Do we know what Jesus actually looks like?

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Yes, and as demonstrated, they have been refuted or dismissed by scholars.
 
If you want to be taken seriously, you must realize that most people, especially scientists, take Wikipedia with a grain of salt.
 
If you want to be taken seriously, please don’t use fringe documentaries to try and prove something, especially when the vast amount of reputable scholars contradict that documentary.
 
Special pleading fallacy I see. They’re not “outdated.” All the material I provided you with has been written within the last 8-19 years. That isn’t “outdated.” It simply shows the consensus of experts in this field. All you’re doing is moving the goal post so you don’t have to deal with these things. If these papers are “outdated” then I guess every scientific paper before 2016 is invalid now according to your logic.
 
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Again, where’s the proof that 95% of modern day experts deem the Shroud a forgery?

And the documentary was not something on the fringe. If you’d have watched it, you’d know that. Oh, and it’s recent.
 
I did start one. I’m just replying to him because he ever went to the new thread.
 
Can you show me any proof that this documentary has had any significant impact on scholars in this field and has radically changed opinions in every corner about the shroud? This documentary in fact seems to be asserting old theories in slightly new ways which, as shown, have been refuted above.
 
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I showed you the proof, all you are doing is ignoring the proof by shouting, “Outdated!” like it’s a valid argument.
 
They’re outdated and mean nothing because new information overrules the older. That’s what science does. It’s always changing. Now. I’m going to bed soon so please, if you want to continue this discussion, go to the new thread.
 
Yet this hasn’t changed, and as show, scholars in the field hold to the same views as they have always had. Now please, can you prove to me that the vast majority of scholars have changed their views? Can you please show me that this documentary has had an real significant impact on scholars/experts everywhere? Can you please prove to me that this documentary radically altered perceptions? Can you show me anywhere where scholars/experts have radically altered their perceptions?
 
Cruciferi said:
I don’t find the BBC’s version realistic. To me, that picture resembles Peter.
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I have no idea why, but this was the first thing I thought when I looked at that picture, “That looks like Peter!”

I don’t claim to have knowledge of that. Maybe somewhere in my past—in a picture Bible, or a kid’s story book, or some play, or a movie, or something—that might have been how Peter was depicted and so it formed my subconscious expectation of what Peter looked like.

That is why I love the OP’s question. Everyone, Christian or no, has an idea in their heads of what he must have looked like, shaped in the same way as my expectation of St. Peter’s appearance. Not necessarily based on the historical fact or reality, but looming large in the subconscious mind!

Therefor it is an important question to ask and to contemplate.
FrDavid96 said:
In art, that’s fine.

But we have to separate art from reality.

When people say that he “did not look any particular way” (whatever that means) then that denies the reality of the Incarnation. He only had/has one human body.
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I also like what was said above. Artistic representations, cultural expressions, etc-those are important! But we risk losing the real fact of the Incarnation: God Himself entered time and space and took on flesh and dwelt among us! The details of that life, from appearance to every word spoken, are intensely important.

We lose so much when we forget that Jesus was a first century Jew! There are so very many details and major references that no first century Jew would have missed about what our Lord said and did. 2000 years later, separated by cultural context and language barriers, we risk losing the entire point of many of his discourses.

I love science—double major in Biology and Theology at a Catholic university. Science tells us that there is a God and what he is, Theology tells us who he is. I intensely studied all of the Shroud of Turin debates at one time. I find the Shroud to be convincingly and scientifically valid. I like the following summation on the science around the Shroud:

 
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Sorry! Meant to post in Shroud dialogue. Moving it now.
 
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I’m mostly just rehashing older posts of mine here, but to sum:

We don’t exactly know what Jesus looked like because the earliest images themselves either don’t agree or are not reliable indicators themselves. Early Christians never pretended to know what Jesus looked like, or that their portrayals of Him reflects what He really looked like.

The thing is, before around the 8th-9th century there was a huge variation on how to portray Jesus. Some artists showed Him as a clean-shaven young man with short hair, others portrayed Him as a slightly effeminate (there’s a symbolism involved here) man with long hair, others depicted Him as an older man with a beard.


By the Byzantine period, the variation was whittled down to two types. One depiction (the ‘Semitic’ type) showed Jesus looking like a stereotypical Middle Eastern man: short curly hair and a short beard. The other (the ‘Hellenic’ type) showed Jesus with long hair and a long, forked beard. It is the ‘Hellenic’ type that would eventually become the standard way of depicting Jesus in future artworks.


‘Semitic’ type

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‘Hellenic’ type

At the time, those who favored the ‘Semitic’ depiction criticized the ‘Hellenic’ depiction for looking too much like the Greek god Zeus. There was even an anecdote reported by the 6th century Byzantine historian Theodorus Lector that claimed that a painter who portrayed Jesus ‘in the manner of Zeus’ was divinely punished by having his hands shrivel up.
At the time of Gennadius (458-471) was withered the hand of a painter who dared to paint the Saviour in the likeness of Zeus. Gennadius healed him by means of a prayer. The author [Theodorus Lector] says that the other form of Christ, viz. the one with short, frizzy hair, is the more authentic.
  • Theodorus Lector, Historia Ecclesiastica 1.15 (ca 540s), from Theophanes the Confessor (ca. 810-15)
Theodore the historian of Constantinople, from his History of the Church, about Gennadius, archbishop of Constantinople:
“I shall set down other things about him full of amazement. A certain painter, while painting an icon of Christ our Master, found that his hand shriveled up. And it was said that, as the work of the icon had been ordered by a certain pagan, in the adornment of the name of the Savior he had depicted his hair divided on his forehead, so that his eyes were not covered—for in such a way the children of the pagans depict Zeus—so that those who saw it would think that they were assigning veneration to the Savior.”
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  • Theodorus Lector as quoted by St. John of Damascus, Three Treatises on the Divine Images (720s-30s), Treatise 3, 130
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You have to remember that Jews in Jesus’ day were fiercely iconoclastic.

As a sort of reaction against Greco-Roman culture, Jews in Palestine at the time vehemently opposed ‘graven images’, particularly those of humans or animals. (Plants or abstract designs were tolerated.) If you read the historian Josephus, you would find a number of instances where riots and rebellions started because of such images. That’s also the reason why most local coins did not carry depictions of pagan gods, humans or animals. Local authorities like the Herods or the Roman governors were too careful not to offend Jewish sensibilities by putting their face on the pennies they produced. (Roman denarii or that Tyrian shekel used for the Temple tax are the notable exceptions to this rule.)

So I think it’s hardly likely that any Jewish person in 1st century (especially a Law-abiding one) would have sat down and made a sketch, much less a portrait, of Jesus. 1st century Palestinian Jews interpreted “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image” like 16th century iconoclast Protestants did.
 
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