Fashion in the Bible
For humans, dressing is a daily necessity.There is no one who has ever wondered: "What do I wear tomorrow?".We do it thinking about the time you will do or the commitments and meetings that await us in the day.
Clothing serves to fix the body of the human being and at the same time its integrity and dignity.The way of dressing talks about identity, both individual and collective.Clothing is used to communicate belonging to a social or religious group and the role it plays.The mood, feelings or temperament of a person can be perceived.And reflects the context and culture in which one lives.However, we must bear in mind that clothing can hide deception or danger.These observations already show that the clothes are and will be, an element with wide interpretive spectrum.
In the Bible there are several episodes in which clothing plays an important role.Beyond the practical use of everyday life, we often find texts in which it acquires a symbolic and metaphorical dimension.
The first appearance of the verb "dress" in the Bible is remarkable: it has God as a subject (Genesis 3, 21).The narration of the creation of men and women and their disobedience to the Creator (Genesis 2-3) is built around nudity and dress.When the Lord presents the woman to Adam, he says: “This is the bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!She will be called a woman, because she has been taken from man ".The man recognizes in women the help in front of him, the fact that he is equal to him helps him: they recognize each other.
The garden entrusted to your care, with all the trees, shows the gift that comes before the commandment of not eating from your fruits.Before the couple disobeys, the woman and the man are naked and do not feel shame (2, 25).Having eaten from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, they realize their nude and try to cover it by making belts with fig leaves (3, 7).
The story ends with a note: "The Lord God made man and his wife skin tunics and wore them" (3, 21).This end is very evocative and indicates the insufficiency of the attempt of creatures to rebuild their original condition: man and his wife are not able to do so alone.The fear caused to be naked marked his relationship with the Lord (3, 10).The dress given by the creator to his creatures is a symbol that God takes the human being and his freedom seriously.It is a sign of unconditional divine love and your care.Thus God ennobles the dignity of the human being.
The clothes are a symbol of God's love also towards the people of Israel.The prophet Ezekiel uses this image in a parable (Ezekiel 16) that expresses Israel's faith in the divine election as the time of the foundation of its existence.The relationship between the Lord and Jerusalem is evoked by the metaphors of the daughter and the bride.Jerusalem is like an abandoned girl on her birth: she was exposed to the risk of death, but the compassionate look of the Lord makes her live and the actions that lead her to grow up to maturity (16, 1-7).It is a kind of adoption.
Youth and love
The Lord passes for the second time, for the time of youth and love.He extends his mantle on her to cover her nude, establishing an alliance with the young woman, who becomes her (16, 8).In this text, the garment fulfills a specific function of a legal nature: the mantle serves in fact to identify the "owner" and the gesture talks about its involvement in the relationship with the other.The woman thus enters under the protection of her husband (of the Lord) and becomes exclusively her own.
The prophet developed the metaphor of the garments, listing the precious materials used to make the young woman's clothes.Dressed with multicolored fabrics, with the best fabrics, linen tapes, skins and embellished with gold and silver jewels placed in different parts of her body, it becomes increasingly beautiful and worthy of being queen.Everything refers to an unconditional and excessive love that gives without measure the beloved recognizing dignity.An overabundant love, underlined by a second mention of the precious materials used for garments (16, 10-13).It was not beauty that attracted the attention of the Lord and aroused his love, but, on the contrary, it was his love that a woman of perfect beauty did (16, 14).
In the Bible every gift received becomes proof, because a gift is such, when it is received with gratitude and managed responsibly.This is the case of Women-Women.The story of this relationship is marked by a turning point: the woman, instead of trusting the Lord of the gifts, is strengthened with her beauty and begins to prostitute themselves.The metaphor of marriage and prostitution was previously used in the book of the prophet Hosea (Hosea 1-3), in which the unfaithful woman thinks that her gifts were given by her lovers and not by her husband (Hosea 2, 7).
Women's gift to their lovers
In the parable of Ezekiel the situation is more serious, because the garments received from the Lord are used for idolatry, as a gift from women to all their lovers (Ezekiel 16, 33-34).How could all this happen?In the history of Jerusalem there was no memory: the memory of youth, that is, of the moment of the foundation (16,22).
