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What Did Jesus Look Like

2019; Eisenbrauns; Volume: 29; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/bullbiblrese.29.4.0574

2576-0998

Craig A. Evans,

Historical and Religious Studies of Rome

Joan Taylor, Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism at King’s College London, has produced a beautiful book that traces the most important developments in the visual history of what Christians thought Jesus looked like. We of course do not know what Jesus looked like. No contemporary described him, either in word or in art. The NT Gospels say nothing about the appearance of Jesus—how he looked, his height, weight, or mannerisms. The well-known Epistle of Lentulus, in which Jesus is described, is a late forgery (probably 13th century) and is of no value.But even if in the end we do not know what Jesus looked like, the question is well worth pursuing, and Taylor’s work serves well both church and academy. Her book is made up of 12 chapters and some 80 images, most of which are in color and are quite attractive. In ch. 1, Taylor begins by stating the obvious: the NT does not provide a description of Jesus. John 1 declares that the followers of Jesus “beheld his glory” but says nothing about what that glory looked like. Taylor notes that this omission stands in contrast to other biographies in late antiquity, in which their subjects are described. In ch. 2, Taylor discusses the spurious Epistle of Lentulus and the emergence of the European-looking Jesus that came to dominate the West’s idea of what Jesus looked like.Chapter 3 reviews the legend of Veronica, whose cloth captured the image of the face of Jesus. The tradition, which originated in the third century and in the Acts of Pilate, linked to the woman whose hemorrhage Jesus healed, is commemorated at Station VI of the Via Dolorosa in the Old City of Jerusalem. Chapter 4 looks at the Acheropitae, the so-called self-portraits believed to be created miraculously. The Lateran Acheropita in the Sancta Sanctorum chapel in San Lorenzo and the Shroud of Turin, which Taylor believes is medieval, are the best known. The Byzantine Cosmocrator or Pantocrator is the subject of ch. 5. The image of Christ as Cosmocrator seems to have been inspired in part by similar portraits of Zeus/Jupiter and Asclepius (see images 24 and 25). In ch. 6, Taylor reviews portraits of Jesus as a beardless youth, baptized by John. Some of these portraits appear to mimic portraits of Greco-Roman gods, such as Dionysius.Chapter 7 reviews images of Jesus that seemed to be inspired by comparisons with the miracle-working Moses. Some of these depictions are found in reliefs on sarcophagi and churches, as well as in paintings on plastered walls in the catacombs of Rome. Chapter 8 looks at portraits of Jesus as the bearded philosopher, while ch. 9 explores the idea that Jesus may have looked like an unkempt vagabond. Taylor begins this chapter by quoting Celsus, who claims that Jesus “was little, ugly, and undistinguished” (apud Origen, Contra Celsum 6.75), perhaps based on Isa 53:1–3 (“he had no form or comeliness . . . no beauty”). Origen responds by declaring, based on Ps 45:2 (Israel’s king is “the fairest of the sons of men”), that for Jesus a body was needed “that was not only distinguished among human bodies, but was also superior to all others . . . something out of the ordinary” (Origen, Contra Celsum 1.32–33). The descriptions of Celsus and Origen are based on ideology, not on eyewitness testimony.In ch. 10, Taylor turns to what can be known of Jesus’s appearance based on anthropological and archaeological evidence. She notes that, thanks to the recovery and study of dozens of skeletons in Israel from the time of Jesus, we know that most men were 166–70 cm in height, or about 5 feet and 5 or 6 inches. Second-century Egyptian mummy portraits give us a good idea of what most men would have looked like, including beard and length of hair (see fig. 58). Taylor plausibly concludes that, because Jesus was not described in the Gospels, he probably was average in size and appearance.In ch. 11, Taylor reviews what we know of shoes and clothing from the time of Jesus and concludes that Jesus probably wore a plain (but not bleached) tunic (chitōn) and mantle (tallith) and ordinary sandals. The mantle would have included fringes or tassels (tsitsith or kraspeda). Taylor offers her own sketch (fig. 76) of what Jesus might have looked like. In ch. 12, Taylor sums up her findings. She reasonably concludes that Jesus “was average in every way, and there was nothing distinctive about his appearance that it made it worthy of comment” (p. 194). She adds that Jesus likely had “shortish hair and some kind of beard (though not a long one)” (p. 194). In fig. 77, one will find a color portrait of what Jesus might have looked like based on her research.I find Taylor’s research careful, informative, and well documented.