Too bad none of the disciples were artists! They could have helped us all with one of the biggest questions of our faith. What did Jesus look like?
Biblical evidence is that Jesus looked like most people in Galilee and Judea. It took the kiss of Judas to help soldiers distinguish him from the others in the Garden of Gethsemane.
Artists over the centuries put their imaginations to work depicting Christ until the images began to look startlingly similar — however unlikely.
The earliest Christians didn’t seem to care about appearances. They had first-hand accounts of the disciples and apostles. The first depictions surviving today are from the 200s and 400s and are not very detailed. In fact, the depictions show Christ in action. His physical appearance is secondary to his works. They are like cartoons in simplicity.
The Eastern Church and its emphasis on icons in worship began to concentrate on the details of Christ’s appearance. Although they are stiff and representative, they are also beautiful, designed to be contemplated.
The Western church developed a genre of story-telling and teaching in church adornment and architecture that took the Eastern representations and made them breathe with realistic features in familiar biblical settings. The depictions were stereotypical and stiff in the Middle Ages but became more realistic with the rise of humanism. Jesus became easily recognized with features recognized to us today.
Modern people still want to know what Jesus looked like. We are accustomed to treasuring photographs, which is a very new historical phenomenon — not even 200 years old.
Our curiosity is insatiable. Recently anthropologists decided to answer this question once and for all. They used forensic methods to analyze excavated skulls to rebuild the face of the typical Jewish male who lived in Israel in the era that was unknowingly passing from BC to AD.
Now we know!
Jesus looked like the typical Jewish male of 2000 years ago.
Jesus looks like us today.
Jesus will look like our descendants to the thousandth generation.
But does it matter? Jesus asks us to see him in each other. Treat others well and you will be honoring me, he tells us.
No matter who takes the brush or chisel in hand, we don’t have trouble recognizing Jesus in art. It’s harder to see him in each other!