Was the color of Christ's clothes scarlet?Or purple?

Question

I have read the bible.And it says that the clothes Christ wore was scarlet.But the other said it was purple!So, is it scarle or purple?

Answer 1

SUM -- the gospels differ in the words they use, though WE would say "scarlet". But when you understand how the terms were used, how colors were viewed, and the actual SHADES represented by "purple" you will see that was not a misleading or surprising term to the readers... and in the specific story there were things that made the use of the word purple especially appropriate.
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Gutz is correct that we ought to find out a little bit more about the ancient dyes involved... And several of his points about the manufacture of more expensive dyes are germane.

But he has missed some key points for THIS question and context:

1) Perhaps the MOST important -- the specific "scarlet" or "purple" robe Jesus was said to be wearing was NOT his own --it was one that the soldiers temporarily put on him while mocking him, one belonging to THEM, not to him. Hence his own wealth, or lack of it, is totally irrelevant to determining the color of this robe.

2) Next, though there is signficant debate about the details, there seems to be a fair amount of evidence that Roman soldiers at that time (and in surrounding soldiers) wore more than one color, and perhaps that the same soldier might have had two different colored uniforms. The basic colors were white (or off-white) and some sort of RED.

Check the following links for the discussion of these tunics, esp. the red one... and note that sometimes they were rather DARK red (as a picture in the first link suggests), that is, rather like "scarlet".
http://www.legionsix.org/Uniform.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=Co4IB3zPAmYC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=roman+soldier+tunic+color&source=web&ots=d38qnJmy1X&sig=ddgU7OALnO5uZUZx9NP9Tofa7yo#PPA23,M1
http://www.larp.com/legioxx/tcolor.html


3) The TERMINOLOGY was not always used as tightly as we might expect. In particular, to say "purple" instead of "scarlet" was not so very unusual.

That is partly because not every society is as precise in making color distinctions as others. OR they may simply GROUP the colors differently, drawing the lines in different places than WE do. (There are those that are much subtler in their common distinctions among certain OTHER close shades than we are, e.g., colors between yellow and green.)

In fact, there are references in Greek writings (cataloged by at least one prominent Greek lexicon) where soldiers are said to be wearing "purple", though undoubtedly it refers to the same thing as elsewhere designated "scarlet".

This PARTICULAR 'failure to distinguish' or be precise in terminology is much easier to understand in this particular instance once we recognize what ancient "PURPLE" really was like.

In fact, the term does NOT refer, first of all to a precise COLOR, but rather to a rare DYE, made from the rare murex shells harvested of the coast of ancient Phoenicia. [Actually, the very name "Phoenicia" is a Greek invention MEANING "land of the purple dye"]. There were actually at least two distinct different types of shells, and different shades of dye produced from them. The color-S appear to have all been "blue-red" combinations, but NOT the nice even mixture of the two. That is, OUR definition of purple as "half-red and half-blue" does NOT describe the actual colors of the purple dye (and hence of the cloth named "purple" after the dye used for it). In some cases the balance was much more toward RED.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tyrian_purple#Shades_of_Tyrian_purple_colour_comparison_chart

Hardly surprising then is someone, speaking loosely, referred to a dark red color as "scarlet" OR "purple".

The actual decision of the gospel writers seems rather clearly to have been based on OTHER considerations -- or at least we can say that Mark and Luke spoke of "purple" BECAUSE they were underlying how Jesus was being mocked as if he were king (crown of thorns, mock hailing, etc). And since that was in context precisely the issue (he was being tried FOR claiming to be "King of the Jews") and the soldiers are seen as responding to that, their use of the dark red robe was clearly INTENDED to represent a "kingly" robe, that is, of wearing "the royal purple".

In other words, Matthew here (Matthew 27:28) appears to be more precise in his terminology -- describing the actual material/dye involved as "scarlet", and the choice of "purple" in other gospels is to make a different point.

