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This is part 5 in a series of articles in which I respond to Nick Peters of Deeper Waters Apologetics. Nick Peters is writing a series of articles critiquing Aaron Frost’s book “Christian Body: Modesty and The Bible”. Although I am not the author of the book, some of the arguments Frost uses to defend naturism biblically and sociologically are some of the same arguments I would use. His articles can be seen as criticisms of naturism in general. If you would like to reads parts 1, 2, 3, and 4 of my response series, click here, here, here, and here.

In this article, I will be responding to Nick Peters’ blog post “Book Plunge: Christian Body: Nakedness In The Ancient Culture”

Nick Criticizes Frost For Not Citing Sources

Nick Peters Writes \\“One of the big problems I have with this section is that Frost makes several claims, but he never cites any sources on those claims. The information could be true enough, but how can I check? I have no idea where Frost gets his data and I have no reason to think that I should see him as an authority.”\\ ^[1]Nick Peters, “Book Plunge: Christian Body: Nakedness In The Ancient Culture”, Deeper Waters — … Continue reading –

As much as I have disagreed with Nick Peters over the course of this series, and as much as I think Frost gets right and Peters gets wrong, this is a legitimate critique of his book. Even Chris from Mud Walkers has given this criticism in his 3 part review of the book on his YouTube channel. ^[2]To see Mud Walker’s review of the book, click here, here, and here. Now, Frost does cite sources, but there are also times where he makes a claim and no source is cited at all. His citation of sources could be better. That said, Frost’s book was not the first piece of Christian Naturist literature that I read, so I was able to verify some of his claims independently. I do think “Christian Body: Modesty and The Bible” is an overall good book. I think he makes some powerful arguments, but it isn’t the first book I would recommend to someone interested in this topic. I would recommend Mr. Peters read something like “Surprised Into Freedom: The Effortless Obliteration Of Lust and Body Shame” by Phillip Oak or “Who Said You Were Naked?: Reflections On Body Acceptance” by David L. Hatton. Both of these books have footnotes just about everywhere, and they are very well-sourced. “Christian Body” is not a bad book, but it’s not without its problems. And even some interpretive conclusions on certain passages (such as his take on “unpresentable parts” in 1 Corinthians 12) are interpretations that I don’t think hold water. If Peters is truly interested in looking into the arguments that convinced his friend to become a naturist, he should read these. Especially Oak’s, as Oak’s book came at the issue from a more autobiographical perspective in which he was also trying every method he could to defeat porn. I would recommend Frost’s book as a good primer for the layperson, or as supplemental material to Oak’s and Hatton. Again, it’s not as bad as Peters makes it out to be, but I wouldn’t exactly call it the gold standard of Christian Naturist literature either. It is a good, but imperfect work.

Clothing Was A Commodity In The Ancient World

First, Nick cites the following quotation from Aaron’s book; “The first factor to understand is the economy of ancient Palestine. Fabric had to be hand-made through a long process of gathering materials, treating, dying, spinning, weaving, and sewing. Because of all this labor and expense, clothing was not something you could pick up at the local Salvation Army for an hour’s wage. It was a valuable commodity.” ^[3]Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (pp. 80-81). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.

Nick Peters writes \\“Okay. I can agree that this is a costly and timely process, but how does it follow then that people went without clothes? Let’s talk about what else was a costly and timely process. Food. Getting something to eat and getting something to drink were costly and timely. Despite that, we know the ancients did it because, well, we’re their descendants so they obviously survived long enough to reproduce. (That was also a dangerous experience often as women died in childbirth, but the ancients still did it.)“\\ —

