What did Jesus really look like?
By Joan Taylor King's College London
Everyone knows what Jesus looks
like. He is the most painted figure in all of Western art, recognised
everywhere as having long hair and a beard, a long robe with long sleeves
(often white) and a mantle (often blue).
Jesus is so familiar that he can be
recognised on pancakes or pieces of toast.
But did he really look like this?
Probably not.
In fact this familiar image of Jesus
actually comes from the Byzantine era, from the 4th Century onwards, and
Byzantine representations of Jesus were symbolic - they were all about meaning,
not historical accuracy.
They were based on the image of an
enthroned emperor, as we see in the altar mosaic of the Santa Pudenziana church
in Rome.
Image copyright Alamy Image caption The
halo also comes from classical art - it was originally a feature of the sun god
(Apollo, or Sol Invictus) but was added to Jesus's head to show his heavenly
nature
Jesus is dressed in a gold toga. He
is the heavenly ruler of all the world, familiar from the famous statue of
long-haired and bearded Olympian Zeus on a throne - a statue so well-known that
the Roman Emperor Augustus had a copy of himself made in the same style
(without the godly long hair and beard).
Image copyright Alamy/Getty Images
Byzantine artists, looking to show
Christ's heavenly rule as cosmic King, invented him as a younger version of
Zeus. What has happened over time is that this visualisation of heavenly Christ
- today sometimes remade along hippie lines - has become our standard model of
the early Jesus.
So what did Jesus really look like?
Let's go from head to toe.
1. Hair and beard
When early Christians were not showing
Christ as heavenly ruler, they showed Jesus as an actual man like any other:
beardless and short-haired
Image copyright Yale
Collections/Public Domain Image caption The earliest surviving paintings of
Jesus, from the church at the ruined city of Dura-Europos on the Euphrates
(dating from first half of the 3rd Century AD)
But perhaps, as a kind of wandering
sage, Jesus would have had a beard, for the simple reason that he did not go to
barbers.
General scruffiness and a beard were
thought to differentiate a philosopher (who was thinking of higher things) from
everyone else. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus considered it "appropriate
according to Nature".
Otherwise, in the 1st Century
Graeco-Roman world, being clean-shaven and short-haired was considered absolutely
essential. A great mane of luxuriant hair and a beard was a godly feature, not
replicated in male fashion. Even a philosopher kept his hair fairly short.
A beard was not distinctive of being
a Jew in antiquity. In fact, one of the problems for oppressors of Jews at
different times was identifying them when they looked like everyone else (a
point made in the book of Maccabees). However, images of Jewish men on Judaea
Capta coins, issued by Rome after the capture of Jerusalem in 70AD, indicate captive
men who are bearded.
So Jesus, as a philosopher with the
"natural" look, might well have had a short beard, like the men
depicted on Judaea Capta coinage, but his hair was probably not very long.
If he had had even slightly long
hair, we would expect some reaction. Jewish men who had unkempt beards and were
slightly long-haired were immediately identifiable as men who had taken a
Nazirite vow. This meant they would dedicate themselves to God for a period of
time, not drink wine or cut their hair - and at the end of this period they
would shave their heads in a special ceremony in the temple in Jerusalem (as
described in Acts chapter 21, verse 24).
But Jesus did not keep a Nazirite
vow, because he is often found drinking wine - his critics accuse him of
drinking far, far too much of it (Matthew chapter 11, verse 19). If he had had
long hair, and looked like a Nazirite, we would expect some comment on the
discrepancy between how he appeared and what he was doing - the problem would
be that he was drinking wine at all.
2. Clothing
At the time of Jesus, wealthy men
donned long robes for special occasions, to show off their high status in
public. In one of Jesus's teachings, he says, "Beware of the scribes, who
desire to walk in long robes (stolai), and to have salutations in the
marketplaces, and have the most important seats in the synagogues and the
places of honour at banquets" (Mark chapter 12, verses 38-39).
The sayings of Jesus are generally
considered the more accurate parts of the Gospels, so from this we can assume
that Jesus really did not wear such robes.
Overall a man in Jesus's world would
wear a knee-length tunic, a chiton, and a woman an ankle-length one, and
if you swapped these around it was a statement. Thus, in the 2nd Century Acts
of Paul and Thecla, when Thecla, a woman, dons a short (male) tunic it is a bit
of a shock. These tunics would often have coloured bands running from the
shoulder to the hem and were woven as one piece.
On top of the tunic you would wear a
mantle, a himation, and we know that Jesus wore one of these because
this is what a woman touched when she wanted to be healed by him (see, for
example, Mark chapter 5, verse 27). A mantle was a large piece of woollen
material, though it was not very thick and for warmth you would want to wear
two.
