In the Beginning ...

    Perhaps the most-referenced nudity story in the Bible concerns the famous situation in the Garden of Eden.   Often this story is interpreted as a divine injunction to wear clothing after committing sin and being expelled from the Garden.  However this common interpretation of Genesis is shallow and does not fit the facts of the account for the following reasons:  (1) Body shame seems to be exhibited on the part of Adam and Eve only, after sin, and is never expressed by Deity; (2) God does provide clothing for Adam and Eve for an unspecified purpose, but this clothing is leather and notably unsuitable for swimming and sunbathing; (3) God does not provide Adam and Eve with a bathing suit (which would have been an anachronism, since the bathing suit was invented not by Deity but by garment manufacturers roughly 150 years ago); and (4) God never states a commandment against nudity to Adam and Eve, and the consequences of their sin do not include any reference to nudity.  Thus, the Hebrews who wrote and preserved this ancient story gave little thought to the idea that simple nudity offended Deity or that God concerned Himself with simple nudity as a moral concern.

The Biblical Language of Nudity

    Before further examining the view of nudity by Biblical peoples an important linguistic point should be made.  Where nudity is concerned, the English language does not convey the nuances of Hebrew.  In Hebrew several distinct and different words are used to discuss nudity.  The Hebrew the words "Arom" or "Erom" have an innocent, nonsexual meaning.

    In contrast the Hebrew "Ervah" connotes sexuality - usually a shameful or licentious sexuality.  (See Nakedness and the Bible, by Paul Bowman, 1992).  For example, the Adam and Eve story concerns nudity as Arom, whereas denunciations of nudity in sexual context use the word Ervah.  When this distinction is made the Bible presents a surprisingly unified view of nudity negatively in the context of Ervah and positively or neutrally in the context of Arom.

Does the Bible Teach Not to Be Nude in Tents?

    After Eden the next major Biblical reference to nudity occurs in the famous story of the nude and drunken Noah and the disrespectful behavior of his son Ham.  Deeply interpretive discussion of this story will be avoided, noting only two points:  (1) Although the existence of a social taboo is evident, Deity's anger is directed not against the nude person but against the disrespectful son, and (2) the incident concerns a man in his private tent.

    Generally the Old Testament Hebrews equated extensive clothing (rather than nudity) with unchastity.  For example when Judah mistook the veiled and wrapped Tamar for a prostitute, because " ... he thought her to be a harlot, for she had covered her face." (Genesis 38:15)  In the Bible, the clothes make the harlot.

The Law of Moses - It's OK to be Nude In Public All Day, But Sleep Warm

    A clear statement that the God of the Hebrews considered public nudity to be an issue only of comfort and practicality and not of morality is made in a commandment of mercy which forms part of the Law of Moses:  "If ever you take your neighbor's garment in pledge, you shall restore it to him before the sun goes down; for that is his only covering, it is his mantle for his body; in what else shall he sleep?" (Exodus 22:26-27) 

    In the Bible the only moral concern for a debtor going about his daily activities totally and publicly nude is that he have something to wrap himself in to keep warm at night!

The Connection Between Nudity and Prophecy

    A very interesting story concerning nudity occurs in 1 Samuel 19:23-24.  Here it is recorded that when the Spirit of God came upon King Saul he prophesied, but it is not until Saul finds Samuel and with Samuel strips off his clothes all day and all night that the people wonder if Saul is not also a prophet.  Here the word Arom is used for Samuel and Saul's nudity.  Bo sense of indecency is conveyed concerning the public nudity of these two prominent men.  Indeed, the sense of the story is that public nudity was common and expected of the Hebrew prophets, and even served as a standard professional practice and method of identification of true holiness.

King David's Nude Dance, and a Curse on the Anti-Nudist

     Another very interesting look at how the God of Israel viewed nudity is given in 2 Samuel 6:12-23.  Here the Ark of the Covenant has finally made its long-awaited entrance into Jerusalem.  King David demonstrated his joy by dancing nude (Hebrew galah in this case, which does have erotic overtones) in public (wearing only a linen ephod, ceremonial upper body wear). 

    King David's wife Michal was apparently offended by his public nudity and gave a very modern-sounding speech about how shameful it was for King David to expose himself to the young women. 

    King David responded that it was right to demonstrate his joy nude before the Lord and protested that the young women  weren't offended. 

