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This is part 7 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 read parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of my response series, click here, here, here, here, here, and here.

In this article, we will be responding to “Book Plunge: Christian Body: Ezekiel and John”.

Peters Continues Being Obtuse Regarding What Frost Is Arguing Against

First, Peters starts off quoting Ezekiel 16:36-37 and says \\“He argues at this point that nudity is not morally sinful to which I am still left saying “Who is making this argument that nudity in itself is morally sinful?” Does not Frost know that people against the naturist position have to take showers and if married, like to have sex? This is still the straw man.” \\ ^[1]Nick Peters, “Book Plunge: Christian Body: Ezekiel and John”, Deeper Waters, — https://www.deeperwatersapologetics.com/2024/08/12/book-plunge-christian-body-ezekiel-and-john/ No, Nick. You’re the one attacking a straw man. Does Nick Peters honestly believe that Frost thinks textiles are arguing that just being naked, by yourself, in the bathtub, is a sin? Here’s a lesson in charity; if I interpret my opponent as saying something so unbelievably stupid that anyone with half a brain cell could see the stupidity of the claim, my first inclination is to suspect that I might have misunderstood what they are saying. If this is in a conversational setting, I will employ the Colombo Tactic ^[2]This is a tactic of asking questions in conversations or debates. It’s named after the TV detective Lieutenant Colombo. And if you’d like to learn how to employ this tactic yourself, you … Continue reading But if I’m interacting with a written source, I’ll either try to re-read the assertion or argument, or if I’m really confused and I really want to understand, I’ll try to contact the author and ask “What did you mean by this?” In this case, there isn’t much excuse for such misunderstanding on Peters’ part. Even a casual reader should understand that what Frost is talking about are the following; social nudity (i.e going to nude beaches, parks, retreats, or hanging out at the house with other nude people), partial nudity **around other people* (women in bikinis, men in speedos), skimpy outfits **around other people** (girls in tank tops and mini skirts), and so on. Nick Peters is a man of integrity, so I cannot even entertain the possibility that he’s purposefully misrepresenting Frost, but Nick is also a really smart man (In fact, I wouldn’t doubt if he’s smarter than me!). So I can’t fathom the possibility that a dull intellect is to blame here either. I just don’t know how Nick managed to so badly misrepresent Frost and any speculation on my part would be pointless psycho-analyzing. All I can say is that he did indeed misrepresent him. And since he can’t even get this basic fact right, the readers of this exchange should have severe doubts about the validity concerning the rest of Nick’s case against naturism.

And I’m sure no sources need be cited for how many Christians think even majority body exposure is sinful (to reiterate, AROUND OTHER PEOPLE). Has he not seen the debates Christian girls have over whether they can wear bikinis to the beach? Is he not aware of fundamentalist Christian schools who are so strict about modesty that they’re funny if a woman’s dress is slightly above the knee? Of course he is. And if even clothing that covers the “private parts”, but still shows a good bit of the body is considered “immodest” (lit. sinful), then full nudity is out of the question. If a Christian girl can’t wear a bikini to a textile beach, if a Christian man can’t wear a speedo in a textile setting ^[3]Yes, I had a certain Stefan Paradis on Facebook tell me that I was being immodest by wearing speedos to the pool instead of swim trunks., then it would logically follow that going nude in nudist settings would be even more “immodest”. I disagree, but it isn’t hard to follow the reasoning of the purdah priests.

