Women, Pants, and Deuteronomy 22:5 - Part 2

Read Women, Pants, and Deuteronomy 22:5 - Part 1

In my previous post I discussed Kent Brandenburg’s attempt to prove that Deuteronomy 22:5 is teaching that women should wear dresses and skirts and men should were pants. In the present post I will show that the prohibition of Deuteronomy 22:5 deals with religious practices found in Canaanite religion.

As I mentioned in my last post, in order to support his position, Brother Brandenburg quoted several biblical scholars. In addition to Martin Luther and Keil and Delitzsch, he quoted Albert Barnes (1884-1885), The Pulpit Commentary (1897), Lange's Commentary (1884), Joseph Excell (1849), Vincent Alsop (mid 17th century), Matthew Poole (1560) and several recent commentaries.

However, what do all the authors and commentaries Brother Brandenburg cited have in common? Most of them were written before the rise of modern archaeology and the discovery of written material that clarify the religious and cultural practices of many nations of the Ancient Near East. In addition, none of these authors studied how the Hebrew word תוֹעֵבָ֥ה (tô`eba) is used in the book of Deuteronomy.

Let me begin with תוֹעֵבָ֥ה (tô`eba) in Deuteronomy. The noun occurs 117 times in the Old Testament and it is generally translated as “abomination.” The word is used to describe a sinful act on the part of Israel or an individual Israelite. The word appears several times in Ezekiel to describe an action that is cultically unacceptable.

In the book of Deuteronomy, the word tô`eba becomes almost a technical word that is used to describe pagan practices that are abhorrent to Yahweh. A few examples will suffice:

“When you come into the land which the LORD your God gives you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations” (Deuteronomy 18:9).

“There shall not be found among you any one who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, any one who practices divination, a soothsayer, or an augur, or a sorcerer, or a charmer, or a medium, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD; and because of these abominable practices the LORD your God is driving them out before you” (Deuteronomy 18:10-12).

“You shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the LORD your God has commanded; that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin against the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 20:17-18).

“You shall not bring the hire of a harlot, or the wages of a dog, into the house of the LORD your God in payment for any vow; for both of these are an abomination to the LORD your God” (Deuteronomy 23:18).

I could cite several other passages in Deuteronomy where the word “abomination” is used as a reference to a religious practice that existed in the religion of the Canaanites and several other nations in the Ancient Near East. The last quotation above, Deuteronomy 23:18, forbids an Israelite to “bring the hire of a harlot, or the wages of a dog, into the house of the LORD” as a payment for a vow. Such an act was an abomination to the LORD.

The reference here is to the offering in the temple of the Lord of the wages received by the “harlots and the dogs,” that is, the female and male cultic prostitutes who offered themselves in the worship of Baal. Note the order of the words: the female is referred to first, then the male. This same order is also found in Deuteronomy 22:5: first the woman then the man (see below).

This is the reason Deuteronomy 22:5 prohibits Israelites from wearing garments of the opposite sex because these were the special garments female and male cultic prostitutes wore in the service of Asherah (cf. 2 Kings 10:22; 23:7).

Archaeology has shown that the exchange of roles in pagan cults, that is, where male acted as female and vice-versa, was common in the Ancient Near East. A few quotes will suffice to prove this assertion:

Abraham Malamat, in his article “A Forerunner of Biblical Prophecy: The Mary Documents,” published in Essential Papers on Israel and the Ancient Near East, edited by Frederick E. Greenspahn (New York: New Yourk University Press, 1991), p. 159, discusses the role of the assinnus. According to Malamat, the assinnu was “a male prostitute.” Malamat said that this cultic functionary “served in the temple at Mari and prophesied in the name of the goddess Annunitum, apparently while disguised and acting like a woman, perhaps like a modern-day transvestite.”

In a review of Louis Crompton’s Homosexuality and Civilization (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006) published in The Yale Review of Books 7, vol. 2 (Spring 2004), Margaret Fox wrote:

Crompton quotes the King James translation of a verse from the Holiness Code in Leviticus 20:13: “If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Crompton speculates that Levitical hostility toward homosexuality arose from the desire to keep the worship of Yahweh distinct from the cultic practices of other cultures in the Ancient Near East, in which transvestite priests often played religious roles.

Theodore Burgh, in his book Listening to the Artifacts: Music Culture in Palestine said (p. 69) that in ancient Mesopotamia, transvestites, men dressed like women, played and danced in the cult of Ishtar, performing erotic dances and pantomime.

