Posted on 12/24/2015 9:26:45 AM PST by Thistooshallpass9
THe gospels deliberately avoided any physical description of Him.
I believe the long hair, beard, and gaunt features look originated, in the west at least, with the Shroud of Turin. Prior to that, western artwork depicted Jesus as clean shaven with short hair.
Is His physical appearance of any real importance? The body is but a house of flesh, a temporary lodging for the spirit on its road to glory. Who cares what color the walls are painted?
“But these images are based almost entirely on paintings by artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, who lived hundreds of years after Christ, and who had no insight into His actual appearance.”
The author has no way of knowing what insight the artists had into Jesus’s appearance. There was an artistic tradition of portraits of Jesus going back many centuries before Leonardo, and the portraits are quite consistent. Was the tradition based on actual information about his appearance, or were they simply copying some original artist’s speculation? The author does not know that, but of course, if they admitted that, the premise of their article would be revealed to be nothing but vapor.
The height of the man on the Shroud of Turin is between five foot eight and five foot nine. The image also depicts long hair. Interesting disparities...
It is if you want to tie him to a cause. Or a color.
Endlessly fascinating.
The scientist (sic) makes several fatal assumptions. He assumes all mid easterners are olive skinned, etc, ignoring how white northern Persians are still today, etc, he also assumes all Jews looked alike and followed the same conventions,etc.
Mar_11:17 And he taught, saying unto them, Is it not written, My house shall be called of all nations the house of prayer? but ye have made it a den of thieves.
Mar_10:14 But when Jesus saw it, he was much displeased, and said unto them, Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.
To be both intimidating in anger and yet attractive that children didn’t fear him
Science believes in Jesus!?
Apparently they’ve given up on global warming.
There is a show on one of the history channels that has a forensic specialist use the Shroud of Turin and computers to depict what the man who was wrapped in the Shroud looked like. Very fascinating, especially if you believe it was Jesus of Nazereth. His results show a man who had suffered massive injuries, including the blood stains on the Shroud around the head which would correlate to a “crown of thorns”. The final reveal gave me chills. As Jesus was a carpenter, I hardly think he would be a frail, but rather a strong, robust man.
It doesn’t matter what His physical appearance was.
I know that for all intents and purposes, Hollywood movies and Renaissance paintings are not places to look for such things, if it did matter.
Nor is a militant atheist’s description. One of them described Jesus as a stinking, hunchbacked dwarf. The description said more about the atheist’s soul than it did about any physical appearance projected by Christ.
The man Jesus was a carpenter’s son who no doubt worked beside His earthly (adopted) father for over 20 years. So he couldn’t have been a skinny weakling.
In at least two instances, Jesus slipped away from the Pharisees into a crowd of other Judaeans to avoid immediate punishment. Either He had the power to make Himself invisible, or more likely, temporarily blinded the Jewish priests while He slipped into a crowd where He was completely ordinary-looking.
So if you’re hung up on the physical appearance of the most influential man in history, envision a ruggedly built but ordinary looking Jew.
Jack, that body was important enough that He brought it out of that tomb and is in it even now.
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