What about Decorative Tattoos?: The Human Body in Heaven

Abstract

The issue of the exact shape and form of the resurrected human body has been highly controversial and has concerned Christian theology throughout the ages. However, although deliberate body modification practices, such as tattooing, have been playing an important role for civilizations since ancient years, their place in heavenly life has hardly been discussed. In addition, decorative tattooing has a very interesting and also ethically controversial background through time, as one could say that it is both an act of embellishment and an act of mutilation, moving between two contrasted parallels, beauty and deformity. Examining, therefore, the specific questions of whether the risen flesh of the blessed will be perfectly beautiful and freed of any earthly deformities as well as whether it will resemble the resurrected ‘wounded’ body of Christ or not, this paper deals with the issue of the preservation of decorative tattoos in the Kingdom of Heaven.