Cyrus Gordon, in his book The Bible and the Ancient Near East (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1997), p. 160, wrote:

Another biblical law that now can be explained through recourse to the Ugaritic texts is the prohibition against transvestism in Deuteronomy 22:5. This act is described in the Epic of Aqhat as well. After the hero is slain, his sister Pughat seeks revenge against Anat for the murder. To do so, Pughat disguises herself as a male, replete with rouge (the coloration of males, especially warrior heroes), man’s clothing and weaponry. The Israelite reaction is to forbid transvestism, another aspect of Canaanite society that they found reprehensible. Again, one needs to place this in its proper context. No doubt the average Canaanite male or female dressed in proper fashion throughout most his or her life. But since Canaanite epic literature describes transvestism in a noble manner, we may conclude that this act not only was practiced but also was countenanced. A close reading of the biblical prohibition reveals that the female is referred to first then the male follows. This runs counter to most laws in the Pentateuch, which either are addressed to male solely, or are addressed to male first and female second. This is not coincidental; rather it suggests an even closer connection with Pughat’s action detailed in the Epic of Aqhat.

The temple functionaries known in Canaanite literature as qedeshim and qedoshot were male and female cultic prostitutes who engaged in sexual acts in the Canaanite cult in order to elicit rain and fertility from their gods. In his religious reforms, Josiah, king of Judah, “broke down the houses of the male cult prostitutes which were in the house of the LORD, where the women wove hangings for the Asherah” (2 Kings 23:7).

The Biblical text is very clear: the qedeshim and the qedoshot, the male and female prostitutes were inside the Lord’s house in Jerusalem and there the women wove hangings for the Asherah. This type of ritual drama that took place in the temple was unacceptable to the Israelites. This is the reason the Israelites rejected bestiality, homosexualism, transvestism, and temple prostitution and declared these practices to be an abomination to God.

The Biblical text was not written in a vacuum. The Biblical text was written within a historical and cultural context. When the Biblical text is divorced of its cultural and historical contexts, as Brother Brandenburg has done in his study of Deuteronomy 22:5, the text is made to say that which it never intended to say.

Brother Brandenburg wrote: “Our country practiced the pants as male dress and the dress or skirt as the female dress.” But Deuteronomy was not addressing a cultural issue in “our country” in the twenty-first century or in any other century. Deuteronomy was addressed to Israel as it struggled with Canaanite culture. Deuteronomy was written to address the many religious problems that were plaguing the worship of God, problems that compromised Israel’s uniqueness as a chosen people and problems that undermined Israel’s mission to the nations.

Deuteronomy 22:5 is not prohibiting women from wearing pants. In fact, the word “pants” does not even appears in the Bible.

Well, that is not totally true. The word pants appears twice in the Bible: “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God” (Psalm 42:1 NIV). But these are pants of another kind.


Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Deuteronomy 22:5, Pants, Transvestism, Women

Women, Pants, and Deuteronomy 22:5 - Part 1

My post on Transvestism in Ancient Israel generated much discussion about the issue of women wearing pants. Several readers, in private communication, called my attention to two posts (here and here) by Kent Brandenburg in which he challenged my conclusion that Deuteronomy 22:5 deals with pagan practices. Deuteronomy 22:5 reads: “A woman shall not wear man's clothing, nor shall a man put on a woman's clothing; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.”

In my post, I wrote the following:

Although scholars have rejected the anti-transvestism law of Deuteronomy 22:5 to be a ban on Canaanite practices, I take the view that this Deuteronomic prohibition is a protest against the immoral practices of Canaanite fertility religion.

In reply to my post, Brother Brandenburg wrote:

They simply speculate the intention of the biblical text. God prohibits women from putting on the male garment and men from putting on the female garment, but instead the intention was to avoid Canaanite worship rituals.

He also wrote:

Deuteronomy 22:5 isn't hard to understand. . . . The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God. . . . We see nothing in the verse about Canaanite worship or women in the military or transvestism. It is about as straightforward as it can get.

Brother Brandenburg concludes:

I've dealt with the interpretation of Deuteronomy 22:5. Now I will show you that women in dresses and skirts and men in pants is how that it has been practiced.

Our country practiced the pants as male dress and the dress or skirt as the female dress. Those were the designed distinctions. None other served as the distinction between the genders. They were erased by the culture because the culture didn't care to keep those distinctions any longer, despite what God had said. They were replaced by nothing.

To prove his argument, that Deuteronomy 22:5 teaches that women should wear dresses and skirts and that men should were pants, Brother Brandenburg quotes several biblical scholars and their comments on this text.