I have to stop here as I can’t help but wonder if Peters thinks that Frost is trying to argue that ancient Israel were a country of nudists. They weren’t. As I said in a former article, they were a clothed society. But a clothed society is not the same as a clothing-compulsive society. In our society, we stay clothed at all costs. Being seen naked by anyone, even people of the same gender, even close family members of the same gender, causes us great distress. It is horribly embarrassing to be seen without clothes even by people whom any rational individual should be fine with. The one exception in our society seems to be our spouses, but I would not be surprised if there might be some bashful men and women reluctant to disrobe even on nuptial night. Our modern Western society is gymnophobic. I can remember even as a child being anxious about having my genitals examined at the doctor’s office. He had to check to see if they were growing properly. I felt terrible shame at having to drop my pants before a medical professional. When I was 10, I went to a place where college students were teaching small children how to swim. We had to change in the locker rooms, and I remember hastily changing in and out of my swimsuit lest another boy come in and *shudders* sees me with exactly the same parts as he has! This is not healthy. And this is not the way ancient peoples would have acted.

Now, Peters’ has complained about sources, so let me cite one when it comes to the issue of clothing being a commodity in the ancient world. Egyptologist David Falk said this in an interview with Cameron Bertuzzi on Capturing Christianity. In response to a question concerning the lack of evidence for a historical Exodus, Cameron asks if he would expect whether they would leave anything behind. Falk says “Like what?” And Cameron lists some items including clothes, This is a full transcription of David Falk’s response; “Cloth was valuable, especially when you didn’t have the means to make more. … when you look at the middle ages, and we see these people going around who were actually collecting rags. Why were they collecting rags? Because cloth was valuable. No, they [referring to thousands of Israelites during the Exodus] aren’t going to throw away perfectly good cloth if it can be used for absolutely anything else.” ^[4]Capturing Christianity, “Egyptologist Presents Very Strong Evidence For A REAL Exodus”, Cameron Bertuzzi and David Falk, April 12th, 2021, 41 minutes in … Continue reading

David Falk is no naturist. He is a PHD Egyptologist and antiquarian scholar with no naked axe to grind. Yet even he says that, yes, clothing was expensive in the ancient world. Indeed, this is implied in John The Baptist’s sermon in the gospel of Luke. He said “Whoever has two tunics is to share with him who has none, and whoever has food is to do likewise.” (Luke 3:11, ESV) Most people only had one tunic. You were lucky if you had two. In this day and age, even lower-middle-class people like myself have whole drawers full of different pants, shirts, underwear, etc. But clothing was a commodity in the ancient world. As such, if you had to work a dirty job (be if field gleaning, fishing, or trench digging), you didn’t want to risk soiling what was perhaps your only outfit. And yeah, you could wash it, but (1) You’d be naked while you did your laundry, and (2) You wouldn’t want to wash it often as you would have to scrub it up against a river rock which would wear out the cloth more quickly.

God Punished Israel With Nakedness, Therefore Nakedness Must Be Bad

Nick Peters goes on to quote passages like Ezekiel 16:35-42 and Luke 3:11 to show that nakedness was shameful. Nick is drawing some non-sequitor conclusions from true premises. Before I point out the flaws in his logic, I would like the cite the first passage he appeals to in his condemnation of nakedness.

“Therefore, you prostitute, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Because you poured out your lust and exposed your naked body in your promiscuity with your lovers, and because of all your detestable idols, and because you gave them your children’s blood, therefore I am going to gather all your lovers, with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated. I will gather them against you from all around and will strip you in front of them, and they will see you stark naked. I will sentence you to the punishment of women who commit adultery and who shed blood; I will bring on you the blood vengeance of my wrath and jealous anger. Then I will deliver you into the hands of your lovers, and they will tear down your mounds and destroy your lofty shrines. They will strip you of your clothes and take your fine jewelry and leave you stark naked. They will bring a mob against you, who will stone you and hack you to pieces with their swords. They will burn down your houses and inflict punishment on you in the sight of many women. I will put a stop to your prostitution, and you will no longer pay your lovers. Then my wrath against you will subside and my jealous anger will turn away from you; I will be calm and no longer angry.” – Ezeiel 16:35-42

