Eagle root

[-JKP-]

I hope you all brought your tinfoil caps.

I found David's remark about Maria lactans interesting, so I did a little googling.

First of all, it seems clear that taboos were different in those days.

They were different. Sex and nudity were considered normal parts of life.

The concept of "sin" as illustrated by Adam and Eve's expulsion from the garden and donning of clothes gradually revamped society.


It also turned out that "sin" was a very profitable concept (I think this was more of a side effect than an original intention). The old sacred texts were in Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew and later Latin. If priests and other clergy were necessary to read and interpret the scriptures, to stand in as God's emissaries and intercede to have the person's sin "excused" (to allow entry into heaven), it encouraged tithes and donations and even the building of whole monasteries on the part of royalty. So the clergy profited from anything that could be deemed sinful, including nudity.

Economics was one of the reasons that the Protestant Reformation was so threatening to the Catholic church, why untold numbers of people died in religious wars between the two... if people could read the Bible in their own language could talk directly to God rather than having a Latin scholar/clergyman interpret it for them, then the financial support for the church would be undermined and the clergy would not be needed in the same numbers as before.

It wasn't just a difference in ideology between Pagan and Christian religions that encouraged the perception of sex and nudity as sinful, it had very strong economic benefits.