Saturday, October 17, 2009

The Bible and Nakedness -- Part 4 -- Uncovering the Nakedness of Others.

Now the next significant verses in the Bible that deal with the subject of nakedness are found I Leviticus 18. This entire chapter is dedicated to who you are not supposed to uncover the nakedness of. The list is long and their are other commandments involving sexual practice. The interesting thing is this expression: 'Uncover the nakedness'. The interpretive problem is that this cannot mean strip off clothes or look on a naked body because in Leviticus 20:11 we get a definition:' If there is a man who lies with his father's wife, he has uncovered his father's nakedness; both of them shall surely be put to death, their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

This makes it pretty clear that this expression is referring to sexual intercourse and who you can and cannot have it with. This also puts limits on who you can and cannot marry.

I am going to tell you this does not help the discussion of what constitutes nudity or nakedness from the Bible's point of view. In short, that is not what these passages are talking about but they are dealing with proper sexual relationships for the People of God Israel. Much of what follows in the rest of the Law of Moses is the same thing repeated over and over.

What gets interesting is when the Spirit of God causes a couple kings to be naked for different reasons.

Next: Saul and David: Naked in Public

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