The reason for clothing/nakedness is present in the rest of the story, where divine punishment is described.There are the same Jerusalem lovers who strip her of her dresses leaving her naked (16, 39).Despite the betrayal of the woman, the Lord has not forgotten the alliance he made in the days of his youth, and the last word he will direct is a word of forgiveness and eternal alliance (16, 60).So she will meet her lord.
Talking about clothes in the Scriptures it would be impossible not to remember great female figures such as Tamar, Rut, Ester, Judith.These Old Testament stories, if read from a Christian perspective and ethics, seem problematic.We must see them from another angle: brave women who to redeem their situation or that of their people changed their clothes exposing themselves to risk.
Affection and power
The book of Genesis speaks of a woman who does not resign her widowhood and the change of clothing is part of the tactics designed to have a child.The story of Tamar (Genesis 38) is part of the great cycle on the "descendants of Jacob", that is, José and his brothers (Genesis 37-50), and it is significant since, in the cycle the dress of José is the protagonist is the protagonistAnd it is the pretext for the beginning of the action.The clothes used express the affection and privileged state of the characters;also his power.In chapter 38 Tamar, after the death of his two husbands (Jududa's children), he was sent back to his father's house to live as a widow.Juda refuses to give his third child as a husband.
Some time later, during which Juda had not changed his mind, he went to the feast of the shelf of the flock;He was already widower, he lets himself be seduced during the way for the beauty of a prostitute.Juda, without recognizing his daughter -in -law Tamar under the veil, and because he had removed the widow's clothes pretending to be a prostitute, he joins her.When he learned Tamar's pregnancy he had to face the truth, recognizing not only the promise he had done to him, but also Tamar's justice: "She is more fair than me" (Genesis 38, 26).What is Tamar's justice?It is difficult to determine by our mentality.It was exposed to humiliation to fulfill the Lord's command of “being fruitful” and safeguarding the descendants of the family.And from his offspring, his son Peres, King David will be born (Rut 4, 12.18-22).
Judith's book tells another "reversal of destiny" story, this time involves an entire city.Judit, a widow after the death of her husband Manassese, had been wearing mourning clothes for three years and four months and a sayal was girding;She spent the days on her terrace in prayer and fasting (Judit 8, 4-6).His city of Betulia suffered the siege by the powerful army of Nebuchadnezzar;People were so desperate that they decided to surrender to the enemy.Left a period of five days for God to intervene if he wanted.
Lifestyle change
Judit opposed the despair of the people, deciding to expose himself to the risk by changing "the lifestyle".He went down to the house where he was alone on Saturdays and holidays;She stripped the Sayal and widow's clothes and dressed as a party (10, 2-4).Dressing like this in dangerous situations is trusting victory: Judit dedicated her prayer to God, and her dresses make her the symbol of deep confidence in him.Changing clothes was the first step towards an enemy's release plan.
Judit's dresses and ornaments make their beauty even more (8, 7; 10, 4), qualities that - together with wisdom and cunning - will become the weapons of victory.Go down to the enemy's field and meet General Holofernes to whom he praises his skills.Convinces his opponents that he has fled to help them take control of the city.With her beauty she conquers the general who, eager to possess her, invites her to a banquet.Judit, embellished with clothes and other female ornaments (12, 15), after dinner he takes advantage of Holofernes drunkenness to cut his head and thus win the victory for his people.
Judit is a woman of great trust, courage and will to change her lifestyle and take risks.When changing clothes he has turned a turn to the destiny of his people.The widow without children regenerated the life of Betulia who lived without hope, the inhabitants sing, along with Judit: "You turned my regret into jubilation, you mourned me and you dressed me as a party" (Psalm 30, 12).
At the end of this review of biblical texts in which clothing plays a significant role, seeing the symbolic value of clothing given to men by the Lord as an expression of love and care, we remember that in the Bible the human body in itself in itselfThe dress that God made to men is considered.Together with the psalmist, we proclaim: “You created my entrails, you captured me in my mother's bosom (...) You knew to the bottom of my soul and nothing of my being was hidden from you, when I was secretly formed, when I wastissue deeply of the earth ".(Psalm 139: 13-15; cf.also Job 10:11).
