What did Jesus look like?

[empther]

I’ve read a lot of nonsense about the obviously fake Shroud of Turin,

but these comments really take the cake:

“While reviewing the evidence of the Shroud in 1999, Dr. Gilbert Lavoie presented another intriguing discovery, that the body had light blond hair.”

Also:

Another unearthed description by Publius Lentrelus describes Jesus’ eyes as bright blue.

How would you determine hair and eye color from a 2,000 year old piece of cloth?
Ridiculous.

 

[Bezant]

Is there anything in the bible that would describe jesus physical appearance?

thanks

The only details from the Gospels are few and somewhat obvious: Jesus was a man, he had scars from the crucifixion after he was resurrected, he was identifiable as a Jew to the Samaritan woman (probably by his dress), and by inference, he looked like any other ordinary man.

The rest – his height, weight, hair colour, eye colour, shoe size – is not considered relevant to the story. The picture of Jesus especially becomes fuzzier when we attempt to define his “race”, because we’re superimposing our modern ideas of race upon a time when belonging to a people had a different meaning and context. White and black meant something completely different 2,000 years ago, if people bothered to think much about it.

 

[Bezant]

Like a Jewish. Mary was from Jerusalem, right? the capital of Israel, so their physical appearance (features) was Jewish-like…

Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Actually, there isn’t such a thing as “Jewish” physical appearance or features. Even at this time, Judaism had spread to different communities throughout the ancient world (Greece, Persia, perhaps Ethiopia) and would eventually spread as east far as India and China.

Furthermore, remember that were non-Jews in Jerusalem (such as the Romans and Greeks) at this time as well.

 

[TheRealJuliane]

My own belief is that he looked a lot like Palestinian Jews look like now.

And the Bible does describe him, in Isaiah 53, as being not particularly good-looking or striking in any way (very loose translation). I really don’t like a lot of the depictions of Jesus that were done in the Renaissance period, because they gave Jesus very European features and coloring.

 

[trickster]

One thing I truly believe is that Jesus looks just like his mom, Mary.

And interestingly enough probably exactly like his mom, since his father (the Holy Spirit) had no physical genes, right? Interesting thought…

Trickster
Bruce

 

[joshua_b]

Jesus would have looked very “typical” of a Jewish man of that period and in that region. We know this Scripturally, because not only was he identifiable readily as a Jew by the Samaritan woman, but also, if we are to believe Scripture, He would have had to be very “ordinary” (no striking or atypical features) because otherwise the Romans would not have needed Judas to reveal to them who Jesus was.

As far as the “western” countenance seen in the western Church, although some may be sensitive to it for unrelated reasons, and although it most certainly is not an accurate pictoral representation, this tendency transcends culture. This is not an exclusively western phenomenon, and is most likely born of simple human nature, not some grand and evil empirialist conspiracy.

mattstone.blogs.com/photos/african_christian_art/index.html
mattstone.blogs.com/photos/asian_icons/index.html

 

[Kasama]

I’ve read a lot of nonsense about the obviously fake Shroud of Turin

December 21, 2011 Article: The Huffington Post: Scientists claim ‘Shroud of Turin’ could not have been faked:

huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/20/shroud-of-turin-jesus-burial-cloth-authentic_n_1161363.html

DatingTheShroud.com

How would you determine hair and eye color from a 2,000 year old piece of cloth?
Ridiculous.

“Dr. Gilbert Lavoie in his Unlocking the Secrets of the Shroud presented another intriguing discovery. The negative image of the shroud as compared with the negative images of photography reveals that the man in question had either white or light blond hair.”:

holyspiritinteractive.net/columns/williamsaunders/straightanswers/shroudofturin.asp

 

[buffalo]

I’m a little taken aback here, to be quite honest. So one more question.

Are you disagreeing with the consensus of anthropologists as to the appearance of a typical Semite of this time, or are you saying that Jesus was a special exception?

Jesus was indeed a special exception in every way. He was divine.

 

[buffalo]

And interestingly enough probably exactly like his mom, since his father (the Holy Spirit) had no physical genes, right? Interesting thought…

Trickster
Bruce

The Holy Spirit had epigenetics.

 

[buffalo]

Jesus would have looked very “typical” of a Jewish man of that period and in that region. We know this Scripturally, because not only was he identifiable readily as a Jew by the Samaritan woman, but also, if we are to believe Scripture, He would have had to be very “ordinary” (no striking or atypical features) because otherwise the Romans would not have needed Judas to reveal to them who Jesus was.

