"What Are We to Put On?"

“What Are We to Put On?”

Clothing in Old Testament Times

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

The Torah spends considerable time discussing rules about clothing and yet manages to give us few details as to what they actually looked like. In the first century of our Common Era, Pharisees made a list of clothing in order to specify which garments could be rescued from a burning house on the Sabbath (I wonder if they stood by with a checklist to make sure no rules were being broken). This provides us with some of the Greek names of garments at the time, as well as their relative values. How well this list applies to the garments of Israelites in earlier centuries, we do not know. Archaeology and non-Biblical source material have filled in some of the gaps, but assumptions are often made on the basis of clothing in Greek times (recorded in more detail by Alexander the Great’s scribes). It seems likely that clothing styles did not change too drastically, but it should be remembered that the following information can be confirmed only by time travel.

The Torah makes it clear that wearing the clothing of the opposite sex was strictly forbidden. There may have been several reasons for this, not the least of which were the religious practices of the Canaanites. Among their priests were kurgaru, whom we would call castrati—eunuchs who dressed in women’s clothing. Assinu were homosexual priests who likewise wore women’s clothing and make-up, and sinnishat zikrum (literally “female males”) were lesbian priestesses who dressed like men.

Basic Israelite men’s clothing, though, began with the kethoneth, something like a loose miniskirt. While laboring in the sun, it was all that men wore, and they would pull the skirt between their legs and tuck it into their belt, or girdle, to keep it out of the way. (I find it interesting that men wearing miniskirts did not, at the time, constitute a violation of the restrictions against wearing women’s clothing).

A woman’s undergarment (klanidja) was more like a long nightshirt or dress. It was worn by itself during hot weather and while sleeping. Ancient Hebrew women did not wear underwear as we know it. (Neither did men, except for the Priests while serving at the altar).

Men and women also wore a girdle, or wide belt—known as the abnet for men and the pirzomath for women. It was sometimes made of folded wool and sometimes of leather. A slit was cut in it as a money pouch, or pocket. A leather girdle could also be used to hold swords and daggers or provide protection to the abdomen during battle.

The outer garment could take many forms: cloaks, robes, ponchos, capes, aprons, and mantles. Some pictures of them can be found on the so-called “Black Obelisk” of Shalmaneser III, which depicts Israelites paying tribute. Sometimes it was a tunic of wool, linen, or sackcloth (goat’s hair). It might have been sleeveless and be worn over one shoulder like a Roman toga, have short sleeves and be left open in front to reveal a second tunic beneath it, or have long, voluminous sleeves and a hood like a monk’s robe. It was typically made of two pieces of material seamed at the waist (looms of the time could not weave cloth wide enough to make it out of one piece) with a v-shaped opening for the head. Embroidery patterns on the borders might identify the region from which the wearer came. For men and women, these garments were decorated with a blue fringe along their lower edge as required by the Torah.

This outer garment was used as a rug and a blanket when needed—and as a rag, pot holder, washcloth, and (by holding out the bottom hem in front of the wearer like a little girl bringing home berries) a pouch to carry things. The wealthy wore fancier versions—silk gradually made its way to the Middle East during this time—as a sign of status.

Men often went bare-headed, but they might wear a cap (pjilon), helmet, turban, or headband. Women did wear head coverings—turbans, scarves, or veils. For at least some of the Biblical period, an unmarried woman would only lift her veil for her husband—a practice that has been adapted by some Muslim nations today.

Men and women wore sandals for footgear, or went barefoot if particularly poor.

The Bible also speaks of special “robes of honor” worn as a sign of rank, wedding and mourning garments, and a detailed list of garments worn by the priests when they were serving at the Tabernacle or Temple.
Israelite men and women loved to accessorize. Women commonly wore a circlet of dowry coins around their heads, over their veil. In Isaiah 3:18-24, the prophet gives us a breakdown of other common jewelry: anklets, headbands, crescents, pendants, bracelets, scarves, headdresses, armlets, sashes, amulets, rings, earrings, nose rings, handbags, and more. Of course, he was listing them to condemn their usage, or at least the vanity and intercultural influence that had made them popular.

I wonder what he would have thought of our clothing today.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.

Partridge to Pistachios: Food in Old Testament Times

Partridge to Pistachios: Food in Old Testament Times

By Timothy S. Wilkinson

www.timothywilkinson.net

                Our modern preoccupation with food would have been foreign to all but the wealthiest people of ancient Palestine. As it is for subsistence farmers and pastoral people today, food was a means of sustenance, not pleasure. This is one of the reasons harvest times were so exciting: they were the only times of the year when food and drink flowed freely.

                The Israelites ate two meals each day—a light breakfast during a pause in the morning’s labor, and a heavier dinner at home after the air had cooled in the evening. Breakfast foods were simple and quick: bread from the day before, fruits, and perhaps milk or cheese. During harvest season workers would simply eat the raw grain by the handfuls or parch it over a small fire. Families would expect to eat the same meal everyday for weeks or even months—until the next crop was harvested.

                The evening meal, though, allowed the housewife and her daughters to exercise their culinary talents--within the limits of their budget, of course. Bread (leavened and unleavened) was the staple, made from freshly milled barley (for the poor), millet, or wheat, and baked into thin, flat loaves in charcoal-fired ovens. Hebrews did not use utensils at the table; they used pieces of bread to scoop food from the communal pot. The bread might be smeared with a little fresh butter, made by placing cream in a skin bag and shaking and squeezing it.

                The common people at meat only rarely. Animals were valuable sources of milk and wool, and their flesh was hard to preserve; they were slaughtered only for special occasions. (The Philistines had an alternative solution to the preservation problem—they would cut off one or two of the animal’s legs and bind the wounds, keeping them alive until they were ready to eat the rest). When the occasion did call for it, though, there were a variety of meats available: veal, beef, mutton, goat, partridge, quail, geese, pigeons, fish, and lamb. The wealthy may also have had access to deer, gazelle, roebucks, and other birds. The Torah forbade the eating of fat, so the meat (already lean by our standards) would have been carefully trimmed and then boiled (in water or milk) or roasted with onions, garlic, or herbs.

                Water was drunk when available, but this was not often. Most water that the common people had access to was not fit for drinking. Women had to laboriously draw clean water from deep wells, and it was often tepid and full of silt. Milk was the drink of choice, whether from camels, sheep, goats, or (les commonly) cows. The Bible only rarely uses the Hebrew word for fresh milk. The common practice was to put milk into a goat-skin bottle, where it thickened slightly and went sour; to the Israelite palette, nothing was better for quenching thirst. Milk was also used to make cheese (probably in the form of curds) and yoghurt.

                In the spring, greens like lettuce, endive, horseradish, parsley and watercress appeared on tables as salads, perhaps blended with mint or chopped cucumbers and onions. Housewives flavored bean or lentil stews with leeks and garlic. Most meals featured raisins or dates (often pressed into cakes like pemmican) and whatever fruits were in season: grapes, pomegranates, figs, olives, apples, and others.

                Dessert was also reserved for special occasions, and fruit was sweet enough to be a treat to the ancient palette. But locust beans (carob pods) could be stewed and prepared as sweetmeats, or confections made from honey, dates, almonds, pistachios, and gum Arabic. Wine chilled with snow from Mount Hermon or expensive, imported melons might have finished off the meal.

For more information about life in Bible times, check out my novels Prophet of Israel and Judge of Israel, available from www.timothywilkinson.net.