Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Discussion about the New Testament, apocrypha, gnostics, church fathers, Christian origins, historical Jesus or otherwise, etc.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Joseph D. L. »

I mean, it's always good to get the perspective from those who were closest to ground zero, as it is, but why shouldn't we come up with our own perspectives? Why are the church fathers anymore authoritative than medieval scholastics or modern Biblical scholars? When is the terminus ad quem that separates one from the rest? After all, the church fathers didn't have excess to the information we have--were not themselves aware of things like Documentary Hypothesis, or the factual legitimacy for their beliefs. If anything, our modern ability to collate and examine the amount of data we have access to, to me, makes our understanding of these texts and beliefs better than the church fathers ever could. So even if no church father says Jesus appeared naked in Jerusalem, if the argument can be made through hermeneutics, I would consider it just as much as the say so of men who were not all that trustworthy. Maybe that's my own discredit.
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Joseph D. L.
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Joseph D. L. »

Secret Alias wrote: Fri Jul 10, 2020 3:24 pm Not what I want. Lady Godiva in Jerusalem. Nudus nudum.
Gotta admit, that's what I want too.
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Secret Alias »

Naked on the Cross - Cyril of Jerusalem https://books.google.com/books?id=Zjhb3 ... em&f=false

The naked on the Cross goes back to Adam https://books.google.com/books?id=TDKMC ... em&f=false

Isaiah (20:1–4) wandered naked through Jerusalem to illustrate the coming humiliation of Egypt and Cush by Assyria. This would fit the theme of the gospel where Jesus predicts the destruction that is coming in 70 CE.

Just as the bare framework of the body is revealed once the accumulated tissue is stripped away, so magnificent beauty of character will become manifest if only it is not shrouded in the nonsense of vanity. But to trail around garments that reach down even to the feet is nothing more than ostentatiousness. Besides, it is actually a hindrance in walking, for such a garment sweeps up piles of dirt after it on the ground, like a broom. [Clement Instructor 1]

naked Isaiah announced for three years the coming captivity and nakedness of the people, so also your own enclosure in the house will itself be a prophet announcing the siege of the city of Jerusalem. [Jerome Commentary on Ezekiel]

"isaiah goes naked without blushing as a type of captivity to come" [Letter 40 to Marcella]

Origen says that the ass was naked:
The disciples then bring the foal to Jesus naked, and put their own dress on it, so that the Lord may sit on the disciples' garments which are on it, at His ease. What is said further will not, in the light of Matthew's statements, present any difficulty
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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Ken Olson
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Ken Olson »

Why think so small?
Mark 11:7 When they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their himations over it, he sat on it. 8 Many people spread their himations on the road, while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted,

“Hosanna!”

“Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!”

10 “Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!”

“Hosanna in the highest heaven!”

11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went into the temple courts. He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
If you're going to equate casting off one's himation with getting nekkid, as you do with Mark 10:50, why not just say Jesus led an all-male nude revue into Jerusalem and was met with a big nudist reception? Go big or go home!
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Secret Alias »

Isaiah did it first. It's implicit in nudus nudum and the rest of the stuff in Jerome. But I will leave the homosexual eisegesis to you and Carlson. From the Wikipedia page
To further illustrate this point, Jerome offers the image of a man stripping himself naked to follow the "naked Christ" or the "naked cross." The phrase draws on the encounter Jesus of Nazareth had with the rich man in the synoptic Gospels:[2]

The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet? Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me. (Gospel of Matthew 19.20-21, King James Version; cf. 16.24; see Mark 10.17-31, Luke 18.18-30)
I don't get how this could be argued to be irrelevant to the discussion of Secret Mark. But then again why would I expect honesty from a partisan?
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Secret Alias »

And why is it so ridiculous to imagine Jesus was 'like Isaiah' with respect to the prediction that the Romans would conqueror Jerusalem:

In the tradition of all the great prophets, Isaiah vigorously rejected the military solution and predicted that Assyria would defeat both Egypt and Ethiopia and carry their people away into slavery. Nobody would listen to Isaiah until he took drastic measures to show what would happen to those who try to resist Assyria. They will be stripped naked. Like this, said the prophet, taking off all his clothes:
At this time, the LORD had spoken to Isaiah . . . say, "Go and loose the sackcloth from your loins and take your sandals off your feet," and he had done so, walking naked and barefoot. Then the LORD said . . . "so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as captives and the Ethiopians naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt” (Isa. 20:3-4).
Micah announces to “go barefoot and naked,” probably as a sign of the Judeans' exile (Mic. 1:8, 16). Amos, in his oracles against the nations, foresees the defeat of the Israelite army, declaring that the soldiers “shall flee away naked on that day” (Amos 2:16). According to 2 Chron. 28:15, a great number of captives were naked and had to be clothed. Having to flee naked from the battlefield and probably later being presented without clothes before the victorious enemy is a sign of humiliation. Those who are naked have lost their honor.