%between%

That is s stretch.

 

[edward_george]

He looks like this: http://www.catholicsupply.com/churchs/k1220.jpg

Case closed.

-ACEGC

 

[patrick457]

A bit late for the discussion here. I’ll delve into the details later but for now:

Publius Lentulus = Fake
Shroud of Turin = Inconclusive
Jesus’ appearance = We don’t know

Yeah, that kind of sums it up.

 

[patrick457]

Jesus was indeed a special exception in every way. He was divine.

But He was also human. Not just some divine being who happened to casually wear a suit of flesh and bones or an illusory mask: true God and true man.

 

[patrick457]

Actually, there isn’t such a thing as “Jewish” physical appearance or features. Even at this time, Judaism had spread to different communities throughout the ancient world (Greece, Persia, perhaps Ethiopia) and would eventually spread as east far as India and China.

Furthermore, remember that were non-Jews in Jerusalem (such as the Romans and Greeks) at this time as well.

You’re correct. There was apparently really no major external difference between the Jews in Palestine at the time and their neighbors, both physiologically and fashion-wise. In fact, the only distinctive Jewish physical characteristic Roman writers took note was their supposedly peculiar smell, and we can’t be sure whether that is a pure slur or something that has some basis in fact.

 

[patrick457]

My own belief is that he looked a lot like Palestinian Jews look like now.

And the Bible does describe him, in Isaiah 53, as being not particularly good-looking or striking in any way (very loose translation). I really don’t like a lot of the depictions of Jesus that were done in the Renaissance period, because they gave Jesus very European features and coloring.

Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 were the passages invoked by some Church Fathers, like Tertullian, who believed that Jesus was physically ugly. Others who held Him to be handsome meanwhile appeal to the bridegroom passages in Song of Songs.

 

[Kasama]

Publius Lentulus = Fake

Not sure why, but the Catholic Encyclopedia says he is a fictitious person, but the Encyclopedia Britannica has a whole bio on him.

As curule aedile, Lentulus in 63 helped Cicero suppress Catiline’s conspiracy to overthrow the government. He was praetor in 60 and with Caesar’s aid became governor of the province of Nearer Spain in 59. As consul in 57 he worked to recall Cicero from exile and to restore his property to him. Lentulus governed Cilicia from 56 to 53. Despite his debt to Caesar, he joined the Pompeians in 49. Captured at the battle of Corfinium (Italy), he was granted clemency by Caesar, but he subsequently again went over to Pompey. After Pompey was decisively defeated at Pharsalus, Thessaly, in 48, Lentulus escaped to Rhodes; soon thereafter he fell into Caesar’s hands and was executed.

 

[patrick457]

Not sure why, but the Catholic Encyclopedia says he is a fictitious person, but the Encyclopedia Britannica has a whole bio on him.

As curule aedile, Lentulus in 63 helped Cicero suppress Catiline’s conspiracy to overthrow the government. He was praetor in 60 and with Caesar’s aid became governor of the province of Nearer Spain in 59. As consul in 57 he worked to recall Cicero from exile and to restore his property to him. Lentulus governed Cilicia from 56 to 53. Despite his debt to Caesar, he joined the Pompeians in 49. Captured at the battle of Corfinium (Italy), he was granted clemency by Caesar, but he subsequently again went over to Pompey. After Pompey was decisively defeated at Pharsalus, Thessaly, in 48, Lentulus escaped to Rhodes; soon thereafter he fell into Caesar’s hands and was executed.

That’s the problem:

There was no such post as a ‘Governor of Judaea’. Prefects governed Judaea from AD 6 until 41, when Emperor Claudius established Herod Agrippa I as king as a reward for the latter’s advice which helped to secure Claudius’ accession as emperor, adding the territories of the Roman prefects - Judaea and Samaria - to him. Direct Roman rule resumed under procurators after Agrippa’s death in AD 44. While a prefect is indeed a sort of military governor, why didn’t Lentulus use his proper official title of ‘Prefect of Judaea’ in this letter?

2.) No Judaean prefect or procurator under the name of Lentulus existed. Some present Lentulus as Pilate’s predecessor, but from Josephus (one of our main literary sources for the period in question) we see that his predecessor is actually Valerius Gratus. Also, since Pilate was prefect for a ten-year period (the common reckoning is around AD 26-36), Lentulus would have seen Jesus and have become aware of His power and divinity BEFORE He even embarked in His public ministry and acquired a following! This is where a dilemma rises: why would a Roman official go through all the trouble of travelling to a small village in the country just to find some young peasant Jewish craftsman whom he thinks can do miracles to see how He looks like?