Social Nudity In The Ancient World

Nick Peters writes \\“He does say that public nudity was humbling and so constituted a fitting punishment. He says it was common in contexts such as manual labor and public bathing. Unfortunately, he has not shown us that public nudity was done in any of those locations. He has just asserted it.”\\ –

So I’m guessing Nick just forgot about Pharoah’s daughter bathing in Exodus 2? Here’s something for Nick to chew on. What was the covenant symbol between Jewish men and Yahweh? Genesis 17:9-12 says “Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come. This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you. For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring.” (NIV). Circumcision is the act of removing the foreskin from the penis. God instituted this as a sign of the covenant. It was a requirement for entry into the Jewish community. In fact, circumcision was so important that after the ascension of Christ, whether gentiles had to be circumcized was a major debate in the early church (e.g Acts 15:1-2). Although the apostles decided that gentile converts to Christianity did not need to be circumcised if they weren’t already (Acts 15:23-29, Galatians 6:15), nevertheless, at one point, Paul was sensitive to the sensibilities of the Jews so when he brought Timothy along with him, he required Timothy to get circumcized (Acts 16:1-3).

Question; if no man’s penis was EVER seen by anyone but the misses, then how could a circumcized penis serve as a sign? Last time I checked, signs were detectable in one way or another. If ancient Israel were as clothing compulsive as we are, such that they were never nude in any public settings whatsoever, then circumcision would be worthless as a sign of the covenant. What good is a sign that no one ever sees? In Timothy’s case, why couldn’t Paul and Timothy just lie? “Timothy? Oh yeah. He’s been circumcised. We did it just the other day.” Paul would say, nudging Timothy and winking at him, indicating that he should probably try to act like he’s in pain. “Oh yeah. Yeah. Ow. It still hurts. That was not fun at all.” we can imagine Timothy saying. What opportunities might Jewish men have had to have seen Timothy’s penis? Well, communal bathing in bath houses were not an uncommon practice in Rome, ^[4]Beard, Mary (2008). The fires of Vesuvius : Pompeii lost and found. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02976-7. OCLC 225874239. Given the early practice of baptism being done in the nude, maybe Paul expected him and Timothy to be standing naked in a river baptizing new Jewish Christians. ^[5]See Matthew Neal’s blog post “Nude Baptism In The Early Church? You Decide.” August 9th 2009, – https://thebiblicalnaturist.blogspot.com/2009/08/nude-baptism-in-early-church-you-decide.html, … Continue reading We can’t really say for sure, but what we can be reasonably certain of is that Paul expected opportunities in which they couldn’t just get away with lying. I’m sure Timothy would have preferred the “Let’s not and say we did” approach, but even if Timothy’s penis was never exposed, they at least expected plenty of opportunities for it to be. The very practice of circumcision as a sign presupposes that Jewish men would have had ample opportunities to see penises, so they could tell who belonged to Yahweh and who was a pagan.

There is a lot more that can be said on this. I highly recommend reading Jim Cunningham’s essay “Jewish Men Had No ‘Privates'” in the book “Nudity and Christianity” by Jim Cunningham. This essay spans pages 174-194 of the book.

Using scripture and plain logic, nudity among Jewish males must have been relatively common. If Nick Peters disagrees, I’d love for him to explain to me how circumcision could be worthwhile if the sight of another man’s penis was as non-existent as it is in ours. Does Nick know whether I’m circumcised? Do I know if he is? No. Why? We’ve never seen each other naked. Because in our culture, even two dudes being naked together is considered a sexual event. People might even call it gay. If ancient Israel were like that, I think God would have chosen a different sign of the covenant.

What about nudity in manual labor? 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.” ^[6]Capturing Christianity, “Egyptologist Presents Very Strong Evidence For A REAL Exodus”, Cameron Bertuzzi and David Falk, April 12th, 2021, 41 minutes in … Continue reading

In light of this, does Nick expect a poor woman like Ruth to soil her garment working in Boaz’s field? I mean, if you read the book of Ruth, it’s pretty clear that she’s gleaning Boaz’ field precisely because she and her mother-in-law Naomi fell on hard times due to deaths of all of Naomi’s sons one after another. Would Ruth really risk messing up what was perhaps her only garment? If she was as poor as the text makes her out to be, she couldn’t afford to get another one if it tore. She could wash it in a river if it got dirty, but (1) She’d be naked while doing her laundry, and (2) The fabric would wear out quickly. It’s a well-known fact among antiquarians that prior to the invention of the washboard or washing machine, people beat their clothes against river rocks. ^[7]You know, Nick, you can Google this. So yeah, manual labor probably would have been done nude. The burden of proof lies on Nick to prove that people were so neurotic about their bodies as we are that they’d risk ruining their only garments because it was worth it to not be seen in the body God gave them.

