Download Yeshua of Nazareth

Yeshua of Nazareth:
What did he look like?
Which image looks more like Jesus?
In recent portrayals by Caucasian Christian artists, Yeshua ben
Nazereth (a.k.a. Jesus Christ) has typically been shown with a light
skin, a long "Presbyterian" nose, very long hair, and a height
probably in excess of six feet. The face of Jim Caviezel, who plays
Jesus in the movie "The Passion of the Christ," is similar to many
modern-day images of Jesus. He is shown in the right picture above.
Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, associate professor of world Christianity
at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, GA, commented:
"While Western imagery is dominant, in other parts of the world he
is often shown as black, Arab or Hispanic." 3 However, these have
been based on pure speculation by the artists.
There have been at least two recent attempts at predicting what
Yeshua actually looked like:
The center portrait above is based on the image on the Shroud of
Turin, which is believed by some Christians to be the burial shroud
of Jesus. It is of a man estimated to be 5' 11½" to 6' 2" tall. 1
Starting with the assumption that Jesus resembled a typical peasant
from 1st century CE Palestine, Richard Neave, a medical artist
retired from the University of Manchester in England, and a team of
researchers "started with an Israeli skull dating back to the 1st
century. They then used computer programs, clay, simulated skin
and their knowledge about the Jewish people of the time to
determine the shape of the face, and color of eyes and skin." 2 Mike
Fillon followed the research and wrote an article about the portrait
in "Popular Mechanics" magazine. 3 He said during a CNN interview
that: "There are very strong rabbinical laws in Israel that you
cannot tamper with a skull or any bones, so they needed to
reconstruct the skull. Using a cat scan, which is very common in
hospitals, they were able to recreate the skull precisely and make a
cast of it. Then they put small wooden pegs, based on
anthropological data, to figure out what the muscle structure and
the skin would look like, and so they layered that on using clay-like
substances." 4 The result is shown in the left portrait above: a
person with abroad peasant's face, dark olive skin, short curly hair
and a prominent nose. His height would have been on the order of 5'
1"; he would have weighed about 110 pounds. Alison Galloway,
professor of anthropology at the University of California in Santa
Cruz , said that: "This [portrait] is probably a lot closer to the truth
than the work of many great masters."
Jean Claude Gragard, used the left image in his documentary "Son of
God," which was broadcast by the British Broadcasting Commission
in 2001. He said: "Using archaeological and anatomical science
rather than artistic interpretation makes this the most accurate
likeness ever created. It isn't the face of Jesus, because we're not
working with the skull of Jesus, but it is the departure point for
considering what Jesus would have looked like." They guessed at the
length of Jesus' hair on the basis of the reference by Paul that "If a
man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him." They speculate that Paul
would not have written this if Jesus Christ had had long hair?
Mike Fillon told CNN that "There is no way that we are saying this is
the skull of Jesus...Christians believe...that Jesus' entire body was
resurrected, so there would never be any bones or skull or DNA
evidence of Jesus. Plus, his ministry was very, very short. So it
would be hard to find a lot of evidence." Some liberal theologians
assume that Jesus was not resurrected. They assume that the
Romans threw his body on a garbage heap to be eaten by
scavengers. This was a near-universal practice for the victims of
execution. Either way, the chances of finding any evidence is
essentially nil.