Shroud of Turn
Holy Face of Vienna
Christ Pantocrator
4th century catacomb
Posted on 03/04/2011 6:27:07 AM PST by 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
How come no-one ever wonders why, if King James were sincere about destroying all the Catholic artwork, he left intact all the statues of his royal family.
Er, no.
Jesus wasn’t a Nazirite. He was the Branch (netser), which is the play on words Matthew is employing.
Are you saying the 10 commandments don’t apply? What part of ‘no images’ didn’t God understand?
silliness. Your arguments and complaints are completely unimportant when put against the rest of Christ’s messages.
They look Italian because the models De Vinci used were Italian. That’s why I laugh at people who use the painting of The Last Supper to prove Mary Magdalen was there. De Vinci could have had Comicus holding the brass platter behind Jesus like Mel Brooks did and they’d still try to debunk Jesus based on a painting by a guy who wasn’t there.
“You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
Seems like you are forgetting verse 5. You can take any segment of verse and make it say what you want. That is very dangerous. It is always important to include whole paragraphs, whole thoughts.
No, I meant it as "of course not," to your postulate that I had not received such a commandment. I do think it's highly instructive as to your, my, and indeed all of our abilities to interpret things differently. Which is why I asked for your definition of "graven image" (or whichever translation of the Bible you prefer, false idols, etc.)
What does that commandment mean to you? Does it mean no anthropomorphic representations whatsoever? Does it mean no naturalistic representations of anything whatsoever? Or does it simply mean no graphic representations of God whatsoever?
...Or does it mean something entirely different to you? Please give me your interpretation so we can more fully discuss...
>> He was the Branch (netser), which is the play on words Matthew is employing. <<
Not buying it. However, I did find something cool about natsar in looking up your assertion. One source says that it means "watcher," which has cool associations with the Book of Enoch... I'm checking into it.
(Nice tagline, btw)
Jesus was about 6’2”, 195lbs. No little dweeb was going to get away with chasing the “money lenders” from the temple. The average 5’4” guy of the era would have taken one look at Jesus and said “YES SIR...I’ll LEAVE RIGHT AWAY.”
>> I suggest you pose that question to the straw man you manufactured. <<
Well, it just seems funny the way these Southern Protestant Fundamentalists get so worked up about declaring Catholic icons to be idolatry, even though their purpose is to bring one’s will into accord with God’s, but have no problem with statues of warriors like Robert E Lee, or the very iconoclasts who wiped out European folk history, like King James, or Jean Calvin.
If the issue is that making an image is idolatry, are you seriously going to tell me you don’t have photographs of your kids? That your computer desktop is a purely abstract image? That you replace all the ICONS on your computer? That you never watch TV? That you didn’t see any of the pictures I posted because you’ve set your web browser to download only alt tags, not images?
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