What do you do or say to our fellow Christians who believe nudity is a sin?

We know that before God casts Adam and Eve out of the garden they are not ashamed of themselves and their nudity. But this means in effect that they did not have sex. In the ancient Hebrew mythology perfect production is created by God and his creations do not reproduce. Adam and Eve are perfect creations. Until the fruit of knowledge. Of good and evil. The fact that morality isn't a necessary ingredient in perfect creations seems odd but... this is deliberate. It keeps anyone from claiming that they know God's likes and dislikes. Those are in 10 commandments given to Moses. Nudity isn't the sin. Shame is. And the shame is that they had sex. For pleasure. But they are nude for the obvious reason that if they're dressed no one is going to get the implication of sexual pleasure. But in literate Judea, men and women nude together happens only thrice socially accepted by the times: twins male and female, sexual intercourse in private and death by misadventure. It is strictly forbidden otherwise. So... the reason is less nudity and definitely more sex. If you're dressed in three layers and gender divided in public it's not easy to hook up randomly. If you're nude... less so. And Israel was reacting against their neighbors like the Caananites Babylonians Egyptians and so on who were nude or semi nude for religious reasons that included fertility cult orgies and so on. It resurfaces as an issue in Herods Grecophile court. The Pharisees and others against Jesus try to make Christ out to be "foreign" (corruption of the lions of Judah)... it's the second charge after claiming kingship. John Baptizes men nude and that was definitely not ordinary and because Greeks were nude for athletics and symposia (drunken orgies with poetry) that was considered a foreign influenced activity. It is symbolic of rebirth but also because wet clothes are not the best way to stay free of infection after a dip in the Jordan in the time of every sewer running freely into it...If you baptized this way chances of dying afterwards escalated. But... as seen, all of these issues are Jewish culture from ancient Judea and in service of social and cultural values outside of the OT/NT theology. Perfect humans are nude. Nude afterwards means sex for pleasure and that's the sin. In later period as we say Christian era Judea nude is bad because Greeks are in power then Romans and not Jews. Which is understandable given we're in the land of the Children of Israel. However, 10 of God's only rules are not about nudity. Christ's 11th or 12th is about love and giving the self the same as the other. Radical love and fairness. It's pretty clear and especially for naturism that nudity for its own sake and not as a sexual act is not forbidden.

• Flag
• Edit
• Delete
• Quote
• Reply