(Posted for comparison)
Actually, the people of the Middle East look very much as they did in Christ’s time (at least if one looks at Sephardic rather than Ashkenazic Jews).
The most traditional Orthodox icons of the Virgin Mary are patterned on three which the Evangelist Luke painted from life while Mary was still alive. Orthodox icons of Christ in the style dominant in Greece, Cyprus and among Christians in the Middle East are all patterned on the “Icon-not-made-by-hands” and the style that was dominant in Palestine before iconoclasm (cf. the famous icon of Christ from St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai).
(One of those things St. John refers to in his Gospel as Christ having done something not recorded therein appears to have been sending an image of His face miraculously imprinted on a cloth which He pressed to His face to King Abgar of Edessa to cure his leprosy. King Abgar believed that merely to see Jesus image would cure him, and, the account tell us that his faith was not disappointed. The cloth, called the “Icon-not-made-by-hands” was preserved at Edessa, later moved to Constantinople, stolen by the Crusaders, and kept in Paris until it was destroyed in the name of “Reason” by the French Revolutionaries. Icons depicting it, well sort of, with Christ’s only shown on a cloth, are now called “the Icon-not-made-by-hands”.)
As an Orthodox Christian, I firmly believe the best of our iconographic tradition, as I described it above, keeps a recollection of what Christ and the Virgin Mary looked like during their earthly lives. And, from what I can see from the article, the reconstructions from the Shroud of Turin agree with our tradition.
How?
The Jews of Jesus time knew what tribe they were from....
When the Jews were dispersed they inter-married with gentiles, so I don’t know how we could really have a accurate image of the Jews in Israel during the times of Jesus.
(Posted for comparison)
Could you send me a link? I would like to see the icons of the Virgin Mary. I have one of the icon of Jesus from St Catherine’s in Sinai.
The new testament doesn’t say much about how Jesus appeared but from the encounter with the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well she knew just by looking at Jesus that he was one who would worship at Jerusalem. Obviously from physical appearance or the clothing he wore or a combination of both he appeared recognizably Jewish.