Judaism and Tattooing

(28) You shall not make any gashes in your flesh for the dead or any incised writing upon you: I am Adonai.

(6) One who writes incised writing- if one writes without incising, or incises without writing, one is not liable for lashes, unless it has been written and incised with ink or blue or anything that leaves an impression. Rabbi Shimon ben Yehudah said in the name of Rabbi Shimon: One is not liable until the name of God is written there. As it says (Leviticus 19): "...or any incised writing upon you: I am Adonai."

He said to him, Rav Aha Barya of Raba to Rav Asee: "Until one will explicitly write 'I am God'"? He said to him,"No- it is like that which Bar Kapra taught, one is not liable until the name of an idol is written. As it says, 'or any incised writing upon you: I am Adonai.' I am God and no other."

(11) The incised writing that is spoken of in the Torah is cutting the flesh and filling it with blue or ink or other dyes. And this was the custom of the idolaters who inscribed themselves for the sake of their idolatry as if to symbolize being a servant sold to the God and inscribed for service. And when one makes an impression with one of these dyes after cutting in any place on the body, whether a man or a woman, he or she is to be lashed. One who wrote but did not make an impression with color or who made an impression with color, but did not write with cutting is not liable. Only when he writes and dyes as it is written, "an incised writing (Leviticus 19:28)."