Watching ‘The Surreal Life’ some months ago, Tammy Fay Messner (was Bakker) refused to go into a nudist colony, and I think she said it was because of religious reasons (it’s been a while, should have opened this thread then…)
I also seem to recall from my religious relatives that nudity was seen as somehow “unchristian”.
Is there any biblical statements against nudity, or perhaps does this attitude simply exist because nudity generates lust which can lead to adultery?
(As an aside, let’s not turn this into a Tammy Fay bashing. She’s a friend of my family (although I haven’t met her yet), and she spent a lot of time with my uncle when he was dying of cancer. She may be a joke to a lot of people, but I just know her kindness.)
So the association with sinfulness and shame over nakedness is established early on.
Later, Ham incurs God’s wrath (getting his son, Canaan, cursed) when he laughs at his father Noah’s drunken nakedness while Noah’s other two sons actually back up to Noah to put a cloak over him without looking at his nakedness.
(“Told his brethren” is usually explained as making rude comments to his brothers.)
Well, there’s that whole Genesis thing. Early on, Adam and Eve were joined “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” But then that whole pesky fruit thng happened “And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.” They then hid themselves.
When God came for a stroll through Eden, he found them and asked Adam why they were hiding, and Adam says it’s because they were naked and ashamed. God becomes a tailor: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them.”
So I suppose that could be reason enough to decide that enlightened humans are supposed to be clothed - since God made them the clothes and all.
It is a cultural accretion that is given Biblical support by the quotations referenced rather than being derived from the Bible. One of the Orthodox Jews here can give a better sense of the Jewish attitude towards nudity, but my impression is that the exposing of nakedness was not ipso facto sinful, but could be the occasion of sin depending on context – as in the case where Noah gets stinking drunk and passes out naked, and Ham looks on his father’s naked body – some scholars think there’s some euphemism here, that Ham got into some incestuous lusting after his father’s bod, but even if you simply read it as Ham disrespecting his father for having gotten drunk, it’s the context, not the nudity itself, that is the problem.
BTW, my impression is that the majority of Dopers have a lot of respect for Tammy Faye Messner for living out her beliefs and extending charity and kindness to the ostracized, contrary to the attitudes of most televangelists, and never mind that she’s not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree and someone to whom Estee Lauder’s accountants make sure to send a corporate birthday card every year for her contributions to their bottom line – she’s decent people, and not afraid to do what’s right regardless of the attitudes of others.
Also there’s “nudity as temptation” - David saw Bathsheba at her bath and got all lustful, although it’s pretty clear AIRC that it’s his sin to have her husband done away with.
I have no opinions on the nudity and the Bible issue. I just wanted to chime in about Tammy Faye.
I saw that Surreal Life episode, and I really can’t imagine how anyone can fault the woman. She didn’t try to prevent any of the other folks from going in, and I personally think that the way they set her up for it was shameful. The producers HAD to know she was going to have issues with it, but they go didn’t tell her what was going on until the guy walked out from behind the counter with nothing on below the waist. I seriously thought she was going to do herself an injury from shock. It was even more tasteless than most of the things they did that season (and Tammy Faye was an incredible sport about everything else, really, except for the porn industry pool party Ron Jeremy threw (which was also entirely understandable)).
And I just wanted to add that, even there, the most she did was vacate herself from the area and stay in her room. The lady has class. Whether she’s always had it or whether she discovered it within herself after life shook her hard and said “WAKE UP!”, I don’t know. But class she definitely has.
Me, too. I found her charming. Maybe not the brightest person around but sweet and kind and I liked how she and Jeremy seemed to hit it off most of the time. A nice, open-minded (within limits, but we all have our limits) lady. Yeah, like you said, classy.
It is clear from the Garden of Eden passage that the writer believed that to expose one’s nakedness to another, or to view another person’s nakedness, was inherently sinful. Not nakedness as some euphemism for sex or anything, but nudity itself.
With no knowledge of the difference between good and evil, you can be naked and not feel shame. Once you have eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and realize you’re NAKED in front of another, you are of course ashamed, because appearing naked in front of someone or exposing their nakedness is of course so totally evil, especially if you disobeyed God’s commands in doing so, that it is worthy of cursing every single one of your offspring for eternity, as seen both in the Garden of Eden passage and the Noah passage.
As for Tammy Faye, check out a great recent documentary about her: The Eyes of Tammy Faye
Which makes one wonder where they got a needle and thread. :dubious: Isn’t sewing a pretty advanced technique, archaeologically speaking? Tied on skins I can buy, but when did God give them sewing kits?
Thanks for the info. I should have known this. Stupid me!! If no one was around, why the need to cover up at all? Shame could only be brought on by the musings of an observer. But, without another example to compare, Eve certainly would have had no basis for redicule. God? The snake? Aliens?
At that period in time, why would exposed genitals have any more significance than an exposed nose or ear? Had I been Adam, I would have been more horrified to discover that God had placed non-functional mammary glands on me for no apparent reason. That’s where the fig leaves should have gone, IMO. Religion still has to answer for this. It cannot.
The great prophet Isaiah was instructed by God walk around naked and barefoot for 3 years. Another biblical prophet, Micah, reports that he must do the same as well.
