected Him. That curse is not intended for those who have repented and returned to their Lord and creator. Let us do our best to avoid it.