Watched for the first time the TV movie "Bible" on the History Channel, Sunday evening. It portrayed John the Baptist's hair in dreadlocks, but he was baptizing properly, by immersion.
Any thoughts on the dreads? I did a quick look and apparently in north Africa and that area some sort of dreads were worn in antiquity. Personally, I'm not convinced that men wore their hair down over their shoulders in Jesus' day anyway.
Chuck
John, or Yohanan as his mother called him, was a nazirite from birth. Remember the Vow of the Nazir, or nazirite, required one couldn't cut his hair, nor shave his beard, drink wine, or any similar drink, eat any produce from the grape vine, nor come in contact with a dead body.
Now, to answer your question: A nazir would traditionally dreadlock his, or her, hair during biblical times, as well as today. I'm a nazir, not from birth, but from a personal decision to vow a life of consecration to Yah. The Bible says in Numbers 6:1-5 (ESV):
'And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When either a man or a woman makes a special vow, the vow of a Nazirite, to separate himself to the Lord, 3 he shall separate himself from wine and strong drink. He shall drink no vinegar made from wine or strong drink and shall not drink any juice of grapes or eat grapes, fresh or dried. 4 All the days of his separation he shall eat nothing that is produced by the grapevine, not even the seeds or the skins. 5 All the days of his vow of separation, no razor shall touch his head. Until the time is completed for which he separates himself to the Lord, he shall be holy. He shall let the locks of hair of his head grow long."'
To get a picture of what a nazir looked like in biblical times, just look at the most famous nazir of all time: Samson. Judges 16:13 gives us a good picture: "Then Delilah said to Samson, Until now you have mocked me and told me lies. Tell me how you might be bound. And he said to her, If you weave the seven locks of my head with the web and fasten it tight with the pin, then I shall become weak and be like any other man.
Samson wore his hair in seven dreadlocks, according to Jewish history. The rastafarians got their dreadlock practices from the nazir.
Yeshua's (Jesus') brother, Yakov, or James, is said to have been a nazir, as well. It's said that his dreadlocks reached his ankles.
You should try not to judge biblical times through modern 'lenses'. Short hair on men is a pretty recent thing. Long hair on men isn't feminine. Your hair will grow long naturally if you stop cutting it. What looks feminine on a man is a face with no beard. Long hair? Please. If God wanted your hair short, He would've made it stop growing at a certain length. Look in the Bible; every reference about cutting your hair has to do with shame, mourning, etc.
That vow applies to every Christian, by the way. He says, "Speak unto the children of Israel". If you were born again, you were grafted in, according to Romans 11.
