We have a pretty good idea what Jesus looked like

vanity ^ | 3-4-11 | Dangus

[dangus]

It is commonly claimed that we have little idea what Jesus looked like. Some have even gone to such despicable extremes as to describe traditional depictions of Jesus as looking like an "effeminate hippy." The truth is that although some images of Jesus have made him look overly European, we do have a good sense of what he looked like.

Jesus had a beard. To shave off one's beard was a great dishonor (see 1 Sam 21, 2 Sam 10:4, Isaiah 50:6). One particular humiliation the Messiah withstood was that the centurions plucked out his beard (Isaiah 50:6); certainly they were grabbing significant portions, not just a few day's growth.

Jesus probably did have long hair. The Gospel of Matthew states that the birth of Jesus "fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, He shall be called a Nazarene (2:23)." In context, Matthew is obviously making a play on the fact that Jesus was born in Nazareth, but prophesy isn't dismissed by a pun, and the prophecy plainly referred to the a Nazarite.

Nazarites were people who atoned for the sins of the people by making sacrifices of their bodies. (Sound familiar?) They abstained from strong drink and grape products. Since Jesus didn't do this, one might suppose that he was not a Nazarite. (Actually, as Luke 5:33 records it, his disciples didn't abstain from drink, there's no reason to suppose Jesus drank apart from ritual.) On the other hand, it confounded people that he didn't do this, which suggests he may have been regarded as a Nazarite, or appeared to be one. So how does one appear to be a Nazarite?

Nazarites didn't cut or groom their hair. As such, they were considered offensive and humiliated in Jewish culture, which began to assume that they were atoning for their own sins, even though this was in opposition to scripture! (See Lam. 4:7, Amos 2:11). The fact that long hair was considered shameful (1 Cor 11:14), thus, shouldn't be considered evidence that Jesus didn't have long hair, since Jesus bore our shame (Isaiah 53:4).

Jesus was fairly ordinary looking, for his time and place. Isaiah 52:14 notes that "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him." But this doesn't mean he looked perfectly typical. The Talmud depicts Adam as a majestic and beautiful giant; one might have expected the Messiah to look like a Son of God. (The Sons of God were a race of giants, see Gen. 6:2.) We shouldn't discount the possibility that he was rather tall, or forget that recent growth in mankind's average height is a result of better diet, not genetic change. Contrary to the recent assertions of the History channel, There is no reason to believe Jesus was rather short.

He was, however, gaunt. As a carpenter, he probably had been fairly muscular, since carpentry involved real labor. But the bible tells of frequent fasting, including one fast of forty days with no food at all (Mat 4:2). By the time he was crucified, he was so thin, you could count all his bones (Psalm 22:17).

Lastly, it's not necessarily true that we have no record of his appearance. Eastern Christian tradition, not infallible, but not baseless, either, asserts that the evangelist Luke was a physician and a painter, and that although Luke's images are lost, the iconic images of Christ Pantocrator are based on them. Christ Pantocrator is consistent with scripture: Bearded, slender, long-haired.. and very Jewish looking. It's also consistent with the numerous supposedly miraculous images of Christ, such as Veronica's veil and the Shroud of Turin. Among scripture and these images, we have a very good sense of what Jesus looked like, indeed.

Shroud of Turn

Holy Face of Vienna

Christ Pantocrator

4th century catacomb

[TheDingoAteMyBaby]

For He grew up before Him like a tender shoot,

And like a root out of parched ground;

He has no stately form or majesty

That we should look upon Him,

Nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him.

He was despised and forsaken of men,

A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief;

And like one from whom men hide their face

He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.

(Isaiah 53:2-3)

[Richard Kimball]

The term "graven" used in Exodus 20:4 is the Hebrew word "pecel (peh-sel)," which literally translates to a "carved idol." The Hebrew word for "image" used was "tselem," which also translates to a phantom, or a representative figure or idol. The statement is clear that the Lord is talking about creating a fetish, an image to worship. In the King James, the term 'graven image' is used, but in the New American Standard, both words are joined to simply state "an idol."

Your statement about the signs is an improper comparison, since the signs are not related at all. The speed limit has nothing to do with whether or not it's illegal to make a U turn. You are taking two unrelated things and saying it's improper to join them, but the statement in question is about splitting a sentence and making each part a whole.

A better comparison would be to say that playing checkers is the same thing as using a Ouji board since they both involve moving game pieces on a board with markings on it.

[alnick]

Some people speculate that the reason the disciples and Mary didn’t recognize him after he had risen from the dead until he spoke is because of what he looked like with his beard gone.