If Nick Peters had bothered to do a little bit of research, I probably wouldn’t have had to type all of this, but it seems he’s more interested in a justification for his position than seeing what the actual position of Scripture is.

The Apostle Peter’s Nudity

John 21:7 says “Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher’s coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea.” (KJV)

Nick Peters writes \\”In this story, Jesus goes out fishing with the others and Jesus calls to them from the shore and they have a miraculous catch. The beloved disciple says that it is the Lord and Peter puts on his outer garment and swims to the shore to see Jesus. Frost says the word outer isn’t in the Greek, and fair enough, it isn’t, but either everyone else is involved in some conspiracy here to cover up, or perhaps there is some nuance that is not being understood.

Yet notice this, Peter still puts on his garment and even SWIMS in his garment to the shore. One would think if nudity was so common and acceptable, Peter would not have had any need to put it back on. This would be especially so to go swimming in a garment and wind up on the shore in a wet garment.” ^[8]See Nick Peters, “Book Plunge: Christian Body: Ezekiel and John”, Deeper Waters, — https://www.deeperwatersapologetics.com/2024/08/12/book-plunge-christian-body-ezekiel-and-john/))

I find it funny that Nick would use this argument. First, the very fact that he puts on his garment “because he was naked” means that he didn’t problem working in the nude with the other fisherman disciples! If people in the ancient world were as bashful and funny about being seen naked as we are in the modern world, why wasn’t Peter just wearing his garments like Bible movies depict? The very fact that he was naked and had to put something on it and of itself mitigates against Peter’s position that social nudity was either unheard of in the ancient world or was taboo like it is in ours.

Secondly, we have no idea why Peter grabbed his cloak before jumping into the water. Although in her book “Testimonies To The Truth: Why You Can Trust The Gospels”, Dr. Lydia McGrew classifies this as an “unnecessary detail”, and I would agree, I would also classify it as an “unexplained allusion”. However, there are interpretations that fit nicely within naturism.

In the book “Nudity and Christianity” by Jim Cunningham, Paul M. Bowman said this; “It is true that this passage doesn’t say why Peter put on his cloak. The Greek word used here is ‘ependutes’; and this is, as far as I can find, the only time it’s used in the New Testament. It probably was a type of coat specifically designed for a fisherman’s work or conditions, so any answer will be open to question. The common sense answer, however, is contained within the passage, and seems so obvious to me that I can’t see how people could use this verse as a reason to put on clothes. It doesn’t seem likely that Peter would fish naked with the other disciples and then suddenly become ‘modest’ at the appearance of Jesus. If he did suddenly become ‘modest,’ it would certainly have to do with the fact that this occurred after the resurrection. I think most people would try to ‘hide’ or instinctively try to protect themselves if they saw somebody whom their minds told them was dead! Much more likely, however, is that Peter wanted to swim to meet Jesus on shore. They were out in a boat about a hundred yards from shore. Have you ever tried to swim a hundred yards with your coat under your arm? It seems much more practical to throw it on so both arms are free to swim. I say, then, that Peter thought it would be easier to swim to shore with the coat on his back rather than under his arm, and that he must have wanted it with him when he got to shore in case the boat did not follow him.” ^[9]Paul M. Bowman, from “Nudity and Christianity” edited by Jim Cunningham, from the essay “The Naked Fishermen: 7 Reflections”, page 137, Authorhouse

So What?

