Are tattoos sinful?

First let me say I have tattoos, and if I had money for every time I heard someone say "the bible says tattoos are wrong..." "or sinful", well I would be comfortable.

So what does the bible say?  Actually...it doesn't say anything about what we know as modern day tattooing...but let me explain

Here is the scripture most people use to frame the subject of tattoos.

Leviticus 19:28 New International Version (NIV)

28 “‘Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the Lord.

At first this seems to contradict what I just said...but wait...even before I address that...

What is overlooked is the full context of Leviticus 19.  Too often we pick and choose what scriptures we want to quote, use, or sometimes condemn. I find it strange how the preceding verse is never or seldom quoted.

Leviticus 19:27 New International Version (NIV)

27 “‘Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.

So if we are stressing no tattoos based on verse 28 we should also stress for men not to trim their sideburns or beards.

Hmmm...but let's get back to that earlier perceived contradiction and to do that let's get to the Hebrew.

The first thing to notice is that the first word translated as "tattoo" in Hebrew is actually brand. It literally means an incision or a gash. The second word translated as "writing" means "any mark".  Put together, it would mean an imprinted mark or impression by incision. This actually fits into the full context of the verse that is discussing cutting the body.... But for the sake of discussion...what if it did mean a tattoo?

The key to understanding scriptures is to know the context, culture, and history of what was happening when the scripture was written. 

The Israelites were on the way to the Promised Land. a.k.a Canaan.  The people of Canaan has some strange practices.  They would brand, slash, gash, and slash their bodies for ritual purposes.  See 1 Kings 18:27-29. They did this to mourn their dead and as a way to call upon their god. (lower case "g")This is consistent with the context of Leviticus 19:28

It is also interesting to note that Israel had just left Egypt.  Egyptian women did practice fertility tattoos, specifically on their breasts, thighs, and abdomen as a good luck charm for the birthing process, usually the female fertility god/goddess, Bes/Beset

Photo By Steve F-E-Cameron (Merlin-UK) - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1633076 

This was never a practice with the Hebrews, so when we evaluate the Hebrew language with the culture and time, we can then say...the bible says nothing about tattoos as we know it today and the context of this passage is concerning adopting Cannanite rituals.

It is actually a translation issue that has us saying "tattoos" when it should read "brands" used for rituals.

Does this mean God would be pleased with any tattoo? No!  I think we would know God would not be pleased with an image of a god or goddess, or any other un-Christlike tattoo.  A good sanity check would be "would I be embarrassed if Christ saw my tattoo?" because in actuality, he already has.  

With the knowledge that this Canaanite practice was done for the deceased,  we might ask would God be ok with a tattoo in remembrance of a deceased loved one.  With this, I must say you need to make your own personal decision.  I am fully confident God knows the difference between common remembrance, obsession, ancestral worship, or if you just flat our loved your loved one more than HIM.

With all this keep in mind, if it is a sin unto you...then don't do it, but don't condemn your brother or sister to what can't be supported by scripture once we come to knowledge.