What Did Jesus Look Like? What Would Jesus Do?
March 29th, 2006 by Erich ViethUnfortunately, no one took His photograph. Had they done so, Jesus wouldn’t have had a prayer recruiting most of his potential followers. It is hard to imagine western Europeans falling in love with a dark-skinned Savior from the Middle East, especially a Jewish one.
For many centuries, Western Europeans haven’t paid meaningful attention to dark-skinned writers, musicians, painters, architects, teachers, politicians or philosophers. In fact, they’ve openly discriminated against anyone who didn’t look “European.” Nor would Jesus have had much of a chance today (“Hey, isn’t he one of those guys who attacked us on 9/11?”). We certainly wouldn’t tolerate any dark-skinned man who told us to give up our extravagant (i.e., suburban) lifestyles.
Because there are no photographs, Believers have had much artistic license to imagine Jesus in comforting ways. Jesus always resembles the people who believe in Him. He likes the things they like. He feels their pain when they don’t get asked out to the prom. He cries for them when they don’t get that promotion. He applauds if we finish assembling the best Christmas lighting display on the block (He shouts “Way to Go!” and gives us the thumbs-up.).
But most strikingly, even though His Believers don’t resemble each other, Jesus physically looks like each of them. That’s how He looks in their dreams and prayers, as well as in publicly displayed art. Numerous artists have portrayed Jesus in varying ways. This art typically proves that we have created Jesus in our own image and likeness. Western Europeans have typically portrayed Jesus to look western European. Africans have African Jesus. Asians have an Asian Jesus. Most of these paintings are false, of course. If a man named Jesus walked the Earth, he could have looked like, at most, only one of these many representations.
For Believers, however, the total lack of evidence has never been a hurdle. For Believers, comforting beliefs that cannot be proven true are nonetheless important. What kind of claims get this evidentiary dispensation? The things I want to believe, of course. The many contradictions and gaps in the Bible record are simply no problem to those who want to believe them. And Believers have an amazing ability to selectively be skeptical. The God worshipped by everyone else’s religion is FALSE. Tiny fossil gaps are much more troublesome than the total failure of Christian writers (and non-Christian) to acknowledge the life and miracles of a real life Jesus of Galilee, a startling gap of more than forty years from the alleged death of Jesus until writing of the earliest Gospels.
Given this historical free rein to portray Jesus, I would propose that His American image for the 21st Century be redesigned and promulgated as follows: The new Jesus is driving his high-powered SUV out of the tomb, wearing designer jeans and sunglasses, His blonde hair waving in the breeze. He’s focused on getting a good parking spot at the stadium so as not to miss that first pitch. He has box seats, of course, where he will be sitting next to you and you and . . . YOU. What He wants to hear about more than anything else, is whatever is on YOUR mind (“Jesus, I’m trying to figure out the best airfare to get to Cancun”).
This account is not meant to be blasphemous. Instead, it is an illustration that in modern American culture, whoever Jesus might have been, His image and message have been carefully honed, against all evidence, so as not to challenge or destroy the fantasies or lifestyle of most American Believers. His image and wishes have been carefully crafted so as not to trample on our rampant materialist cravings.
In modern America we don’t need to do much at all to have Jesus as our Buddy. All we need to do is to make that weekly visit to one of those many country clubs with steeples. An hour of uncritical sycophantic swooning per week is one’s ticket to that eternal resort in the sky. “I Believe” dispenses with any need to do real work to make the world a better place to live, including for those who are truly desperate. Jesus continues to smile whenever we choose to buy that new wide-screened TV, even though that $2,000 payments could have kept 20 children from literally starving to death.
“Aw, crap. The poor and needy?” I just heard someone say. “That’s such an old and tired issue! I don’t have time for it. I’m too busy planning a ski trip with my Buddy Jesus.”
March 29th, 2006 at 10:17 pm
It would be a fascinating anthropology experiment to see what would happen to attendance at any predominantly Caucasian surburban church, even an evangelical one, if the statue of Jesus on the cross that hangs above the altar, and that invariably features a Caucasian Jesus, were to be suddenly replaced with one that features a non-Caucasian Jesus. Imagine White Christian suburbanites happily walking into their familiar neighborhood church on Sunday morning, and suddenly finding themselves looking up at an African, Asian or (most likely accurate for a Nazarean) an olive-skinned Middle-Eastern Jesus hanging from the cross. I wonder how many loyal churchgoers would stand up and walk out. I wonder how many would return the following Sunday, even if they did stay through the entire service on the first day of the switch. I wonder how many would take the change in stride and be happy with it. Any takers out there want to try this experiment and report back?
July 16th, 2007 at 1:12 pm
I have to say that I have always been a little curious to know what the ‘man’ Jesus would have looked like. I have also been studying my family tree and traced one side back to Adam and Eve. I was amazed when I traveled through history to see where my family once was. I traced it through the United States, England, Palestine, Egypt. It was amazing. I am absolutely sure that Christ was not white with blonde hair and blue eyes. I believe there is enough evidence to support this. Although, I grew up with this picture as the picture of Christ. I am white, so of course growing up, that made perfect sense to me. Truth be known, I am sure there are alot of us that are curious about what he looked like, it does NOT matter. We all have the same chance to be received by the Lord our God and be one of his children. But, if people insist on basing everything on the natural, then this realization alone should perusade everyone to end racism.