Nick’s argument here is that nakedness is not a good thing because it is proverbially a punishment upon Israel (personified as a promiscuous woman) for her idolatry and murders. There are a couple of problems here. First, the Hebrew word for nakedness here is “ervah” not “Arom”. Nick fails to distinguish the different types of nakedness in the Hebrew language. “Arom” was just pure and simple nakedness. “Ervah” was nakedness in a shameful (often sexually immoral) context. It might be helpful to conceptualize it this way; nudists are “arom”, porn stars are “ervah”. God is not condemning Israel for being “arom”, but “ervah”. ^[5]Let me cite my sources on the Hebrew before I move on. For “Arom” see this Bible Hub page, –https://biblehub.com/hebrew/5903.htm, for “Ervah”, see … Continue reading You can see that this kind of nakedness is a sexually immoral type from the context. God begins by calling Israel a prostitute and says she poured out her lust to her lovers. He says she basically flashed her naked body to them. Just like in the book of Hosea, God considers Israel’s incessant idolatry as a form of spiritual adultery. He is her husband and she is unfaithful. So, of course, God will punish Israel in numerous ways including forcefully stripping her.

Now, despite my new positive view of the human body and despite the fact that I would not be opposed to being seen naked by others (as long as it was in a context where everyone was ok with it – e.g hanging out with other naturists), I still would be horribly ashamed if someone ran up to me in public and forcefully stripped off all of my clothes in full view of everyone. For someone to do that to me would show that they have power over me. Someone in one of Aching For Edens’ videos said it was the difference between humility and humiliation. If I voluntarily strip to go skinny dipping with a group of friends, or maybe I decide to be an art model, I am showing humility. But if someone else forcefully strips me, that is humiliation.

Nick points out that Harlot Israel’s nakedness is a punishment here, and is not celebrated. Well, of course it isn’t! The majority of the time “Ervah” is used, it is not said to be a positive thing. More often than not the word is associated with shame and/or sexual immorality. Why should we expect sexual immorality to be celebrated? And by the way, in the previous footnotes you can check my sources on the Hebrew. You will see that most of the time “ervah” is used, it is used in contexts of either sexual immorality or poverty.

But what is God’s attitude towards people being “Arom”? Well, in Genesis 2:25 we read “Adam and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame” (NIV). Moses seems to speak of Adam and Eve’s nakedness in a positive light. Indeed, in Genesis 3, they are still naked, at least until they eat the forbidden fruit and frantically grasp for the fig leaves. We don’t know how much time passed between Genesis 2 and Genesis 3. It could have been a single day, a few days, a month, or even a year. But I am inclined to think it was at least a few days. ^[6]Part of this is because Genesis 1-11 is meant to serve as a prologue to Israel’s and redemptive history. The author is building up to the calling of Abraham in Genesis 12, the person from whom the … Continue reading God seemed content to let this man and woman run around his sacred space completely naked. In any case, Adam and Eve were naked during their time in Eden. And it wasn’t until they disobeyed God’s command not to eat from the Tree Of The Knowlege Of Good and Evil (Genesis 2:16-17) that they had any notion that they had to cover themselves. The text says that when they ate the fruit, they felt naked and immediately tried to cover themselves with fig leaves (Genesis 3:6-7). In Genesis 3:8-9, we read that the couple heard the footsteps of The Lord God walking in the garden. ^[7]I take this to be a literal humanoid figure, as Yahweh was known to show up in certain places in the Old Testament in human form. In some very interesting cases, there are even two figures in the … Continue reading In Genesis 3:9, God says “Adam, where are you?” And in Genesis 3:10, we read “He answered, ‘I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.’” (NIV) What was God’s response to this statement by Adam? In Genesis 3:11, we read “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” (NIV)

“Who told you that you were naked?” This doesn’t sound like God is agreeing with Adam’s statement. God doesn’t say “Wow! You’re right! I knew there was something I forgot when I created you. Sorry about that. I made a mental note to create you with built in pants and it just totally slipped my mind.” He doesn’t say “Thank Me you finally covered up your genitals! Do you know how uncomfortable you were making Me and the divine council? Michael and Gabriel wanted to say something, but they were to embarrassed to speak up. I’m glad you finally figured it out.” No. He says “Who told you that you were naked?” Who told you that you were “Arom”?

