What Did Jesus Look Like?

Will you recognize Jesus when you see him?

Many believe that the Shroud of Turin (see photo, right) is the actual burial cloth of Jesus Christ, and that the man seen in the cloth's image is that of The Lord. Apart from (disputed) carbon-dating tests that show it to be only about 600 years old, (Carbon dating is efficient in determining ages up to around 40 years, after that, because of many external factors influencing the half-life of uranium, the subject usually appears a lot older than what it is. This means that the Shroud of Turin is more likely to be between 50 and about 200 years old.) there is at least one other strong proof that The Savior is not the man in the cloth which is idolized by millions of people.

The Bible makes no specific description of what Jesus Christ looked like, and there are no known images of Him in existence, such as their are, for example, for Roman emperors (e.g. Emperor Nero), or actual "faces from the past" that can be seen with the Egyptian Mummies. There are however some very good indications of what He did, and did not, look like -

There was nothing unusual about His appearance

Throughout the Gospel books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, people made no mention of something different about how He looked. If anything, people wondered how such an ordinary-looking man could be The Savior. John the Baptist would not have known that his cousin was The Savior unless an angel had told him just before Jesus' baptism at age 30 (John 1:33). The mob that came to arrest Him could not tell Him apart from Peter or John or any of the others - Judas Iscariot had to actually point Him out, (Matthew 26:47-49) and even then Jesus had to identify Himself, twice, to those who demanded Him by Name as He stood right in front of them in the bright light of their torches (John 18:3-9).

He had a natural, rugged appearance

The Lord did hard physical outside labor, with Joseph in Nazareth, until He was about 30 years old. Back then, the building trade involved very strenuous physical labor with heavy stone and lumber, without any sort of power tools or mechanical digging equipment that are in use today. Unlike many religious pictures that portray Jesus as a pale, skinny, effeminate man with long hair and wearing a flowing white or pink robe (all of which may well be far closer to what Satan looks like), Christ could have looked nothing like that. His appearance would definitely have been that of a well-tanned, muscular, physically-fit young man dressed in durable and practical clothing - which made Him indistinguishable from the "blue-collar" Fishermen who were with Him when He was arrested.

Jesus Christ did not have long hair

Hair styles and socially-acceptable length have varied tremendously over the ages, sometimes very short, sometimes very long. Most religious artists portray Christ with long hair. The man in the Shroud of Turin also has long hair. But did Jesus have long hair?? The apostle Paul actually saw Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 9:1). Paul, a trustworthy man who wrote a large part of the New Testament, knew exactly what The Lord looked like. In 1 Corinthians 11:14, Paul wrote, "if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him." It's quite unthinkable that Paul would have made such a statement if Jesus Christ had long hair. How could anything about The Lord be called disgraceful?

Satan was very attractive

One would think that a spirit being this grossly evil would also look evil. The popular perceptions of Satan are usually either that of a sinister-looking individual in all-black clothing, or a comic character in a red suit with horns and a pitchfork, but the Bible describes Satan with "beauty" and "splendor."

Satan appears righteous:

There is much written in the Bible about Satan's change of behavior, but nothing about any change in appearance. He is the ultimate evil, and yet he appears attractive, righteous, and beautiful. The references to him as a "snake" or "serpent" refer only to his sneaking, slithering, underhanded personality and not to his visual appearance.

Along with the fact that the rugged and ordinary-looking Jesus looked almost nothing like the pale "pretty boy" who is so often portrayed in Christian art, one of the most startling questions of recent times is this:

Just who it is that's actually portrayed in those images? What very powerful deceiver, and, as the Bible describes him, impersonator, could have easily influenced all of those various artists, over the many centuries, to depict someone who's consistently the same in un-Christ-like appearance?