    The Bible then records that Michal was cursed with barrenness until her death.  Thus this account not only approvingly records a claim that God approves of public nude dancing as a means of expressing a message of righteous joy, but also records that a high rank Israelite who disapproved of public nude dance was rewarded with a curse.  Such an account could hardly occur in a society with a blanket disapproval of public nudity.

God Commands Public Nudity for Prophets Conducting Political Protests

    The Hebrew Bible also records that the Prophet Isaiah was directly commanded by God to openly use extensive public nudity as a teaching device.  In Isaiah chapter 20 Isaiah is commanded by God to remove the clothing from his loins and the shoes from his feet and to preach naked and barefoot in public for three entire years.  No mention is made of restricting Isaiah's appearances to areas designated for nudity.  (From our modern view it is interesting that the naked man is the one preaching repentance - and not the one being preached to!)  Again, the implication of this story is that God and ancient Hebrew society did not view simple public nudity as an adverse moral issue.

    The Prophet Isaiah was not the only Hebrew prophet commanded by God to walk publicly nude while preaching his message.  The Prophet Micah also walked publicly nude as part of his ministry (Micah 1:8).

Israelite Children Grew Up Nude

    An allegory in Ezekiel (chapter 16) indicates that it was the common practice of the Israelites to let even sexually mature female children run totally naked until they were married.  As verses 7-8 state,

    "... And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full maidenhood; your breasts were formed, and your [pubic] hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.  When I passed by you again and looked upon you, behold, you were at the age for love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness:  yea, I plighted my troth to you and entered into a covenant with you ... "

    As Bowman (Nakedness and the Bible) points out, an allegory cannot be effective in communicating a truth if the circumstances are unfamiliar to listeners.  The assumption should be that the described situation was familiar and common to the audience.  The only logical conclusion then is that premarital public nudity was common and taken for granted as a way of life for Hebrew youngsters even after sexual maturity.

Jesus Christ Teaches Naturism as an Antidote to Materialism

    The New Testament also in passing makes some very positive statements about simple public nudity.  The "in passing" is all the more telling as we are informed that some public nudity was commonly a way of life for first century Christians.

    Jesus Christ praised public nudity as a virtue when he asked, "Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  ... And why are you anxious about clothing?  Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these."  (Matthew 6:25, 28-29) 

    The image of flowers greeting the sunshine and breeze as a metaphor for nude bodies in nature might seem unusual to modern Westerners.  However the metaphor was quite familiar to a Jewish audience steeped in their own literature, which we see in the "Old" Testament. 

    The Prophet Ezekiel made exactly that connection between the natural plants of the field and natural human nudity (Ezekiel 16:7, more clear in RSV).  In praising a natural naturist lifestyle Jesus was using a literary allusion already quite familiar and common to his Jewish audience and likewise used by a major Old Testament prophet.

St. Peter, Jesus and the Jewish Working Man's Uniform

    In John 21:7 we are informed that Saint Peter customarily stripped nude (Greek gymnos) for his work as a fisherman on the public waterways.  (According to Bowman (Nakedness and the Bible) we should not be surprised at this as depictions of Egyptian fishermen of that period often show them fishing in complete nudity on public lands without any recorded government designation of the areas for nudity and it is reasonable to believe this custom was prevalent in Israel as well.) 

    When the resurrected Jesus appeared Peter does dress for company, but any reprimand for nudity on public lands or waterways is noticeably absent.

    Peter's nudity is a simple, unremarked-upon work uniform.  It is thus ironic that although Jesus himself did not condemn Peter certain modern anti-nudity laws brand Saint Peter himself as an affront to moral society and demand fines and jail time for such innocent behavior.  A more dramatic highlight between the misunderstanding of some modern persons and the realities of acceptance of public nudity in Western civilization and Judeo-Christian religion would be difficult to find.

    Interestingly, like the biblical peoples far eastern civilization has also had a common custom of accepted and widespread public nudity for physical laborers.  In the case of Japan this has extended well into the twentieth century.  As ruled in a United States court decision, "The Japanese do not consider nudity indecent.  A Japanese woman pays no heed to the absence of clothing on workmen." (Parmelee v. United States, 113 F.2d 279, 733 (1940), quoting Sumner, Folkways (1906))

    One may wonder if Jewish carpenters did not also assume the common man's working uniform and publicly work in the nude when practical.

Jesus Greets Cheering Naked Crowd on Palm Sunday

    Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday also provides evidence of His positive acceptance of public nudity. 

