Why in the world would they divide up the bloody garments of Jesus?

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. - John 19:23

First of all, I assume his clothes were roughed up and full of dirt and blood from the beating/whipping he took. And the act of dragging the cross through the mud. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the outer garment must have also been basically one piece of attire, perhaps with seams. They had to tear it apart, I assume. So now they each have 1 piece of torn bloody clothing that is completely utterly useless, not counting the even more ragged "undergarment." What in the world were they thinking, what sense does this make? - * OP edited due to an apparent misconception pointed out by ImaTroll

Maybe they took his clothes BEFORE he was crucified

Jesus had no use for them where he was going.

Midrash: the reverse engineering of a a 'prophesy'.

ideogenous_mover said:

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. - John 19:23

First of all, I assume his clothes were roughed up and full of dirt and blood from the beating/whipping he took. And the act of dragging the cross through the mud. Not only that, the garment was a one piece item of attire. They had to tear it apart. So now they each have 1 piece of torn bloody clothing that is completely utterly useless. What in the world were they thinking, what sense does this make?

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By having him dressed in clothes found valuable by others, they were in my opinion, rhetorically building regal divinity. making someone more important then they were.

By all best guesses, people in Jesus social class from Galilee, would not be wearing anything of value.

If we go by Gospel accounts, his contemporary John the Baptist, he was also dressed in nothing of value.

The Sum of Awe said:

Maybe they took his clothes BEFORE he was crucified

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Huh? What about before he had to drag the cross to the execution area, and before he was flogged. So what are you saying, that they took off his garment before he was flogged, yet carried it way later all the way to the execution site to be divided then and there for some reason? It still would have been wrecked, and whoever carried it there took a lot of trouble to haul it around all over the place only to be torn.

Harikrish said:

Jesus had no use for them where he was going.

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They would have had no use for it. They wrecked it, and it had been through something awful!

Jayhawker Soule said:

Midrash: the reverse engineering of a a 'prophesy'.

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Yeah, pretty weird way of doing that though. These soldiers were gross.

outhouse said:

By having him dressed in clothes found valuable by others, they were in my opinion, rhetorically building regal divinity. making someone more important then they were.

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It doesn't matter what he was dressed with, that piece of cloth would have been wrecked and dirty even by the time they rent it apart.

ideogenous_mover said:

It doesn't matter what he was dressed with, that piece of cloth would have been wrecked and dirty even by the time they rent it apart.

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A literary creation can get dirty?

Why in the world would you care about his clothes? Its probably the most unimportant thing in the entire Christian faith.

ideogenous_mover said:

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. - John 19:23

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this may be an incorrect translation. what translation are you using?

try this translation instead from the NASB, and also include the following verse:

John 19:23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece.
John 19:24 So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be"; this was to fulfill the Scripture: "THEYDIVIDED MY OUTER GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS."

ImaTroll said:

this may be an incorrect translation. what translation are you using?

try this translation instead from the NASB, and also include the following verse:

John 19:23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His outer garments and made four parts, a part to every soldier and also the tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece.
John 19:24 So they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to decide whose it shall be"; this was to fulfill the Scripture: "THEYDIVIDED MY OUTER GARMENTS AMONG THEM, AND FOR MY CLOTHING THEY CAST LOTS."

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Ok so Jesus had a total of 5 articles of clothing? Or two? One which was an outer garment, rent and torn apart, and one which was an undergarment, which was retained in supposed pristine condition. What were the 4 articles of clothing he possibly could have had for an outer garment, if they were not torn apart.

My assumption seems to be they would both be seamless, both outer and inner garments, for I can't imagine what else it could be talking about. Shoes, a hat, pants, a robe? All over a tunic? Was that usual 1st century attire? Or was it more like there was a simple robe over a tunic.

Now, even if the outer garment "had seams," unlike the seamless inner one, ripping it at the seams still makes it no good. It may make it easier to divide, but it works better in one piece with the seams in place.

serp777 said:

Why in the world would you care about his clothes? Its probably the most unimportant thing in the entire Christian faith.

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What in the world would these soldiers care about his clothes? They would have been reduced to rags by the point they divided them up and thought they were getting away with something.

ideogenous_mover said:

Ok so Jesus had a total of 5 articles of clothing? Or two? One which was an outer garment, rent and torn apart, and one which was an undergarment, which was retained in supposed pristine condition.

