Going Ten Rounds with Jesus

A portrait of Jesus based on the Shroud of Turin

Atheists often mock the idea that Jeus was blonde and blue-eyed. Some years ago, some group reconstituted the face of a 1st Century Palestinian Jew, based on excavated skulls, and presented this as what Jesus must really have looked like. Most notably, and obviously propagandistically, their supposed reconstruction had a frightened look on his face.

Portrait of Jesus as reconstructed from ancient Palestinian Jewish skulls.

I don’t know where these atheists are seeing many blonde, blue-eyed images of Jesus. An occasional artist has no doubt taken liberties, perhaps to make the point that Jesus was a man like us. The iconography of the Virgin Mary, or Joseph, is much more variable. The iconography of Jesus is pretty consistent. He is dark and Middle Eastern looking, with brown hair, brown eyes, beard, and with a reasonably prominent nose. Just as you would expect. This is not to say he is going to look like some random man who lived at the same time he did. There is a trail of icons establishing this appearance dating back to the early centuries AD.

Based on the Shroud of Turin, however, there is one thing that the common iconography seems to get wrong. The usual image of Jesus on the crucifix shows a slender build. The Shroud suggests someone stockier and more muscular; built like a boxer.

And surely the Shroud is right. Jesus presumably worked as a carpenter from adolescence to age thirty. He should have developed strong muscles from swinging hammers and saws and carrying logs.

One wonders why we ever thought otherwise. I suspect it is part of the general falsification of Jesus as “meek and mild.” The sort of Jesus a Ned Flanders would feel most comfortable with. Someone who could not hurt another person even if he wanted to. Let alone single-handedly drive the moneychangers out of the temple.

Subtle; but a subversion of the Christian message.