Of course if you think that the gospel REALLY records the events in the life of a certain 'Jesus' then of course it is ridiculous to assume he walked through Jerusalem naked. But if you suppose (as I do) that it was all made up, then appropriating this naked image from Isaiah and the prophets underscores the prophetic nature of the narrative - that Jesus 'knew' the Jews would be humiliated in the Roman War.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Secret Alias »

BTW Thank you for these discussions. I have found them very useful. Couldn't see WHY it would make sense to have a naked Jesus and a naked disciple walking from Jericho to Jerusalem. Now I do.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Secret Alias »

Another strange passage in the final journey to Jerusalem. Jesus gets them to find a particular donkey. Mark adds:
And they brought the colt to Jesus, and cast their himatia on him; and he sat upon him.
Yes with rich people there were layers of clothing. But as we saw with the beggar, poor people like the disciples had one layer of clothing. Saul (1 Sam 19:24), takes of his outer garments (himatia) and is called gymnos; so is Peter in John 21:7:
Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” τὸν ἐπενδύτην διεζώσατο ἦν γυμνός and jumped into the water.
There seems to be only one layer of clothing on these people. In Joan Taylor's study -
it is also said that Jesus puts aside his himatia before he washes the feet of his disciples and wraps a lention around himself (John 13:4, 12). The word lention is a little-attested Greek word rendering Latin linteum, which is specifically a linen cloth, of no fixed size. Was Jesus only clad in this, which he also uses as a towel, or did he still have his tunic on? Afterwards, it is said he takes his himatia and reclines at the table again. The ambiguity allows for us to imagine a completely naked Jesus with a linen cloth wrapped around his waist, using his only clothing to wash his disciples' feet, but also a at the table again. The ambiguity allows for us to imagine a completely naked Jesus with a linen cloth wrapped around his waist, using his only clothing to wash his disciples' feet, but also a Jesus more decently clad with a linen cloth wrapped around him instead of two mantles, keeping his tunic on ... seen, in the other Gospels when Jesus asks the Twelve to go out in his stead around Galilee, he specifically stated, ‘Don’t put on two tunics’ (Mark 6:8; Matt. 9:10; Luke 9:3). This would imply that they would want to do so, but in this case they should not, as his representatives. In other words, Jesus did not wear a second tunic, but only one. It may or may not have had clavi. Therefore, it is likely that the four soldiers were indeed prepared to cut two woollen mantles equally (despite their loss of value), but not to tear the tunic. If this Gospel also imagines a tallith, it would be thought the soldiers also received a cut off tsitsith each. But Jesus’ tunic itself was really already the kind of garment worn as an undergarment by (elite) adults in Egyptian mummy portraits, evidenced as children’s clothes in Khirbet Qazone, and probably only worth something whole. The memory of Jesus looking dishonourable or shameful would then cohere with his clothing, quite specifically. This is not at all to say Jesus went around in what we would consider as underwear (our concepts do not map onto ancient ones), but that the Gospel of John presents Jesus as wearing very simple, basic clothing that readers would have recognized as being usually covered up with something better. It should be remembered that some philosophers would wear nothing under their himation. Jesus eschews nakedness while embracing the same ideals. There was another type of fine (often linen) mantle/wrap that could be worn, called a sindo¯n (Mark 14:51–52).73 Jesus himself is said to have been wrapped in such a cloth in death (Mark 15:46; Matt. 27:59; Luke 23:53), but not in life. In short, the clues we have concerning Jesus in the Gospel of John show him to have worn clothing that would not have been esteemed: a one-piece, undyed woollen tunic that some others might wear underneath their better tunics made of two pieces. In the ancient world it was simply expected that people would adopt behaviours that led to honour and eschew behaviours that led to shame, unless they were certain philosophers. To maintain a certain decent standard of dress led to honour not only for you but your family; the greater the magnificence of your dress, the more honour you and your family obtained.74 Wearing the right clothing at the right time was honourable, and transgressing the dress code was shameful, even if you were an emperor.75 Wearing the kind of clothing associated with a child, or an undergarment of the wealthy, was to show oneself as absolutely careless about social status.