Here is a list of the prefects and procurators of Judaea:

Prefects

1. *]Coponius (6-9)
   *]Marcus Ambivulus (9-12)
   *]Annius Rufus (12-15)
   *]Valerius Gratus (15-26)
   *]Pontius Pilatus (26-36)
   *]Marcellus (36-37)
   *]Marullus (37-41)
   
   Procurators
   
   1. *]Cuspius Fadus (44-46)
      *]Tiberius Julius Alexander (46-48)
      *]Ventidius Cumanus (48-52)
      *]Marcus Antonius Felix (52-60)
      *]Porcius Festus (60-62)
      *]Lucceius Albinus (62-64)
      *]Gessius Florus (64-66)
      *]Marcus Antonius Julianus (66-70)
      
      3.) Lentulus addresses the Senatus Populusque Romanus in his letter. In reality, officials abroad would have written directly to the Emperor.
      
      4.) A Roman writer would not have employed the expressions, “prophet of truth”, “sons of men”, or even “Jesus Christ.” The former two are Hebrew idioms, the third is taken from the New Testament.
      
      Also, the ‘Publius Lentulus’ you mention here (Publius Cornelius Lentulus Spinther) existed way BEFORE Jesus was even born. (Cicero’s name is a dead giveaway.) Although favored by Julius Caesar (to whom he owed his status), he soon aligned himself with Caesar’s rival Pompey, which led to his political downfall. I should mention also that this Lentulus was governor of Hispania Citerior and thdn Cilicia (modern-day southeast Turkey), not Judaea (which wasn’t even a Roman province during his time).
      
      There is another member of the Lentulus family (Publius Cornelius Lentulus Sura) who lived at the same time as Lentulus Spinther: this one was a chief figure in the Catiline conspiracy ands a stepfather of Mark Antony, and was put to death in 63 BC for his involvement in the plot. So it can’t be him either.

 

[VeritasLuxMea]

Jesus was indeed a special exception in every way. He was divine.

Um, OK, but anthropologically, there is no reason to suspect that he had European features. Not to mention how weird it would be that none of the Bible writers saw fit to mention that — and that you would suspect that would affect people’s interactions with him.

“Why does this guy look so different than us if his parents are from around here?”

You are making a really wild and totally unsubstantiated claim if that’s where you’re going with this.

Also, having looked into the Shroud, it would seem it’s been thoroughly debunked. So the discussion is moot.

 

[patrick457]

I think the most damning evidence against Lentulus’ report is that we have no record of this letter, the different manuscripts of which vary from each other (the version available in the Internet is actually just one of these variants), in antiquity: all the ancient writers seem to be unaware of the existence of this letter. Shouldn’t we expect that if the letter was known then, Christians would have made a big deal out of it and should have compelled them to make identical images of Jesus?

But that is far from being the case: even during in the early centuries artists couldn’t even agree on what Jesus looked like. And even when the ‘long hair and beard’ portrayal had become common, they still exhibited variances with one another.

According to the Old Catholic Encyclopedia:

Different manuscripts vary from the foregoing text in several details: Dobschutz (“Christusbilder”, Leipzig, 1899) enumerates the manuscripts and gives an “apparatus criticus” . The letter was first printed in the “Life of Christ” by Ludolph the Carthusian (Cologne, 1474), and in the “Introduction to the works of St. Anselm” (Nuremberg, 1491). But it is neither the work of St. Anselm nor of Ludolph. According to the manuscript of Jena, a certain Giacomo Colonna found the letter in 1421 in an ancient Roman document sent to Rome from Constantinople. It must be of Greek origin, and translated into Latin during the thirteenth or fourteenth century, though it received its present form at the hands of humanist of the fifteenth or sixteenth century. The description agrees with the so-called Abgar picture of our Lord; it also agrees with the portrait of Jesus Christ drawn by Nicephorus, St. John Damascene, and the Book of Painters (of Mt. Athos). Munter (“Die Sinnbilder und Kunstvorstellungen der alten Christen”, Altona 1825, p. 9) believes he can trace the letter down to the time of Diocletian; but this is not generally admitted.

 

[bethanysamuel]

Quote.He would have had to be very “ordinary” (no striking or atypical features) because otherwise the Romans would not have needed Judas to reveal to them who Jesus was.Quote

Amazing point; I would never have thought of that.