    In Matthew 21:8 we are informed that the crowd spread their garments on the road.  In Greek the common garment is called a himation.  According to Bowman the himation was typically the only and single garment owned by the common majority in those times (recall the Law of Moses commandment against keeping a debtor's garment). 

    Historically, underwear as we understand it first came into general use only about 200 years ago (see The Importance of Wearing Clothes by Lawrence Langner, 1991 edition, chapter 16).  Thus, lacking underwear, when the crowd removed their himations to honor Jesus most of the crowd would inevitably have been naked. 

    There is no record that Jesus considered this mass public nudity in his honor as morally incorrect.  On the contrary, He accepted the crowd's honor.  There is also no record that the Roman authorities were concerned about the public nudity of Jewish crowds - only their support of a Messiah.

    In contrast to the cheering nude crowd that honored Jesus on Palm Sunday, the officials and mob that sought his death were apparently dressed.

 Jesus Performs Rite of Service and Humility in the Nude

    John 13:4 also records an instance where Jesus Christ himself would be a criminal offender according to some modern anti-nudity ordinances.  

    St. John's account informs us that at the Last Supper Jesus laid aside his clothing and wore only a towel which he then used to clean his Apostle's feet rather than as an article of clothing. 

    Inevitably, Jesus would have been exposed to the other persons in the room.  If the Last Supper were held in an eating place open to members of the public, as was the custom of the time, then Jesus' famous act of humility in washing the Apostle's feet would have deserved a criminal arrest according modern anti-nudity ordinances which define nudity in any establishment open to the public except for a nudist club as a criminal offense.

The Nude Resurrection

    St. John also states that when Jesus rose from the dead, his linen garments were left behind (John 20:5,6).  Immediately after St. John's report of that observation by St. Peter and another disciple, St. John states that Mary Magdalene met Jesus outside of the tomb and mistook him for the gardener.  This incident would be understandable only if the expected work uniform of the gardener as a common laboring man was nudity.

    Christians in 1678 also understood the holy connection between nudity and resurrection.  In the Christian classic The Pilgrim's Progress, author John Bunyan wrote that when the Christian heros Christian and Hopeful finish their heroic journey of faith and pass through a River (symbolizing death), before entering heaven “also they had left their mortal Garments behind them in the River; for though they went in with them, they came out without them. They therefore went up here with much agility and speed, though the Foundation upon which the City was framed was higher than the Clouds; They therefore went up through the region of the air, sweetly talking as they went, being comforted, because they safely got over the River, and had such glorious Companions to attend them.”

The Future Nude Christian Church and Other Prophecies

    St. John's positive view of public nudity continues in the Book of Revelation (12:1), where the Christian church is portrayed as a nude woman "clothed with the sun."  Throughout the allegory the nude woman never shows any interest in being dressed in more than sunlight.  (Interestingly, for many years the name of The Naturist Society's magazine was Clothed With The Sun.)

    St. John follows the prophecy of the righteous nude woman "clothed with the sun" with the prophecy of the Bride of Christ who is "clothed in fine linen, bright and pure - for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints" (Rev. 19:8), thus echoing St. Paul's advice to Christian women who desire true modesty that the only important dress is good deeds (1 Timothy 2:9,10, discussed below). 

    In contrast the evil "great harlot" (Rev. 17:1) who is "Babylon the great, mother of harlots and of earth's abominations" (Rev 17:5) wears extensive and expensive literal cloth of "purple and scarlet" (Rev. 17:4).

Nudity of Christ's Disciples a Necessary Preparation for the Second Coming?

    An apocryphal Gospel which openly praises public nudity as a part of holiness is credited as being "the most authentic of the rejects" and almost became part of the standard Christian canon in 382 A.D.. 

    Prof.  Paul LeValley points out that the Gospel of Thomas "is the closest thing we now have to the original Q; it contains some additional sayings not found in Matthew or Luke."  (Q is the posited original source for the canonical Gospels.) ("How Early Christians Dealt with the Naked Christ," Naturally, Winter 1995/1996, p. 16) 

In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus taught that:

     36.  Jesus said, "Do not be concerned from morning until evening and from evening until morning about what you will wear."
     37.  His disciples said, "When will You become revealed to us and when shall we see You?"  Jesus said, "When you disrobe without being ashamed and take up your garments and place them under your feet like little children and tread on them, then will you see the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid."

