# Wedding garments in Jesus's time **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Tags:** fashion-clothing\ **Created:** [October 25, 2026, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154 "2026-10-25T23:30:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/41 "2026-10-28T06:39:43Z")
You can get your erotica anywhere, but some freaky prophet’s vision of doomsday, now that’s religion ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/42 "2026-10-28T07:57:10Z")
There’s also a parallel version of the same parable in Luke 14:15-24; but in his editing of the sources, Luke took care to omit the irritating part about expecting a random guy who has just been brought in from the street to wear his finest garments. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/43 "2026-10-28T10:50:29Z")
I think that there’s enough ambiguity in the timing that we can imagine the guests taking an hour or two to go home and get changed. It’s not necessarily “Hey, you, drop what you’re doing right this moment and come with me to the feast”. Social events starting at a precise, to-the-minute time are are fairly modern thing, and even now that’s not the norm in many cultures. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/44 "2026-10-28T14:06:47Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Would they have not been wearing [tallit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit), or at the very least a similar tassel-fringed tunic in line with the Torah commandment, in Jesus’ time? Whether the very Hellenized people of the time would have been openly wearing an identifiable garment is debated. Nothing identifiable shows in Roman-era Jewish sarcophagi, for example. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/45 "2026-10-28T14:12:41Z")
Many Orthodox Jewish men in America wear their tallit as an undergarment, where it’s not publicly visible. Most of those men _do_ wear a kippah in public, so they aren’t exactly hiding that they are Jewish. But they are fitting in and looking less unusual. (Yes, there are other American Jews whose entire dress says, “i am a member of a sect that keeps to itself”. But i think they are less common. At any rate, a significant fraction of observant Jews don’t do that.) ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/46 "2026-10-28T14:24:22Z")
Most synagogues will also provide a _tallit_ for congregants or guests who didn’t show up with their own. As in the parable, you might at least get funny looks for overtly refusing to wear one. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2026, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/47 "2026-10-28T14:46:15Z")
Fabric was expensive, and it’s easy to stain a garment with wine. I don’t believe that wedding hosts provided garments to guests. If someone finds a real cite to support that, I’ll change my mind. But it sounds a lot like a just-so story to explain an awkward piece of biblical text, and that’s my hypothesis until i see evidence for something else. My best guess is that that part of the parable was a reference to some event we no longer know about, that would have been familiar to Jesus’ audience. And he was speaking cryptically because he was leading an insurgency group (that’s what “messiah” meant at the time, a king to throw off the foreign yoke and restore the proper Jewish law) and had to be cautious in public. > **contemporary messiahs** > > While it’s possible that Jesus was considered a “messiah” in the modern sense by his contemporary followers, there is zero chance he would have been understood that way by the Romans and other authorities, who were crucifying wannabe messiahs on a fairly regular basis. Some of his words can be taken either way, like the “give unto Rome/God” text. Because, you know, you owe everything to God. Or maybe you don’t. It’s ambiguous. ---
**Author:** ![md-2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9d8465/32.png) [@md-2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md-2000)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2026, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/48 "2026-10-29T02:41:46Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > You can get your erotica anywhere, but some freaky prophet’s vision of doomsday, now that’s religion The moral of the Canadian version - “Many are cold, but few are frozen…” ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/49 "2026-10-31T11:25:36Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > Would they have not been wearing [tallit](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tallit), or at the very least a similar tassel-fringed tunic in line with the Torah commandment, in Jesus’ time? Who’s to say the tallit wasn’t descended from the Hellenic-era cloak? Remember, it’s only the tassels that are ancient and biblically-proscribed, and can be worn on anything; the shawl itself with its distinctive blue stripes appeared later. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2026, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154/50 "2026-10-31T12:42:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Who’s to say the tallit wasn’t descended from the Hellenic-era cloak? I always assumed it was. And the rule about tassels applies to any four-cornered garment. In some American Jewish communities, men who own a poncho will clip off a corner because that’s easier than adding tassels, and perhaps more practical in a garment worn to keep off rain. (Ponchos were more popular in my childhood than today. I suspect that today, Orthodox Jews just avoid buying four-cornered garments that aren’t ritual tallits.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wedding-garments-in-jesuss-time/1034154.md?page=2)