Brother Brandenburg begins his argument by quoting Martin Luther: “When the devil has persuaded us to surrender one article of faith to him, he has won; in effect he has all of them, and Christ is already lost.” When the issue of whether or not women should wear pants becomes an article of faith then we have enthroned a cultural practice into the realm of church doctrine.

Brother Brandenburg then quotes several biblical scholars on this issue. I will cite Keil and Delitzsch as an example. They wrote:

As the property of a neighbor was to be sacred in the estimation of an Israelite, so also the divine distinction of the sexes, which was kept sacred in civil life by the clothes peculiar to each sex, was to be not less but even more sacredly observed. There shall not be man's things upon a woman, and a man shall not put on a woman's clothes.

The distinction between the sexes is established by God and taught in the Bible. When God created human beings, he created them male and female. God blessed them and told them to increase and multiply. This is the reason that in the sexual act, a man joins his wife and they become one flesh.

Homosexuality, both male and female, violates this created order because it destroys this divine distinction between the sexes: homosexual relations do not include a man and a woman. The people involved in a homosexual relationship cannot procreate and they do not become one flesh.

Although sexual distinction between the sexes was established by God, Deuteronomy 22:5 is not teaching that women should wear dresses and skirts and men should wear pants.

There are several Egyptian monuments showing Semites (probably Hebrews or Hapiru) entering Egypt. The image below shows Hebrew men and Hebrew women pictured on monuments.
















It is clear from the image above that none of the Hebrew men were wearing pants. In addition, both men and women are wearing robes and in the image some of the robes of the men and women are identical in color and style.

In addition, on the various monuments of other nations of the Ancient Near East, men of various nations and different cultures are portrayed: none of the men are wearing pants.

In the image below, a representation of the obelisk of Shalmaneser III, Jehu, king of Israel appears bowing before the king of Assyria. Neither Jehu nor the Assyrians are wearing pants.








In the image below, several Hebrews are represented on the obelisk of Shalmaneser. The image shows that the men are not wearing pants.

















If Brother Brandenburg is correct, that Moses ordered men to wear pants, then all of these Hebrew men were violating God’s command. The truth is that Deuteronomy 22:5 is not teaching that women should wear dresses and skirts and men should wear pants.

A closer look at the monuments gives evidence that this statement is true.


Next: The Canaanite connection. Read, Women, Pants, and Deuteronomy 22:5 - Part 2

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary


Tags: Deuteronomy 22:5, Pants, Transvestism, Women,

Transvestism in Ancient Israel

The psychological anomaly of transvestism refers to the desire of a person of one gender to dress in the garments of a person of the other gender. In cross-dressing, a man has the abnormal desire to dress like a woman, and a woman desires to dress like a man.

Transvestism tends to emphasize the increased comfort and the gratification that a person enjoys in the role of the other gender. The transvestite’s impulse to wear clothing appropriate to the opposite sex many times is defined as an artistic enjoyment in the appreciation of the beautiful, but often it is a manifestation of homosexuality.

Deuteronomy 22:5 is a law that prohibits transvestism in Israel. The text reads as follows:

“A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God.”

Although this text has been used in many Christian churches as a justification to prohibit a woman from wearing pants in church, the text does not address how a woman should dress in church.

Joan of Arc was condemned by the Church for her refusal to submit to the authority of her inquisitors on the matter of her short hair and the clothes she wore. For this reason Joan of Arc was sent to her death for violating the Biblical law against a woman wearing men’s garments as stipulated in Deuteronomy 22:5.

Although the meaning of the verse seems to be clear when superficially read, the translation of the text is made difficult because of the unclear meaning of the word kelî geber. The versions differ in their translation of this Hebrew expression:

“A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God” (ESV).

“The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman’s garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God” (KJV).

“A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor a man wear women’s clothing, for the LORD your God detests anyone who does this” (NIV).

“A woman must not dress like a man, nor a man like a woman; anyone who does this is detestable to Yahweh your God” (NJB).

“A woman shall not wear anything that pertains to a man, nor shall a man put on a woman’s garment; for whoever does these things is an abomination to the LORD your God” (RSV).

Thus, the expression kelî geber has been translated as “man’s clothing,” “ a man’s garment,” “that which pertaineth unto a man,” “to dress like a man,” “anything that pertains to a man,” “man’s apparel,” “an article proper to a man.” This expression is different from the second expression in the text, the Hebrew expression śimlat ’iššāh which means “the garment of a woman.”

According to the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1980), p. 440, the word kelî has the following meanings: “armor,” “bag,” “carriage,” “furniture,” “instrument,” “jewels,” “sacks,” “stuff,” “things,” “tools,” “vessels,” and “weapons.”