St. Paul Recommends Christians Be Covered With Good Deeds, Not Clothing

    Although Saint Paul wrote often and strongly against nearly every stripe of sexual immorality with which modern Christians concern themselves, it is telling that St. Paul never condemned nonsexual public nudity.  For example, the nude are not listed by St. Paul as being among "the unrighteous" in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10.  Nudity also did not make the list of the four things which the Apostle James stated that Gentile Christians must abstain from in Acts 15:20, 29.

    When St. Paul does recommend modesty, he asks that Christian women adorn themselves in "seemly apparel."  However St. Paul's definition of "seemly apparel" is not cloth but rather "good deeds, as befits women who profess religion." (1 Timothy 2:9,10)



St. Peter Advises Christian Women That Modesty is Not Clothing, but an Attitude

    In his advice to Christian wives, Saint Peter pointedly stated that the adornment of chastity or modesty is "Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel; But let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that which is not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the sight of God of great price."  (1 Peter 3:3-4, KJV).

Early Christian were Naturists at the Roman Baths

    The lack of any moral concern about public nudity in the New Testament was not an oversight.  All Jews and Gentiles were well acquainted with the influential Hellenistic Naturist traditions of athletics and academic discourse in the nude - a tradition that was extended to women as well when more advanced Hellenistic societies allowed to participate with men as equals. 

    Furthermore mixed-gender public nude bathing (virtually indistinguishable from modern Naturist recreation) was a distinct feature of life in the first century Roman Empire.  Christians are known to have commonly participated along with everyone else.

    As an example, (see Dayton Daily News, 13 Feb 1993) Roy Bowen Ward, a professor at Miami University in Oxford, has published a study in the Harvard Theological Review that says early Christians "might not have objected to public nudity the way many people object today."  Professor Ward states that "Mixed bathing was customary with Christian men and women until about the end of the fourth century AD."  According to Prof. Ward, Christian morality did not originally preclude nudity.  It was not until the fifth century A.D. that an anti-Naturist philosophy became established.

    Ward's study states that in the first centuries of Christianity, public baths - sometimes several acres in size - became a gathering spot throughout the Roman Empire.  More than 850 public baths existed by the end of the fourth century.  Christian women frequented the baths and were bathing with men.  Although not without controversy, Naturist Christians were in the majority until about 400 years after Christ.

Nude Baptism as a Christian Requirement

    Prof. Ward also points out that in the third century, nudity was consciously mandatory for the Christian rite of baptism.  Such public nudity was upheld as a moral and religious good.

    In accordance with Prof. Ward's conclusions, existing writings of early Christian leaders supports fact that early Christians practiced public nudity as a matter of course in their religion. 

    Saint Hippolytus of Rome (c. 200 A.D.) wrote that men, women and children were baptized together while nude.  In fact women were asked to remove even jewelry and combs from their hair.

     Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (c. 350 A.D.) recorded his instructions to early Christians as they were baptized:

    "You are now stripped and naked, in this also imitating Christ despoiled of His garments on His Cross, He Who by His nakedness despoiled the principalities and powers, and fearlessly triumphed over them on the cross."

    After the baptismal service Saint Cyril would then tell the new Christians:

    "How wonderful!  You were naked before the eyes of all without feeling any shame.  This is because you truly carry within you the image of the first Adam, who was naked in paradise without feeling any shame."

    Another early Church Father, Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 400 A.D.) stated Christian beliefs thusly:

    "Adam was naked at the beginning and he was not ashamed of it.  This is why your clothing must be taken off, since it is the convincing proof of this sentence which lowers mankind to need clothing."

(See Jean Cardinal Danielou, S.J., The Bible and the Liturgy, Univ. Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind., 1956, p. 38-40.)

    Ironically, although the early Christians mandated that baptism be performed in the nude,  nude baptism is specified to be a crime in many anti-nudity ordinances.

    One is left to wonder at the true authorship of these new anti-nudity ordinances.


 Nudity and the Pope
  
    Modern as well as ancient Christian leaders have expressed a tolerance of and support for public nudity.  One example is that of Karol Wojtyla, now known as Pope John Paul II, who has taught that:

    "Sexual modesty cannot then in any simple way be identified with the use of clothing, nor shamelessness with the absence of clothing and total or partial nakedness ... Nakedness as such is not to be equated with physical shamelessness."  (Love and Responsibility, tr. H.T. Willetts, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, N.Y. 1981, p. 176, 190).

But, what about ...