“Cuttings and tattoo marks”
You must not make any cuts in your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD. (Leviticus 19:28 BSB)
What it sounds like today
A blanket ancient ban on tattoos.
The cultural key
The context is mourning and pagan worship, not modern body art. Surrounding peoples gashed their skin in grief for the dead or in frenzied worship, as the prophets of Baal slash themselves in 1 Kings 18, and marked their bodies to dedicate themselves to a god or the deceased. Israel was forbidden these rites because its people already bore a covenant identity and were not to brand themselves as belonging to death or to another deity. The verse is aimed at specific ritual practices, though it has been widely applied to tattooing in general.
Recovered meaning
The law guards the body from the marks of pagan grief and devotion: Israelites belonged to the living God, not to the dead or to idols. Its concern is whose sign you carry, not merely ink on skin.