Harold Vedeler, in his article “Reconstructing Meaning in Deuteronomy 22:5: Gender, Society, and Transvestitism in Israel and the Ancient Near East,” Journal of Biblical Literature 127 (2008) 459-476, based on the studies of Hittite society and culture by Harry Hoffner and on semantic studies in Akkadian, concluded that the word kelî in Deuteronomy 22:5 means a weapon, which was the symbol of a man’s power. Vedeler wrote:

He [Hoffner] concludes that Deut 22:5 was meant to prevent women from usurping masculine symbols and the power that went with them, but since clothing was not specifically identified with masculinity the way it was with femininity, the prevention of women taking on a male role was achieved not through a clothing ban but rather through a tool or weapon ban. Similarly, he argues that the ban on men wearing female clothing was designed not to prevent men from usurping female power, but to prevent that power from weakening them.

Although scholars have rejected the anti-transvestism law of Deuteronomy 22:5 to be a ban on Canaanite practices, I take the view that this Deuteronomic prohibition is a protest against the immoral practices of Canaanite fertility religion.

My view is based on the statement in the text that the practice of transvestism in ancient Israel was considered to be “an abomination to the Yahweh.” The expression “an abomination to the Yahweh” generally refers to cultic practices which endanger the purity of the religion of Yahweh. Since the reason offered by the Deuteronomic writer for the prohibition of transvestism in Israel uses the strong argument that it is an abomination to Yahweh, then, the practice of cross-dressing suggests some kind of cultic offense.

Richard D. Nelson, in his book Deuteronomy (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002), p. 264, suggests that the expression “a woman must not wear a man’s apparel” refers to an article appropriate to a man. He proposes that the Deuteronomic law is a prohibition of a woman wearing an artificial phallus.

In his commentary on Deuteronomy (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1951), p. 250, S. R. Driver offered the following suggestion:

No doubt the prohibition is not intended as a mere rule of conventional propriety,—though, even as such, it would be an important safeguard against obvious moral dangers,—but is directed against the simulated changes of sex which occurred in Canaanite and Syrian heathenism, to the grave moral deterioration of those who adopted them.

There was in Cyprus a statue of a bearded Venus who was considered to be of both sexes and to whom sacrifice was offered by men dressed as women, and women dressed as men: and noisy processions of Galli, or eunuch-priests of Cybele, the mother of the gods, paraded the towns and villages of Syria, Asia Minor, and other parts, attired as women, and soliciting the populace to unholy rites.

In the fertility cult of Baal and Asherah there were two groups of functionaries called qedēšim (קדשים) and qedēšot (קדשות). In Hebrew the two words literally mean “the holy ones.” Many English Bibles translate the word qed šim as “male cult prostitutes” (1 Kings 15:12) and the word qed šot as “female cult prostitutes” (Hosea 4:14).

Two texts in the book of Kings may explain the prohibition against transvestism in Deuteronomy 22:5. The first text, 2 Kings 23:7, reads as follows:

He [Josiah] tore down the apartments of the cult prostitutes which were in the temple of the LORD, and in which the women wove garments for the Asherah.

The second text, 2 Kings 10:22, reads as follows:

He [Jehu] said to him who was in charge of the wardrobe, “Bring out the vestments for all the worshipers of Baal.”

It is clear from 2 Kings 10:22 that the temple personnel, both the male and the female sacred prostitutes wore special garments that identified them with the worship of Asherah. Since the practice of fertility religion involved the sexual act between the worshipers and the temple functionaries, such a practice was an abomination to Yahweh.

Thus, Deuteronomy 22:5 is more than just a prohibition on the wearing of everyday clothing. As Vedeler wrote (p. 474):

The verse is much more than a simple prohibition of particular wardrobes, and indeed in no way addresses the issue of women wearing masculine garments, since in the culture of ancient Israel the clothing of men was less associated with gender than was the clothing of women.

The law in Deuteronomy 22:5 is a prohibition against Israelite men and women wearing the garments that would identify them as worshipers of Asherah. Since those garments were dedicated to Asherah and since the servants of Asherah wore identical garments, any Israelite man or any Israelite woman who wore these garments would be committing an abomination against Yahweh.

Transvestism is a violation of the natural order and as such, it should not be practiced by the followers of Yahweh. Deuteronomy 22:5 is prohibiting a specific kind of transvestism, one in which men dressed as women and women dressed as men would identify themselves as servants of Asherah, prostitute themselves in the temple of Yahweh, and thus bring ritual impurity to the worship of the God of Israel.

Claude Mariottini
Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary

Tags: Asherah, Deuteronomy 26:5, Transvestism, Transvestite