What Did Jesus Look Like?

Hey! Who woke me up after 2,000 years?

What do we know about what Jesus looked like, and how do we know it? 

The question is more important theologically than might first appear. Jesus is God as God chose to reveal Himself to us. Given that it is valuable to have a personal relationship with God, it is valuable to have a clear image of him for prayer and meditation. The best and clearest image is surely the one God himself chose. 

Unfortunately, recently, a spanner has been thrown into the works. 

You might have seen the picture above. It is now all over the Internet; it is the first thing you are liable to see if you Google “what Jesus looked like.” It has been embraced and promoted by the BBC, Popular Mechanics, CNN, National Geographic, and any number of other media outlets. It is a claimed “scientific” reconstruction of what Jesus really looked like, using computer modelling. Being “scientific,” it is of course embraced as truer than the traditional view—after all, ”science” trumps “religion” as our true faith any day of the week. 

And it is nonsense. 

Consider the basic premise: It is based in the first place on a reconstruction of the sort forensic labs do on murder victims, built up from a computer model of a first-century Palestinian skull. 

Let's assume that modern forensic science is good enough to reconstruct what someone looks like accurately from a skull. It does not matter—because this is not Jesus's skull. Think for a moment how likely it would be for someone to come up with an accurate image of you by choosing a random photograph of another person who lived in the same country in the same century? Odds of winning the lottery would be better. 

But the nonsense only begins there. There is lots more to come. You will note that the image has short hair—unlike the traditional, long-haired image. Hair length, of course, cannot be determined from a skull. No; it turns out the “scientific” reason for this touch is that St. Paul in one epistle passage advised Christian men to wear their hair short. But St. Paul was writing in Greek to Greeks living in Greek lands; I thought the original premise was that Jesus was going to look like a Palestinian Jew? Jesus preached in synagogues and was called “rabbi”--and Judaism required men to wear their hair and beards uncut. If Jesus's own appearance was so much at variance from the norm of the place and time, and from the religious requirement, we would surely have mention of it. 

The “scientists,” in other words, are contradicting their own first premise, and for one purpose alone: to come up with an image as different as possible from the traditional view. We should be aware of this motive, and we should judge their claims accordingly. You're never going to get any press these days by saying the traditional religious view is right. 

You will note again that the scientists's image is considerably darker-skinned than that of the traditional image. The press coverage makes a point of this: “dark olive skin.” This is no doubt politically correct these days, when other authors commonly try to claim that the Egyptian Pharaohs were black. But it seems highly unlikely to be historically accurate. Modern Jews are far from being dark-olive in colour. Granted, they have no doubt intermarried over the years; but modern Palestinian Arabs are also not olive-skinned. While there is a natural range, one commonly finds today Palestinian Arabs with quite pale skin, sometimes even blue eyes and blond hair. I know; I have taught some of them. 

It is hard to imagine why the pigmentation of the Jews two thousand years ago would have been darker. The Arabs, after all, are supposed to have come from further south, and some of the inhabitants of the Southern Arabian Peninsula can be quite dark. In Jesus's time, by contrast, and in Galilee in particular, thanks to Alexander's conquests, there had been a rather recent influx of Greek blood from the north. 

This new “scientific” image also shows a broader, shorter nose than we are used to seeing—Jesus is usually shown with a rather long and thin nose. Odd, again, that the scientists would do that—I believe nose length cannot be determined from the skull since it is build from cartilage, not bone. After all, modern Palestinian Arabs tend to have long, thin noses, like the traditional depiction, not bulbous ones like this modern illustration. 

Jesus as he appears in ancient mosaic at Hagia Sophia. Note the long, "Arabian" nose.

It is amazing what nonsense you can get away with simply by misappropriating the word “science.” Ask Marx, or Freud. 

So this image is not just arbitrary in origin, but probably systematically wrong. And, of course, damaging to numberless spiritual lives. 

But to be fair, where do we get our own current idea of what Jesus looked like? Is it, in turn, and as these “scientists” and the press they have attracted assert, arbitrary? 

That is what the “scientists” claim: the original Popular Mechanics story notes “nowhere in the New Testament is Jesus described, nor have any drawings of him ever been uncovered.” But this is not, strictly, true; not true, at least, unless you reject certain images that are indeed claimed to be portraits of Jesus indeed taken from life. At least three have been uncovered, and they have indeed been influential downthrough the ages in forming our common image of Jesus: the Mandylion of Edessa, Veronica's Veil, and the Shroud of Turin. 

The Shroud of Turin, I assume, needs no introduction. 

A modern reconstruction of Jesus's face from the Shroud of Turin.

Veronica's veil is supposed to be a headscarf with which St. Veronica wiped the face of Jesus as he carried his cross. “Veronica” is unlikely to have been the real name of the woman involved, since it simply means “true image.” However, the story appears quite early, in the “Acts of Pilate,” and references to the veil itself as a relic can be traced back to the fourth century. 

Veronica's Veil.

The Mandylion of Edessa is a portrait held to have been painted by a court painter from Edessa during Jesus's lifetime, at the request of the king of Edessa. It was carefully preserved as the “first icon,” but the original may have disappeared during the French Revolution. Nevertheless, it served as a touchstone throughout earlier centuries, and two reputed copies survive. 

Copy of Mandylion preserved in Genoa; or possibly the original.

Copy of Mandylion preserved in Vatican.

Of course, all three relics may be forgeries. But it is worth noting that they all agree on Jesus's appearance. 

It would be natural, surely, for followers to preserve Jesus's shroud; though an image burned onto it would of course be supernatural. So too for Veronica's Veil. That the images require a supernatural explanation is of course far from a disproof, given that we are dealing with a man claimed to be God himself. Rather, their apparent supernatural origin and state of preservation are themselves arguments for their validity. 

It seems at least plausible, in turn, that a neighbouring king might have sought a portrait of Jesus. The gospel tells us that the Nazarene prophet stirred up considerable interest not just in Judea, but in neighbouring kingdoms—we are about to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. “All of Judea” came out to see John the Baptist, “and the whole region of the Jordan.” Edessa was reasonably close culturally and geographically, in a time of great regional commerce, and is known to have embraced Christianity very early. 


There are other claimed ancient relics, with less plausible pedigrees. We also have surviving written descriptions of Jesus that are at least claimed to be very old; and they, again, conform to the traditional image. An intriguing example is the supposed letter of Publius Lentullus, claimed to have been at one time procurator for Judea: 

"his hair of (the colour of) the chestnut, full ripe, plain to His ears, whence downwards it is more orient and curling and wavering about His shoulders. In the midst of His head is a seam or partition in His hair, after the manner of the Nazarenes. His forehead plain and very delicate; His face without spot or wrinkle, beautified with a lovely red; His nose and mouth so formed as nothing can be reprehended; His beard thickish, in colour like His hair, not very long, but forked; His look innocent and mature; His eyes grey, clear, and quick"

But all of this is almost beside the point. We have one other authority for the traditional appearance of Jesus, and it is unassailable: inspiration. From his own time to ours, Jesus has repeatedly appeared in visions to the saints; we have their witness, and he, being God, is entirely capable of ensuring its reliability. Indeed, we also have the witness of the great artists themselves. No artist becomes great without inspiration, and God, being God, can and would preserve the image within accurate bounds for our benefit, particularly in art especially commissioned for a religious and meditative purpose. You can presumably only deny this likelihood if you assume in the first instance that he is not God.