In one of my recent posts, I mentioned church fall festivals, which, as I explained, are pretty much 
Halloween Parties with a different name. They happen on Oct 31, there are lots of kids in Halloween costumes, there’s candy, and pumpkins – possibly even carved pumpkins. Sounds very Halloween Party-ish to me.
Anyway, at most Church Fall Festivals these days, the only restriction I’m aware of on costumes is “no scary or violent costumes.” Or some rule like that. Which is a bit more loose than the Church Fall Festivals of about 20 years ago.
In those days, many Church Fall Festivals asked participants to wear “Bible Costumes.” I don’t mean the kids had to dress up as Bibles; I mean they had to dress up as characters from the Bible. And right away, my sarcastic mind went to work, and I asked many people if it ever occurred to them that most BIblical characters look alike. I mean, since we don’t have photos of these people, all we have is artwork from Sunday School publications, and I’m telling you – there’s no real difference in appearance between most of the disciples, or between Abraham and Moses, or any of the minor prophets (or major ones for that matter).
**By the way, don’t even get me started on the difficulty non-church people would have with this rule, because where are non-church people going to find Biblical costumes? Anyway…
So at those kinds of parties, with everyone wearing Biblical costumes, I’m sure there was a lot of asking the age-old embarrassing Halloween question: “Who are you supposed to be?” That always feels so uncomfortable.
Someone should have gone into the Christian Not Really a Halloween Party Costume business. That someone should have been me. It would have been so easy, because you only need to offer 2-3 different base costumes, with a few variations on accessories. All the male costumes would need those head things, and beards, and some kind of a robe, which should probably coordinate with the head thing. The female costumes would also need the robe/headwear combo, but of course in a more modest, plain form. And no beard, of course, unless you want to combine the Biblical costume business with the Circus Performer costume business.
As for accessories, these are the things that would really set the costumes apart from one another. The accessories would be where the money is. And you could charge a lot for the accessories, because you could sell people on the idea that they would only have to buy one “male” or “female” costume which would last for many years, and then they could just get new accessories each year, because they would be saving $$ on the basic costumes. Possible accessory sets could include:
The Abraham set… unconcious boy dummy and/or large knife (representing the whole sacrificing Isaac thing)
The Noah set… tool belt, hard hat, wine bottle, and animal-scented cologne
The David as a boy/young man set… slingshot, Goliath head, harp, shepherd’s crook thing
The David as a man set.. wallet-sized photo of Bathsheba
The Solomon set… 1000 wallet-sized photos of 1000 women
The Job set… stick-on festering sores, and lots of dust
These are just a few examples, and only from the Old Testament. I look forward to your suggestions for other Biblical Character Costume Accessories!