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we have two potential interpretations here:

interpretation one: there were 5 total garments (consisting of 4 individual outer garments plus 1 individual undergarment/tunic), all garments remaining completely untorn, or;

interpretation two: there were 2 total garments (consisting of 1 outergarment that was torn into 4 pieces plus 1 undergarment/tunic that was never torn)

What were the 4 articles of clothing he possibly could have had for an outer garment, if they were not torn apart.

My assumption seems to be they would both be seamless, both outer and inner garments, for I can't imagine what else it could be talking about. Shoes, a hat, pants, a robe? All over a tunic? Was that usual 1st century attire? Or was it more like there was a simple robe over a tunic.

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the text doesn't go into full detail what each article of clothing was, beyond what we see here.

please reference that the undergarment here is a tunic and not likely today's conventional underwear.

please further reference that whipping was commonly done with criminals stripped naked, so the garments here were likely first removed and later restored prior to the crucifixion itself. attendants may or may not have mopped up a criminal after a whipping, prior to restoring their clothes to them.

lastly, please reference that the outer garments (likely 1 piece divided by 4 seams) is traditionally believed to be highly valued material similar to kings' clothing. the material itself would still have considerable value, even if carefully split at the seams and later re-tailored to manufacture multiple smaller garments.

ideogenous_mover said:

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. - John 19:23

First of all, I assume his clothes were roughed up and full of dirt and blood from the beating/whipping he took. And the act of dragging the cross through the mud. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the outer garment must have also been basically one piece of attire, perhaps with seams. They had to tear it apart, I assume. So now they each have 1 piece of torn bloody clothing that is completely utterly useless, not counting the even more ragged "undergarment." What in the world were they thinking, what sense does this make?

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In folklore & magic, Blood of the executed is a potent force. There were people who would dab their handkerchiefs in the blood of the executed for folk remedy uses as late as the 1840s in Europe. It's something still practiced in many parts of the world even today.

Nietzsche said:

In folklore & magic, Blood of the executed is a potent force. There were people who would dab their handkerchiefs in the blood of the executed for folk remedy uses as late as the 1840s in Europe. It's something still practiced in many parts of the world even today.

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Huh, well that is macabre.

ideogenous_mover said:

Huh, well that is macabre.

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It is as old as the human race itself. We're inherently fascinated with blood(some more than others, mmm..) because before we knew anything about anything we knew that blood was vital to our existence. You can live without a lot of things. Blood isn't one of them.

ImaTroll said:

the text doesn't go into full detail what each article of clothing was, beyond what we see here.

please reference that the undergarment here is a tunic and not likely today's conventional underwear.

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Ok, so in trying to get to the bottom of this, now I'm looking at the greek.

So actually I'm looking at two words here, sort of. The word used for 'tunic' was χιτών, which had the meaning of a tunic, shirt or coat. Now the KJV for example, used the word 'coat,' which would make it an outer-garment, and the other word was ἱμάτιον, that was for the clothes they divided, and the word appears to mean any kind of clothes inner or outer.

Nietzsche said:

It is as old as the human race itself. We're inherently fascinated with blood(some more than others, mmm..) because before we knew anything about anything we knew that blood was vital to our existence. You can live without a lot of things. Blood isn't one of them.

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In the bible they certainly had an obsessional period with animal sacrifice, but also had some kind of weird thing about blood, consecrating it strictly to god, it having some kind of non-kosher and contaminating effect to humans at times.

ideogenous_mover said:

In the bible they certainly had an obsessional period with animal sacrifice, but also had some kind of weird thing about blood, consecrating it strictly to god, it having some kind of non-kosher and contaminating effect to humans at times.

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blood was often religiously associated with 'prana' or 'life force' in ancient times. when the blood was consumed, the 'soul' was essentially being eaten. many ancient religions were cannibalistic, eating 'souls' for vital life force. this also produced religious cleansing. (for example, jeffery dahmer had the ancient religious belief that he was eating peoples' souls to gain power, entirely consistent with some very ancient religions.)

eventually, a more humane religion (judaism) came along where they only consumed animals and plants (no longer people). they were still religiously consuming the 'prana' (life force), but no longer practiced baby or adult sacrifices, for example. human beings had more prana than animals due to their higher level of consciousness, and animals had more prana than plants. thus to get the most power/prana, one would caniibalize a human being. this was jefferty dahmer's fervent religious belief and the belief of many of the most ancient religions. eating a soul was good religious nutrition, more nourishing than consuming just the flesh itself. humans, animals and plants had souls at different quality levels.

ideogenous_mover said:

What in the world would these soldiers care about his clothes? They would have been reduced to rags by the point they divided them up and thought they were getting away with something.

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They just wanted to embarrass him; they probably threw the clothes in the dumpster later.