A himation, which could be worn in
various ways, like a wrap, would hang down past the knees and could completely
cover the short tunic. (Certain ascetic philosophers even wore a large himation
without the tunic, leaving their upper right torso bare, but that is another
story.)
Image copyright Wiki commons Image
caption A himation might seem not unlike a Roman toga, but togas were circular
(folded into a semi-circle to wear) and himatia were rectangular - modern toga
parties, using sheets, are generally himation parties
Power and prestige were indicated by
the quality, size and colour of these mantles. Purple and certain types of blue
indicated grandeur and esteem. These were royal colours because the dyes used
to make them were very rare and expensive.
But colours could also indicate
something else. The historian Josephus describes the Zealots (a Jewish group
who wanted to push the Romans out of Judaea) as a bunch of murderous
transvestites who donned "dyed mantles" - chlanidia -
indicating that they were women's wear. This suggests that real men, unless
they were of the highest status, should wear undyed clothing.
Jesus did not wear white, however.
This was distinctive, requiring bleaching or chalking, and in Judaea it was
associated with a group called the Essenes - who followed a strict
interpretation of Jewish law. The difference between Jesus's clothing and
bright, white clothing, is described in Mark chapter 9, when three apostles
accompany Jesus to a mountain to pray and he begins to radiate light. Mark
recounts that Jesus's himatia (in the plural the word may mean
"clothing" or "clothes" rather than specifically
"mantles") began "glistening, intensely white, as no fuller on
earth could bleach them". Before his transfiguration, therefore, Jesus is
presented by Mark as an ordinary man, wearing ordinary clothes, in this case
undyed wool, the material you would send to a fuller.
We are told more about Jesus's
clothing during his execution, when the Roman soldiers divide his himatia (in
this case the word probably refers to two mantles) into four shares (see John
chapter 19, verse 23). One of these was probably a tallith, or Jewish
prayer shawl. This mantle with tassels (tzitzith) is specifically referred
to by Jesus in Matthew chapter 23, verse 5. This was a lightweight himation,
traditionally made of undyed creamy-coloured woollen material, and it probably
had some kind of an indigo stripe or threading.
3. Feet
On his feet, Jesus would have worn
sandals. Everyone wore sandals. In the desert caves close to the Dead Sea and
Masada, sandals from the time of Jesus have come to light, so we can see
exactly what they were like. They were very simple, with the soles made of
thick pieces of leather sewn together, and the upper parts made of straps of
leather going through the toes.
Image copyright Gabi Laron Image
caption Leather sandals belonging to a Sicarii - child, man, and woman.
Horowitz G. The Story of Masada. Exhibition catalogue 1993. Jerusalem: The
Hebrew University, The Israel Antiquity Authority and the Israel Exploration
Society
4. Features
And what about Jesus's facial
features? They were Jewish. That Jesus was a Jew (or Judaean) is certain in
that it is found repeated in diverse literature, including in the letters of
Paul. And, as the Letter to the Hebrews states: "It is clear that our Lord
was descended from Judah." So how do we imagine a Jew at this time, a man
"about 30 years of age when he began," according to Luke chapter 3?
In 2001 forensic anthropologist
Richard Neave created a model of a Galilean man for a BBC documentary, Son of
God, working on the basis of an actual skull found in the region. He did not
claim it was Jesus's face. It was simply meant to prompt people to consider
Jesus as being a man of his time and place, since we are never told he looked
distinctive.
For all that may be done with
modelling on ancient bones, I think the closest correspondence to what Jesus
really looked like is found in the depiction of Moses on the walls of the 3rd
Century synagogue of Dura-Europos, since it shows how a Jewish sage was
imagined in the Graeco-Roman world. Moses is imagined in undyed clothing, and
in fact his one mantle is a tallith, since in the Dura image of Moses parting
the Red Sea one can see tassels (tzitzith) at the corners. At any rate, this
image is far more correct as a basis for imagining the historical Jesus than
the adaptations of the Byzantine Jesus that have become standard: he's
short-haired and with a slight beard, and he's wearing a short tunic, with
short sleeves, and a himation.
Image copyright Alamy Image
copyright Alamy Image caption Moses appears to be wearing a tunic with blue
bands, as well as a tallith (as a mantle) with blue decoration - in both cases
the blue would probably have been created by dying with indigo
Joan Taylor is professor of Christian
Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King's College London and the author of
The Essenes, the Scrolls and the Dead Sea.
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