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Bible symbol · 2 lenses

What Does Nakedness Mean in the Bible Read through 2 lenses

Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brothers outside.
Genesis 9:22 · World English Bible

What does nakedness mean in the Bible?

Nakedness: the shame-filled sense of being a separate, exposed body, arising once awareness splits from unity

Esoteric lens · Genesis 3:11

Where nakedness appears in the Bible

Hosea 2:9

Therefore I will take back my grain in its time, and my new wine in its season, and will pluck away my wool and my flax which should have covered her nakedness.

1 Samuel 20:30

Then Saul’s anger burned against Jonathan, and he said to him, “You son of a perverse rebellious woman, don’t I know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?

2 Corinthians 11:27

in labor and travail, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, and in cold and nakedness.

Nakedness through 2 lenses

Same symbol, 2 ways of seeing it. Tap one to jump to it.

Christian Psychology · Genesis 9:22

Christian Psychology

A mind that looks upon another's exposure and hurries to tell it abroad is choosing to see guilt where forgiveness could have covered it. The uncovered father is the sight of another's frailty, and there are two ways to meet it: to publish the fault, which is attack, or to overlook it, which is love. To carry the report outward is the ego's work, spreading the judgment it has made.

What looks like honesty is the wish to find someone diminished, so the one who tells may feel less exposed himself. The correction is quiet. A mind at peace sees a brother's weakness and does not make a story of it, because it no longer needs anyone to be less than innocent.

  • Father: the source and authority within the mind, seen for a moment in its apparent frailty and vulnerability.
  • Nakedness: the exposed guilt of another, the fault the mind may either publish as attack or gently overlook.
  • Brethren without: the separated thoughts to whom judgment is carried, the audience the ego seeks for its accusations.
Christian Psychology lensGo deeper in the app
Esoteric · Hosea 2:9

Esoteric

When the flesh forgets its source, the higher self reclaims what it lent: the corn that is the spiritual nature grown from the sun, and the wine that is the living spirit of the right hemisphere, both withdrawn at their appointed cosmic turning. The wool and flax that once clothed a guiltless openness are pulled back too, so the covering meant to keep a person free from shame is stripped when the inner marriage is betrayed.

The withering is the point. Joy dries out of mankind, and the loss of that inner harvest is why the signs come pressed into the fields as a summons back to the source.

  • Corn: the spiritual nature grown in a person from the light of the sun.
  • Wine: the living spirit of the right hemisphere, the intoxication of higher awareness.
  • Season: the great turning of the cosmic zodiac age, not the passing of a literal year.
  • Nakedness: the state of freedom from guilt, fear, and shame that the inner covering protects.

What nakedness means in each story

One line per lens.

  • PsychoanalysisNakedness in the tent: The righteous hero lies drunk and naked. Even the hero has a shadow; no one is purely good.Genesis 9:18-25
  • Clinical PsychologyHam (who saw his father's nakedness): contempt and ingratitude toward the flawed father who saved him.Genesis 9:18-25
  • Clinical PsychologyNakedness of the father (second meaning): discovering the limits of the history you inherited.Genesis 9:18-25
  • ManifestationThe father's nakedness (what Ham saw): the Father's secret, that feeling makes creation happen.Genesis 9:18-25
  • EsotericNakedness (Noah uncovered in his tent): guilt, fear, anger and hurt all stripped off before God.Genesis 9:18-25
  • EsotericHam seeing his father's nakedness: a negative part of your mind that mocks what you gained.Genesis 9:18-25

Commentaries on nakedness

Swedenborg (1887) · nakedness

NAKEDNESS, when pred. of the head, which is baldness, s. a deprivation of the intelligence of truth, and of the wisdom of good; when it regards the whole body, it s. a deprivation of the truths which are of faith; but when it regards the loins and genital parts, it 5. a deprivation of the good of love. 9960. N. s. the evils to which man is born, which, because they are opp. to the good of celestial love, are in themselves profane. N. also s. innocence, and likewise ignorance of good and truth. A. R. 213.

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