Why do the Roman Troops want Jesus’ Underwear?

 

“When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining.” The gospel of John (John 19:23) contains this interesting incident of the Roman soldiers sharing up Jesus’ clothing. After divvying up the clothes the underwear remains, John gives us a description of this item “this garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.” The soldiers do not want to tear up Jesus’ underpants and agree among themselves to draw lots to see who would gain possession. If we imagine Jesus as a humble man from the backwaters of the Galilee then his clothes couldn’t be worth much and after his previous beating the clothes would have been covered in blood and sweat – why then do the Roman troops want the clothes?

 

Like so many tales within the gospels, even the slightest details are inspired by the Jewish scriptures. Indeed every detail of Jesus’ last moments are given deeper meaning, even in the case of his underwear. John makes it clear that the soldiers want Jesus’ clothes to fulfil prophecy from psalm twenty two, “They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing.”  (Psalm 22:18)

 

The psalms are a collection of one hundred and fifty sacred poems that express various tenets of Judaism which according to Jewish tradition were composed by King David himself. Psalm twenty two elsewhere bears a striking resemblance to the death of Jesus, beginning with the line “My god, my god why have you forsaken me?” Are these similarities evidence that Jesus fulfilled the prophecies as many Christians assume, or are they evidence that the gospel writers pinched aspects of Jesus life from earlier texts?

 

In a previous chapter we have already noted how reliant the gospel writers were on the Old Testament, they used it to find information about the life of Jesus because they believed his life was predicted in it. In this case John has found inspiration from a psalm and applied it to the final moments of Jesus’ life - he weaves the story of the soldiers wanting Jesus’ clothing in order to ‘fulfil’ this psalm.

 

We must therefore be wary of the historicity of this incident, would Roman soldiers really want blood-soaked underwear, and for what purpose? This story is so absurd it is best explained as an invention. If we accept the truth of the matter then we have to be even more careful about what the rest of the gospels are telling us of the death of Jesus. The events leading to his death are literally packed with theological interpretations which make finding the historical truth behind why he died even more difficult.