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• Title: What Do Shaving Rites Accomplish and What Do They Signal in Biblical Ritual Contexts?
• Author : Journal of Biblical Literature
• Release Date : January 22, 1998
• Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines,Books,Professional & Technical,Education,
• Pages : * pages
• Size : 212 KB

Description

Shaving rites are a component in quite a number of biblical rituals. Surprisingly, however, they have not yet received a comprehensive treatment by scholars in the biblical field. When shaving rites are treated in commentaries on specific biblical passages, in dictionary and encyclopedia articles--they are usually associated in a perfunctory manner with specific contexts such as mourning, or specific functions such as achieving purification, causing humiliation, or bringing about the surrender of an individual's power or personality (3) Sometimes mention is made of the association of shaving with rites of transition (rites de passage), though usually with little or no discussion. (2) Typically, no attempt is made to chart the specific functions of ritual shaving in rites of transition to see whether any patterns emerge, (3) or to ask whether shaving has a larger function in biblical ritual that goes beyond its particular function in any specific ritual setting--whether, in other words, there is a relationship between the shaving of the mourner on the one hand, who departs from quotidian life and enters a state of polluted separation, and the shaving of the Nazirite as he or she completes the ritual requirements of the Nazirite vow and moves a step closer to reentering the day-to-day life of the community. It is my purpose to consider a number of shaving rites accomplish have a particularly clear association with rites of transition; I do so in order to see whether it is possible to generate a comprehensive explanation of what such shaving rites accomplish in biblical ritual settings and what they signal to participants and onlookers. (4) am interested in exploring both the specific functions and associations of ritual shaving in rites of transition and the larger question of what--if anything--each specific shaving rite might share in common with other such rites. Manipulation of parts of the body or the body as a whole through such activities as tatooing, shaving, laceration, and circumcision is common to many cultures. As social anthropologists have long noted, such manipulation--often labeled mutilation (5) functions to distinguish individuals and classes of persons and to communicate such status distinctions in a clear manner. (8) Head and facial hair are particularly well suited to effect and mark social and ritual differentiations, since they are easily visible and easily manipulated by means of full or partial shaving, depilation, coloring, cutting, or some combination of these. (7) Unlike certain other forms of ritual manipulation of the body (e.g., circumcision, laceration, tatooing), shaving brings about only a temporary change in appearance, in that the shaved hair will always grow back after a time; as a result, shaving is well attested cross-culturally in rites of transition that effect only a temporary change in the individual's status (e.g., mourning rites), (8) though it is also used at times to bring about and to mark longer-term change as well. (9) When all is said and done, shaving proves to be a uniquely flexible way of bringing about and marking status change in ritual settings.

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