But when a Christian tattoos a Bible verse or a faith-phrase upon her body, she makes her body into a text. She reverses the incarnation of Christ; in her de-incarnation she is making the body, what is prone to messiness and effluvia and decay, into a true and eternal Word. They are turning themselves into the Bible, or a part thereof.
There’s something laudable in this: stating that these truths are the ultimate and unchanging truths of who I am. Yet I also wonder if they represent a running away from our carnality, a running away from the things that Christ affirmed in the incarnation. I wonder too whether tattoos like these ”” and all tattoos ”” might sometimes work like frosting upon a store window ”” presenting a surface that seeks not to externalize but to conceal what lies within. Does the person who stamps “God’s Son” upon his skin really believe it?
Um…I’m old enough that I was brought up in the “your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit” school of thought. You don’t ink graffiti onto a temple (even religious graffiti) hence you don’t trash your body with a bunch of tattoos. The worst is yet to come when all these people get old. Ever see a really old wrinkly tattoo? Not a pretty sight.
“You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves.” Leviticus 19:24
#2 I guess we better check the tag on our clothes and how we groom ourselves….
“‘Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.” Lev 19:19
“‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. ” Lev 19:27
#3–The distinction here is the prohibition against tattoos, marking for the dead, etc., is a prohibition against engaging in idolatrous practices, either in this case as a mark of worshiping things other than God or trying to make an idol of your own body. Christians are told not to dishonor their bodies, because in doing so they dishonor God. Corinthians 6:19-20. An example of idolatry in tattoos appears in Revelation, where followers of the Antichrist will be tattooed with his mark.