#Leviticus 19:26-28
Sorcery (and why Jews wear beards and don’t get tattoos)
The thing about sorcery in the Bible is that it isn’t forbidden because it’s inherently evil. It isn’t forbidden because it’s “magic” (however defined). It’s forbidden because it works.
Sorcery (and why Jews wear beards and don’t get tattoos)
The thing about sorcery in the Bible is that it isn’t forbidden because it’s inherently evil. It isn’t forbidden because it’s “magic” (however defined). It’s forbidden because it works.
Sorcery (or divination, or augury, or whatever in this concept cluster) is problematic because it usurps YHWH’s power - and, particularly, the authority of the priests as the sole access to YHWH, and especially to oracular knowledge. Knowledge is power, don’t you know.
Sorcery is thus very much like child sacrifice - prohibited because of its efficaciousness, because it overrides or usurps divine authority, because it reveals alternative modes of manipulating power and knowledge. Such things are, as always, a threat to the powers that be.
As for the law against shaving one’s beard, I’m not sure exactly what the underlying issue is. Stylishness, probably.
Tattoos? Amazingly, they’re prohibited as a category of mourning practice: no cutting yourself or making marks in your flesh for the dead. So that R.I.P. tat? As spot-on forbidden as you can get. (Could you get a tattoo not for a dead person and be okay? I sorta suspect so.)
Here too I think the issue is probably an attempt to control power: mourning rituals, at least of this type, were probably meant in part to appeal to the powers of the deceased, whether for protection or vengeance or who knows what. The cult of the dead was a threat to YHWH.
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