When someone says something we find outlandish, even today in our culture, it isn’t uncommon for us to rhetorically ask “Who told you that?” If you have a teenage son who boasts to his friends “My Dad is getting me a Ferarri for my 16th birthday”, you might respond “Who told you that you were getting a Ferarri for your birthday?” You’re not asking how he found out, and really, you’re not hinting at a literal personal being who might have conveyed such information. Rather, you are, in effect, saying “Where’d you get that stupid idea? You are not getting a Ferrari for your birthday.”

So yes, God finds people being “ervah” horribly sinful and shameful, and The Bible condemns that kind of nakedness all over the place. But whenever “Arom” is used, it seems to be spoken of either positively or neutrally (cf. Job 1:21). I suspect God’s disposition towards nudists and art models is quite different from his disposition towards porn stars and strippers. Social “arom” seems to be God’s idea. After all, he waits until the last minute when he’s about to kick Adam and Eve out of the garden before providing the animal skins (Genesis 3:21). Maybe he waited because He hated the idea of having to throw tarps over his beautiful self-portraits (see Genesis 1:26-27). However, given the harshness of the world outside of Eden, He knew that such covering was necessary to protect them (Genesis 3:17-18). You throw a tarp over your masterpiece not because the sight of it is shameful, but to protect it. ^[8]See “The Masterpiece”, Aching For Eden, April 25th 2024, — https://achingforeden.wordpress.com/2024/04/25/the-masterpiece/

More On Nakedness and Shame In The Ancient World

Nick Peters goes on quote Luke 3:11 and (rightly) points out that clothing was a physical need. But somehow he draws the conclusion that this entails that nakedness is somehow condemned. I’m sorry, but even the most passionate naturist is going to want a jacket and galoshes if he travels to a snowy climate. And recently Chris MudWalker told me over a Zoom call that out of a distrust of sunscreen, in the harsh summer sun, he puts on more clothes to keep his body from being burnt. At naturist retreats, he said that just makes sure to stay in shade often. This isn’t Eden, and sometimes we need clothing for protection. In an arid desert climate like Israel, you ran the risk of getting burned by day and being cold by night if you didn’t have any clothing. So of course, we would expect John The Baptist to preach “Hey, if you have excess clothing, share your clothing with people who have none at all.”

Nakedness was not a sexual sin as it is treated in our culture, but it could be a liability to physical health in certain environments. The Bible gives the command to clothe the naked not because the sight of genitals and butts is a horrible offense to God and man, but because his body needs protecting. Again, you’d put a tarp over your best painting if you had to put in storage and wanted to shield it from mold and other damaging things.

Nick Peters writes \\“Clothing was a physical need! Nakedness was not something to celebrate. Frost does say it would be embarrassing, but not for the reasons we would imagine. He doesn’t say what those reasons were nor does he say what the real reason is.”\\ ^[9]See Nick Peters, “Book Plunge: Christian Body: Nakedness In The Ancient Culture”, Deeper Waters — … Continue reading

The reason was the nakedness was often associated with either poverty or military conquest. Pastor David Hatton writes “Exploring these Biblical examples of the shame about nakedness would require another article. But in contrast to these, the sight of the body’s exposure in work (Exo 22:26, 27a; John 13:4; John 21:7b), in a prophetic role (Isa 20:2-4; Mic 1:8a; 1 Sam 19:23-24), or in outdoor bathing (Exo 2:5a; 2 Sam 11:2; 2 Kings 5:13-14), are never depicted by the writers of Scripture as shameful. Yet these were very public activities—ordinary situations in life that allowed friends, family, and neighbors to see each other naked rather often.” ^[10]Hatton, David L.. “Who Said You Were Naked?”: Reflections on Body Acceptance (pp. 50-51). David L. Hatton. Kindle Edition.