Peters writes “So let’s suppose Peter was nude while he was fishing. To this, so what? What does this prove? Peter is out with his friends and there’s no one else around. Also, there’s no word of what anyone else was doing or wearing.” – Here, Peters shows the utter lack of research he has done on this topic. Although John’s gospel does not tell us if the other disciples were naked, ancient iconography frequently depicted groups of fishermen fishing completely naked. The antecedent probability of Andrew, John, etc. being just as naked is quite high, therefore. If you’d like to see these images (assuming you don’t consider it ancient hentai), Phillip Oak has posted several pieces of such iconography in his blog post “When Is It Ok?” You can also just Google “Naked Fisherman Ancient Iconography”, but I warn you that you will see photographs of some not-so-ancient fishermen fishing nude as well. And if the sight of God’s image offends you, then I don’t know what else to say but “trust me, bro”. But whatever you do, don’t offend your conscience (Romans 14:23). I have elected not to even post pics of the iconography here so you can choose whether or not to fact check me. I mean, they’re just drawings, but people are funny about nudity, so…..yeah. So, no, “there’s no word of what anyone else was doing or wearing” but in light of the cultural context (i.e the commodity of clothing in the ancient world, fishing being a dirty job, ancient iconography routinely depicting fishermen nude), the odds are high that these apostles were nude on the boat together. If Nick Peters wants to argue otherwise, the burden of proof rests on him.

Now, granted, this isn’t co-ed social nudity (although we will see a naked man appear before a woman later on in this series, and who it is might surprise you), but this does nevertheless show a far more relaxed view of nudity than we have in the modern west. Peter was not like 10 year old me who frantically tried to change in and out of my swimsuit in a locker room before any other boys came in. And at the very least, it lays the foundation for the morality of social nudism AT LEAST among nudists of the same gender. However, as we’ve seen in this series, there isn’t a case to be made against co-ed social nudity either. It was God’s idea in the beginning (Genesis 2:25), God asked a rhetorical question when Adam said he was naked (Genesis 3:11) showing he disagreed with the very concept of nudity, and it is highly unlikely that prophet Isaiah only preached to adult men during the three years he went nude (Isaiah 20:1-4).

Conclusion

This article of Peters’ was just as underwhelming as the previous one. The lack of research Peters’ has done concerning nudity, modesty, and how it does and does not relate to sex is minuscule, and that is reflected in the terrible eisegesis, proof-texting, and informal fallacies (the straw man being chief among them) and the lack of awareness of things a seminary student with an expensive Logos package could easily look up, which we find in his articles. It is clear to me that the extent of Peters’ knowledge concerning the case for Christian Naturism is Aaron Frost’s book alone, and even with this one single book, it is clear to me that he has not carefully read it. Again, I hate to use such scathing criticism of a Christian Brother I consider a close friend, but this level of sloppy scholarship is inexcusable. Nick, I know you can do better than this. I hope you won’t take any of these critiques personally. I love you and I want to see you flourish as a Christian Apologist. But what you’ve written so far will only be persuasive to those in the textile echo chamber. That is, those who haven’t done the level of research I and other Christian Naturists have. Not very many of us adopted this philosophy and lifestyle easily. We were once pro-modesty Christians with a deep hatred of human nakedness. Many of us despised it because we struggled with lust and porn issues. I was probably the most gymnophobic of them all. It got to the point where I even despised the very word “naked”. ^[10]When I discovered Michael Heiser’s podcast for the first time, I lamented “Why did he have to name it THAT? The NAKED Bible Podcast?” It has nothing to do with naturism. It’s … Continue reading It is my deep desire that not only will you maintain our friendship, but that you’ll also take the time to research this more thoroughly. Hopefully with an open mind. And I would love to dialogue about this with you one on one sometime after this public correspondence is over. We don’t ever have to agree on this, just as we don’t agree on classical theism (I’m a Theistic Personalist if you didn’t know). We should be mature enough that we can still break bread as Christian brothers despite differing views. I love you and all of my textile Christian brothers and sisters. We all have the same heavenly Father, and I consider all of you family (John 1:12). “I’m so glad I’m a part of the family of God.” And family should stick together despite disagreements.

Finally, I affirm the virgin birth!