July 16th, 2007 at 3:21 pm
Whether Jesus was one man, or several, or even existed at all is an open question. Outside of the selected gospels collected and edited into the official New Testament, there is no corroborating evidence of an actual Jesus existing.
Anyone browsing the Catholic Encyclopedia learns (for example) that St. Patrick, that relatively recent and well known Saint, is actually a composite of two Catholic Generals sequentially sent out to conquer the pagan kingdoms of Ireland (after great success exterminating heretics and pagans on the mainland).
The Jesus written of by Paul may not have been the same individual as the Jesus of Mark. There are scant similarities between their stories. Either way, I’m betting on any of them being olive-skinned with a full black beard.
July 17th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
“I am absolutely sure that Christ was not white with blonde hair and blue eyes. I believe there is enough evidence to support this.”
There is evidence in the Bible that Jesus, if he existed at all, might have had Ethiopian ancestors. I don’t recall the citation, but there is a phrase in Revelations that mentions Jesus having curly hair and feet of bronze. Almost certainly he would not have had the Scandinavian features he is so often pictured to have had in European art…nor the Oriental features he is pictured to have had in Asian art. To the contrary, his appearance in artwork is carefully adjusted to appeal to local tastes.
April 5th, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I was looking for an illustration about Jesus and found this website. WOW! Some very interesting views - most of which are not supported. Take for instance grumpypilgrim experiment - ahh… we don’t have a cross up in our church - many don’t - but go ahead and put up a middle-eastern dark skinned man to portray Jesus- nobody would say anything except, “Jesus probably looked closer to him than and Jesus film.” Don Klarmann says there is no corroborating evidence of an actual Jesus existing. Are you kidding? How about Josephus for starters. I guess my point is, without rambling, we all have to have faith in something. We all have a belief system that takes leaps of faith to believe. The “church” has done a pretty horrible job of demonstrating who Jesus is and what He is all about. We have turned Him into a moral teacher instead of a Savior. We, (the church) have failed miserably. My apologies - truly. Jesus - a Jew from middle-east decent, came to demonstrate the great love of God, not self-righteousness. The church goes crazy over the stupidest stuff - Jesus loved people no matter where they were in life. He is the same today. There is a part of the church that cares a lot less whether you drink, smoke or gamble or…. but deeply cares and prays for people to come to the essential understanding of what Jesus said. This is the work of God - to believe in the One He sent (Jesus) and to love your neighbor as yourself. You can do the 2nd without the first fairly decently, but you can’t avoid the 2nd one, if you do the 1st one. Sorry if you felt I was calling out a couple of “posters”, just trying to catch your attention. If you don’t believe, then challenge God to show himself to you.
April 6th, 2008 at 8:34 am
Terry: You cite Josephus without mentioning that many scholars consider his reference to Jesus to be a forgery.
Yes, we all believe in something. And I believe that all of us believe in things that we can’t actually prove. But those of us who are careful and honest don’t express certitude in FACTS for which there is not substantial evidence.
I’m glad that it “works” for you, that the story of Jesus inspires you to be kind to others. Many writings on this site, however, demonstrate that one does not need to literally believe that Jesus existed in order to be kind to others.
Furthermore, there is (in my view) compelling evidence that the Jesus of the Gospel did not live the life that is portrayed there and, perhaps, did not exist at all.
April 9th, 2008 at 12:11 am
Terry Miller writes: “We all have a belief system that takes leaps of faith to believe.”
I often hear that assertion from Christians. To me, it seems more a plea for validation — a hope that the believer will not be criticized for imagining-into-existence an invisible spirit world — than a statement that illuminates any universal truth. To my amazement, religious zealots often declare that their belief in invisible people and forces is somehow *superior* to the beliefs of non-believers — because, for them, believing without evidence is seen as a greater virtue than believing with evidence. To me, believing without evidence is merely a greater demonstration of social conformism: the greater the certainty someone expresses about their invisible spirit world, the more they are separating themselves from any demonstrable reality. To suggest that the “faith” of the religious zealot is comparable to “faith” in evidence is to suggest that fiction should be equated to non-fiction: it’s absurd.
September 11th, 2008 at 11:45 am
I can’t believe Jesus looked very much different than any man of his time coming from where he lived. If he did look different he never would have been accepted at all, if only for 3 years.
December 2nd, 2008 at 10:01 pm
[...] a related post, see “What did Jesus Look Like?” addthis_url = [...]
December 4th, 2008 at 6:12 am
The human mind as you well know prefers to work with the concrete. But the nature of the one true God is Spirit which is why everything discussed here at DI falls far short of understanding the basics about God.
God did not make man in his physical image, As God’s nature is spirit, so is that part of man that is made in the image of God.
Love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are aspects of the Spirit of the one true God that have no laws against them.
These all humans have a God given right (by possessing God’s image) to display in ever higher degrees. Their opposites are what we are all aware cause direct human conflicts and wars.
God doesn’t look like a specific person or image, humanly, God looks like someone who possesses these spiritual characteristics.
Jesus consistently warned against worshipping him in the flesh. He tells us to eat the representation of his flesh in the the Eucharist so that we realize the futility of the physical side of life to understand spiritutal things.
We shouldn’t care a hill of beans about what Jesus looked like, what his personality and character traits are what he desires us to emphasize.
It is these same character traits that we all have rights to possess.
December 4th, 2008 at 12:08 pm
It is the pursuit of these same character traits that brings meaning to human existence, without them the pursuit of happiness is no more than a physical joy ride.