Pastor Hatton goes on to quote 2 Chronicles 28:8-11, 14-15 which says “The men of Israel took captive 200,000 of their relatives, women, sons, and daughters. They also took much spoil from them and brought the spoil to Samaria. But a prophet of the LORD was there, whose name was Oded, and he went out to meet the army that came to Samaria and said to them, ‘Behold, because the LORD, the God of your fathers, was angry with Judah, he gave them into your hand, but you have killed them in a rage that has reached up to heaven. And now you intend to subjugate the people of Judah and Jerusalem, male and female, as your slaves. Have you not sins of your own against the LORD your God? Now hear me, and send back the captives from your relatives whom you have taken, for the fierce wrath of the LORD is upon you.’ . . . . So the armed men left the captives and the spoil before the princes and all the assembly. And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all who were naked among them. They clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them, and carrying all the feeble among them on donkeys, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.” (ESV)

Hatton comments on this passage saying “What about this open nudity among the 200,000 women and children prisoners during their long march from Judah to Samaria? It receives no comment of moral shock or reprimand. In those days, stripping clothes as spoil from defeated enemies was too commonly practiced and anticipated to be reported as remarkable. In fact, this nakedness might not have been mentioned at all, if Oded’s prophetic words had gone unheeded. But in that inspired warning, not even God’s prophet drew any attention to the naked state of the captives. Instead, he decried Israel’s intention to enslave these unclad women, girls and boys. Plundering hostages of their garments was an ordinary demonstration of military victory.” ^[11]Hatton, David L.. “Who Said You Were Naked?”: Reflections on Body Acceptance (pp. 51-52). David L. Hatton. Kindle Edition.

Other passages correlating nakedness with poverty are Revelation 3:17 See also Deturonomy 28:48; 2 Chronicles 28:15; Job 1:21; 24:4-10; Isaiah 58:6-7; Micah 1:8,11; Romans 8:35; and 2 Corinthians 11:27.

To be naked in front of others was not shameful in certain contexts. Doing fieldwork, bathing in a river, swimming, and prophesying, all of these were contexts where nudity would be expected. But if you were an ancient Israelite and you just saw a man walking into the supermarket with nothing on, you would probably think that that person was destitute. Think about it this way; a woman might not feel funny about wearing a bikini at the beach or the swimming pool, but she would probably feel quite awkward if she was in an office meeting or a church pew. Those just aren’t the expected contexts for such skimpy clothing, and people might think she’s trying to draw attention to herself. She’d probably be embarrassed to show that much skin even though she’d be perfectly fine at the beach or the pool. In the same way, full nudity had contexts in the ancient world where no one would assume you were poor. So you likely wouldn’t feel any shame in those contexts. In John 21:7, Peter was fishing nude and didn’t appear to think anything of it. But would Peter run through the streets of Jerusalem like that? Probably not. Peter would not want people to think he was financially destitute! But, as ancient iconography shows, fishers typically worked that way. If someone happened to see Peter naked on a boat, he would probably just smile and wave.

But let me play devil’s advocate here ^[12]in light of Genesis 3:11, this might be more literal than the typical idom suggests and say that in the ancient word, nudity was always always shameful. It wasn’t, and that is demonstrable from many scriptures ^[13]Not to mention early church practices concerning baptism. See Matthew Neal’s blog post “Nude Baptism In The Early Church? You Decide.” August 9th 2009, – … Continue reading but what if it was? What would follow from that? Would it follow that being naked (with other people) is sinful? No. For one thing, just because you’re ashamed of something doesn’t mean you ought to be ashamed of it. To say otherwise would be to commit the is/ought fallacy. Jesus said “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them when he comes in his Father’s glory with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38, NIV). It is possible for a person to be ashamed of his faith in Christ. Were it not, Jesus wouldn’t have said that he’d be ashamed of those who are ashamed of him. But just because some people are ashamed of Christ, does it follow that we ought to be ashamed of Christ? No. Indeed, as Paul wrote “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.” (Romans 1:16, ESV) You can be ashamed of the gospel, but you shouldn’t, and Paul wasn’t. So just because in some contexts, being naked was shameful, it doesn’t follow from that fact that being naked around others is wrong. At least if it’s not in a location where it is against the law, and you are with people who don’t mind. Nick Peters must make an argument to bridge the gap between the “is” to the “ought”.