As an idea of how Jesus dressed, there is the image of Moses by the burning bush in the third-century Dura Europos synagogue (Wing Panel 1; Figure 75).76 Moses is shown with the same kind of undyed mantle and short tunic we havealready found on Jesus in catacomb art and in the baptistery of Dura Europos, though here the distinctive tallith is not as clearly defined as in other Moses scenes there. In imagining Moses, the artist imagined a man people would consider authoritative, charismatic, knowledgeable and philosophically adept. Moses has a slight beard. He has taken off his sock-sandals. If we think of a model for this kind of representation it seems to have been the Jewish sages and Graeco-Roman philosophers of the world in which these paintings were done. It is reasonable to assume that Jesus could be placed in the same category, wearing similar clothing. As we’ve seen, the Transfiguration scene assumes that Jesus’ clothing could be bleached white and was probably then remembered as undyed wool. The only qualification here is that Jesus may have worn a coloured mantle for warmth (especially in Jerusalem at Passover), since an absolute correlation between colour and masculine clothing is to be avoided; but it was not the lush red or purple mantle the soldiers used to dress him in as a contrast to his normal wear. Moses here also wears his mantle in an unusual way, dropped down and wrapped up around his left lower arm, and in Dura pictures any tsitsith that are at times visible are hanging at the end of the piece of cloth slung over the left shoulder, at the front. To have just one tsitsith hanging down, as we have seen, Jesus would have worn his mantle wrapped around his body with one end slung over his left shoulder. It seems unlikely that he would pin it with a fibula brooch (a thing of value). Jesus was remembered in the mid-second century as being a man without honour and a bit of a vagabond, and this correlates with the kind of picture we can gain from the Gospels themselves. That Jesus was considered dishonourable in terms of his appearance relates to concepts in antiquity of shame and honour, matters that are studied as feeding into the social template that governed patterns of behaviour. Clothing forms an integral part of this: a ragged or badly dressed appearance was shameful, even if you were not wealthy. Jesus apparently did not care about this, and asked his disciples not to care either. We have seen from archaeology and art how Jesus wore a tunic that advertised no concern with social status. This coheres perfectly with his message: in Jesus’ teaching, in the reversals of the coming Kingdom many of those now top in society (the first) would be bottom (the last), and those who were bottom would be top (Mark 10:31; Matt. 20:16, 19:31; Luke 13:30). We need to imagine Jesus in clothing appropriate for his time, but also a man who appeared unconcerned about what he looked like, as he walked the roads of Galilee, sleeping wherever he was welcomed into a home.
I don't think it is at all a stretch to imagine that Jesus and his disciples had one layer of clothing on and that when they took over or had taken off them one layer of clothing they were naked underneath. Already Clement says in Can the Rich Man be Saved:
Therefore on hearing those words, the blessed Peter, the chosen, the pre-eminent, the first of the disciples, for whom alone and Himself the Saviour paid tribute, Matthew 17:27 quickly seized and comprehended the saying. And what does he say? Lo, we have left all and followed You. Now if by all he means his own property, he boasts of leaving four oboli perhaps in all, and forgets to show the kingdom of heaven to be their recompense. But if, casting away what we were now speaking of, the old mental possessions and soul diseases, they follow in the Master's footsteps, this now joins them to those who are to be enrolled in the heavens. For it is thus that one truly follows the Saviour, by aiming at sinlessness and at His perfection, and adorning and composing the soul before it as a mirror, and arranging everything in all respects similarly.
There is a similar assumption that the disciples were beggars and penniless - hence Peter's statement in the Question of the Rich Man. It is not unthinkable or even controversial to suggest that once chapter 10 ends (which is quite soon after Peter's statement) when they take off their himatia they are considered gymnoi for all intents and purposes. As such Jerome's nudus nudum statement necessarily applies to them too.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Secret Alias »

Ambrose's interpretation:
And if you wish not to stumble, put on the garments of the saints your not purified; be careful indeed to advance the muddy feet. Beware of taking the crossroads, abandoning the path strewn for you, the ways of the Prophets: for to give the nations who come a more assured march, those who preceded Jesus covered the path of their own clothes, to the temple of God. In order to make you advance smoothly, the disciples of the Lord, stripping the garment of their bodies, have, through their martyrdom, paved the way for you through hostile crowds.
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
Secret Alias
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Re: Jesus Naked in the Gospel

Post by Secret Alias »

It is an interesting question - I am not stating it as a fact - but it is an intriguing possibility that nudity is found throughout the Joshua section (if the gospel is divided up hexateuchally).

1. Clement reads the Question of the Rich Man as if it is a commandment to strip naked
2. the Question of James and John is about baptism which involves nudity
3. the blind beggar strips his clothes
4. Zacchaeus/Matthew the tax gatherer is consistently read in the context of nudity (as I demonstrated in the other thread)
5. the entrance into Jerusalem involves stripping off of garments both on the 'naked' donkey but also on the road
6. the naked youth in Mark 14:52
7. Jesus is stripped of his clothes in the praetorium
8. Jesus is crucified naked - the Romans nailed their victims naked to the cross
9. Jesus is resurrected naked and Origenists see this as having theological significance (Ancoratus) https://jamestabor.com/was-jesus-naked- ... urrection/ And they crucified him, and divided his clothes among them, casting lots to decide what each should take. –Gospel of Mark 15:24 Consequently, it must be asked, was Jesus naked when he left the tomb and appeared before Mary Magdalene?
10. there is some question whether Jesus was naked when he showed his body to Thomas.

Just worth noting. All in the context of Isaiah walking naked to predict the destruction of Israel (Isaiah 20).
“Finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind.”
― Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Don Quixote
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