Leviticus 19:28 — what the Bible actually says about tattoos

What the verse says

“You must not make any cuts in your bodies for the dead, nor put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.” (Leviticus 19:28, BSB)

The KJV (1769):

“Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.”

This is one of the relatively few cases where the popular claim about the Bible is correct on the textual level. The verse is real, it directly prohibits tattoo marks, and its surface meaning is not in serious dispute.

The complication is interpretive, not textual.

The immediate context

Leviticus 19 is part of the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17-26), a block of legislation organised around the refrain be holy, for I, the LORD your God, am holy (Leviticus 19:2). The chapter itself contains a mixture of provisions modern readers would group differently: moral commands (you shall not steal, 19:11; you shall not bear false witness, 19:11; you shall love your neighbour as yourself, 19:18) sit alongside ritual and cultic provisions (no mixing of fabrics, 19:19; no rounding of beard edges, 19:27; no cuts for the dead, 19:28).

Verse 28 itself pairs two related practices: incising marks in connection with mourning the dead (the first clause) and tattoo marks generally (the second clause). The pairing has led some interpreters to read the whole verse as specifically about mourning rituals — a prohibition of pagan funerary cutting practices and tattooing in connection with the dead. Others read the two clauses as related but separate prohibitions: cuts for the dead, and tattoos in general.

The Hebrew syntax permits both readings. The ancient versions and modern translations generally render the second clause as a general prohibition, not as restricted to funerary contexts.

The phrase k’tovet qaʿaqaʿ

The full Hebrew phrase translated tattoo marks is k’tovet qaʿaqaʿ (כְּתֹבֶת קַעֲקַע). Both words appear only in this verse in the entire Hebrew Bible — each is a hapax legomenon — so their meanings cannot be established by comparison with other biblical usage. HALOT s.v. qaʿaqaʿ glosses the term as an incised mark or tattoo mark while noting that the precise sense is uncertain: the marking could be by ink, by incision, or by another method. The ancient versions read it as a skin-marking practice — the Septuagint translates grammata stikta (“incised letters / marks”); the Vulgate uses stigmata — and both ancient and modern translators have read the prohibition of a mark on the skin consistently, whatever the method.

The English renderings track the history of the English word rather than any change in the Hebrew. The KJV’s “print any marks upon you” predates the English word tattoo, which entered the language in the late 18th century following Captain James Cook’s Pacific voyages (Cook’s journals adopted the Tahitian word tatau). Modern translations, the BSB among them, generally render the phrase with “tattoo” as the closest current English equivalent. The English vocabulary changed; the Hebrew text did not.

The interpretive question

The contested question is not what the verse says but what it binds in the present. Christian traditions divide on this:

• Some Reformed and many evangelical readers distinguish between Old Testament moral law (which continues to bind) and ceremonial / civil law (which does not). On this distinction, the tattoo prohibition is usually grouped with the ceremonial provisions and read as not binding contemporary believers.
• Other Reformed and Anabaptist traditions read the Holiness Code’s provisions more directly and have historically discouraged tattoos.
• Catholic and Orthodox traditions have, at various points, condemned tattooing in specific contexts and tolerated it in others (notably Christian-symbol tattoos among Coptic, Ethiopian, and pilgrim communities).
• Jewish tradition (Mishnah Makkot 3:6) reads the verse straightforwardly as a prohibition; Orthodox practice generally maintains it. There is a widely repeated claim that tattooed Jews cannot be buried in a Jewish cemetery; this is a folk extension, not a rabbinic ruling.

This entry does not adjudicate between the traditions. It documents that the verse is real, its surface meaning is unambiguous, and the disputed question is how Christians (and Jews of different traditions) handle Holiness Code provisions in the present.

Other passages cited in the discussion

Leviticus 19:28 is the only Bible passage that addresses tattoo marks. Three other passages recur in contemporary discussion of the question; none of them mentions tattooing.

• 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 — “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God with your body.” (BSB) The “body is a temple” language appears within 1 Corinthians 6:12–20, a passage addressing sexual conduct; it does not mention tattoos or body marking.
• Deuteronomy 14:1 — “You are sons of the LORD your God; do not cut yourselves or shave your foreheads on behalf of the dead.” (BSB) The verse prohibits cutting the body for the dead, sharing language with the first clause of Leviticus 19:28, but does not mention tattoo marks.
• Genesis 1:27 — the “image of God” creation statement is sometimes cited in the discussion; the passage does not address body marking.

To read the verse in other translations:

• Leviticus 19:28 — NIV →
• Leviticus 19:28 — ESV →
• Leviticus 19:28 — NLT →

What this entry does not argue

This entry takes no position on whether contemporary Christians should have tattoos. It documents that the verse is real, that its meaning at the textual level is clear, and that the question of whether it binds present-day Christians is the long-running interpretive question that distinguishes Reformed, Catholic, Orthodox, evangelical, and Jewish readings of the Holiness Code.