Is it a sin for a Christian to get a tattoo?
This is a very timely question seeing as how we are witnessing a proliferation of all kinds of body modification, including piercings and cuttings and tattoos. The Bible actually mentions these things very directly in Leviticus 19:28. The Lord says, “You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves.” A couple of interpretive questions arise. The first concerns the words “for the dead”. “ You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead …” It was a practice among the pagans to cut themselves for a variety of reasons, one of which was as an expression of mourning for the dead. In the Ugaritic story of Baal and Anat, the god Baal is killed and the other gods, his friends, cut their cheeks and chins and lacerate their forearms, chests and backs. [1] We find, too, that the priests of Baal, in their contest with Elijah, “cut themselves after their custom with swords and lances, until the blood gushed out upon them” (1 Ki. 18:28). The ques...