But since the COLORS were not so different, we KNOW that the soldiers' robes were sometimes loosely said to be "purple", and the soldiers' point in the narrative was to mock Jesus AS a "king", the use of this term is not mistaken, nor a "distortion" of the facts. (Consider too that READERS, as residents of the Roman Empire, would KNOW the type of robes being mentioned, and not been misled.)

Answer 2

Well, it comes down to interpretation of the facts, and the use of symbology in the writing of the work.

Purple was the color of high officials, the Senators had a stripe of purple on their togas; the Emperors would wear purple robes often. The reason for that is simple- purple was an expensive dye. The MOST expensive dye- so it was a status symbol that you could afford it.
So whoever wrote that he wore purple was trying to make him out as the king of kings, son of god, etc.

Scarlet (and unlike purple, I am just thinking logically, and have no proof for this) might be representing his destiny to die.

It could also be that he like red; so chose to wear it. Most people would wear various colors (aside from purple).

The reality is we'll never really know what colors he wore- because none of the authors of the Gospels were alive when he was, and could not have met him.
But does it really matter what color he wore?

Answer 3

I would say neither, because both of those dyes were rare and expensive in the 1st century.

Purple was the most expensive color of all. In those day it was made from the tissue of a marine mollusk (a whelk or conch, I think) It was so rare that only the richest kings and princes could afford it.

Scarlet was also rare, but much less so than purple. In ancient Judea it was made from the bodies of an insect known to science as Kermes echinatus. By processing the bodies of hundreds of these bugs enough red dye, called shani in Hebrew, could be made to color a cloak or mantle. This dye was much cheaper than purple, but it was still a rich man's color.

There is another color, indigo, which some people confuse with purple. (However, these two colors are obviously very different if seen side by side). Indigo is very ancient and can be made from many plant sources, all of them quite cheap. In the ancient Middle east it was made from a plant known to science as Indigofera tinctoria. It was cultivated from Africa to India. In fact so much of that dye was imported into the Greco-Roman world from India that India gave its name to the dye, indicum = the dye from India, which became indigo in Italian later on. It was common and cheap, just the thing for a carpenter from Nazareth.

Answer 4

I'm not sure if you mean one specific day in his life, such as his passion, or if you mean in general. Like most people, he had many sets of clothes, so both purple and scarlet are common colors from that culture and he probably owned both. On the day of his passion, however, we are told in Matt 27:28 that he was stripped of his own clothes and given a scarlet-colored robe. That's in both the KJV and the NIV. I'm not aware of any translations that have him being given a robe of any other color.

From what Rico posted, the issue isn't what various translators wrote, it's what the two authors wrote. Matthew has scarlet, John has purple. Mark 15:17 also says it was purple. Luke is more diplomatic. In Luke 23:11 he only says, "Dressing him in an elegant robe, they sent him back to Pilate."

Personally, I usually defer to Matthew when there's a conflict between books. But on this one, I'd defer to Luke and go with "elegant".

Answer 5

Before Jesus was Crucified, Pontius Pilate had the Roman Soldiers Flog Him. The Romans placed A crown of thorns on his head and put a "Purple" robe on him in order to mock him John 19:2. Why purple? Because back then, the color purple was equated with royalty and nobility. Since Jesus was the King of the Jews, the Roman soldiers did this to mock and humiliate Jesus. The Purple robe was not His Own. The roman sodiers took it back and put Jesus's own clothes back on before being crucified, Mark 15:20.

Answer 6

I don't think anyone will ever know for sure. Jesus was also described as being a white guy.... born in an arab region :) Anyways, the two colors are close, but if you want to just go off popular opinion, have always heard scarlet.

Answer 7

Christ wore dress color is scarlet.

Answer 8

Come on people, use your head for something other than holding up your hair. Jesus was reportedly 33 when he was crucified and I bet he had more than one set of clothes in that time. I heard he liked rainbows and unicorns.