Deuteronomy 13-14: Lawful to Ink?

I have often heard people mention verses in the Bible that seem to condemn tattoos.  The most famous of these verses is probably Leviticus 19:28: "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh, for the dead, neither shall you make in yourselves any figures or marks."  However, the glaring words in this verse are "for the dead."  Even if it at first seems to be a reference to tattooing, it becomes clear when viewed in context that what is condemned is hopeless grief.  At that time, among many pagan nations, grieving took on many, sometimes elaborate, forms.  Cutting oneself to cause bleeding was one way to express your sorrow over the death of a loved one.  Marking yourself with symbols of the gods was another.  In Deuteronomy 14:1 the law on cutting is mentioned again: "You shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness for the dead."  Here it gets even more specific, as cutting off one's hair is a very ancient form of mourning.  So, essentially, God is here telling the Hebrews, don't grieve like the people around you who put on dramatic displays and carry on with their hopeless wailing.  God wants His people to always have hope, even when sadness is all-consuming.  Nowhere in either the Leviticus verse nor the Deuteronomy verse is tattooing, on its own, condemned.  If someone got a tattoo out of grief and despair, these verses might then be more applicable.  Some commentators, though, think these verses indicate something more about the time they were written, specifically that self-made cuttings and signs on the body refer to pagan customs, especially those devoted to Egyptian gods like Isis and Osiris.  All of Deuteronomy 13 and 14 is devoted to Israelite exceptionalism, meaning that the Israelites were forbidden from partaking in the lowly, barbaric rituals of their pagan neighbors; they were to remain above all that.  So if some pagans cut themselves when a loved one died, the Israelite could do no such thing.  The issue of tattoos in today's society is a much different thing.  Again, the main message here is Hope.  Have hope, don't despair.  A verse from the First Epistle to the Thessalonians says it all:  "And we will not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them that are asleep, that you be not sorrowful, even as others who have no hope." (1 Thessalonians 4:12)

Essentially, St. Paul here says that we have hope, we believe in Christ and His Resurrection, as well as the resurrection of all the dead, and so the ones "asleep" will rise again and we ought not despair over the dead the way the non-believers do.