Moreover, there are plenty of other things in ancient Israel that were considered shameful, yet no Christian in his right mind would denounce these things as immoral. Here’s a list with scripture references for my readers and Nick Peters to check out.

– Childlessness. (Genesis 29-30: 38; Deuteronomy. 25:5-6; 1 Samuel 1)
– Beardlessness. (2 Samuel 10:4-5)
– Being a victim of rape. (2 Samuel 13:13)
– Suffering a military defeat. (2 Chron. 32:21; Ezra 9:7: Psalm 6:10, 25:2, 31:1, 35:4, etc; Isaiah 22:17-19: Jeremiah 2:26, 36, 48:20, etc; Ezekiel 32:24-30)
– Demotion in social class. (Isaiah 22:17-19, 47:1-5)
– Mourning the dead in the face of victory. (2 Samuel 19:4-5)
– Long hair on men and short hair on women. (1 Corinthians 11:6, 14-15)
(Remember Samuel, Samson, and John.) ^[14]I’m thankful to Chris from Mud Walkers for this chart. I took a photo of his chart from his video “Modesty Diagram Response (1)” and then copy/pasted it into my blog post from the … Continue reading

So, it would seem that if something being shameful by the biblical cultures means that it’s sinful, then Nick should tell childless women to repent of their childlessness, even if their childlessness is something outside of their control such a barren womb. Nick should also be ashamed of his beardlessness and repent of this awful sin. He should grow a beard right away and delete all of the beardless photos he’s uploaded to the internet. He should also not only have an issue with me being a naturist, but he should also have an issue with the fact that I am growing my hair long. But all of these moral conclusions would be absurd. What this shows is that you cannot use the fact that nakedness was shameful to argue that it’s wrong. This does nothing to impugn the moral permissibility of the modern practice of nudism. If nudism is to be avoided by the faithful Christian, we’re going to need something more; like an explicit command or an inference from a biblical principle.

Some Final Thoughts

There isn’t much more Nick Peters says in his article that’s worth commenting on. He falsely accuses Frost of attacking a straw man and dubiously compares public nudity to public sex (again betraying a porno-prudish view of the body). He says that Frost doesn’t deal with the honor/shame nature of Israelite society, but Peters doesn’t say how that mindset would dramatically change the interpretations of these passages. Nick Peters is right to say that Israel, and indeed the entire Ancient Near East, were honor/shame cultures. And for those interested, I recommend the books “Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible” by E. Randolph Richards and Brandon J. Obrien as well as “Misreading Scripture with Individualist Eyes: Patronage, Honor, and Shame in the Biblical World” by E. Randolph Richards and Richard James.

Conclusion

Once again, I remain unimpressed with Mr. Peters’ case against naturism. I do appreciate the time taken for Nick to have gone through this book, and to have put his thoughts about it into writing. As I said before, I do believe that Nick Peter’s passion is coming from a good place. And if I am wrong about this, I will do a 180 and publically eat crow. For me, I want to know the truth. If my body is some obscene thing that no one but a select few should see, then I will hide it from everyone but those select few. If social nudity is a sin, I shall never step foot on a nude beach. My number one drive in life is to do everything I can to please Jesus Christ. The very reason I embraced this new view and lifestyle was that I came to the conclusion that it was the best (and probably only) way to get pornography out of my life once and for all. However, in light of the arguments I’ve been putting forth, and especially in light of the good fruits naturism has brought in my life (no more lust, no more porn, I’m much closer to God, I’m becoming more outdoorsy, et. al.) It is hard for me to believe that this isn’t from The Lord. And unless Nick Peters, or someone else, can produce an argument against naturism that holds some water. I won’t budge.

To modify the words of Martin Luther; “Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason – I do not accept the concepts coming from modesty and purity culture, for they have contradicted each other on what even counts as modest and immodest – my conscience is captive to the Word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything, for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. God help me. Amen.”