Early depiction of Jesus

Angela

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This line drawing of the face of Jesus has been discovered in a church in the Negev. It dates anywhere from the 4th to the 6th century. There was no Jewish settlement there. It was Byzantine and "Arabic".
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology...-discovered-in-ancient-negev-church-1.6640744
85l9Zw6.png




There are differences from the sort of consensus depiction which came to dominate religious art and which also can be found from the 6th century,i.e. no long hair or beard. The line drawing looks to have a rather more "Semitic" nose to me.
yKlj0jj.png


I always used to picture him this way.

Of course, it's anybody's guess as to the accuracy or inaccuracy of either version, as there are no contemporaneous portraits of him and his appearance is not described in any surviving writing, canonical or not.

This is the earliest depiction, from 2nd century Syria, but the face is indistinct, although the hair is short.
HGm9ZFI.png


I suppose we could say, however, that the odds are that he was NOT blonde, blue eyed, and small nosed.

This is the depiction by Michelangelo using a young Jew from the Rome ghetto as a model. I think he looks like the "eastern" model which dominated for so long, but whether it was the most common "look" among the Jews of Rome, or Michelangelo just looked for a beautiful young Jew who resembled the iconography with which he was familiar, we can't know.
uihRsdz.jpg
 
This line drawing of the face of Jesus has been discovered in a church in the Negev. It dates anywhere from the 4th to the 6th century. There was no Jewish settlement there. It was Byzantine and "Arabic".
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology...-discovered-in-ancient-negev-church-1.6640744
85l9Zw6.png




There are differences from the sort of consensus depiction which came to dominate religious art and which also can be found from the 6th century,i.e. no long hair or beard. The line drawing looks to have a rather more "Semitic" nose to me.
yKlj0jj.png


I always used to picture him this way.

Of course, it's anybody's guess as to the accuracy or inaccuracy of either version, as there are no contemporaneous portraits of him and his appearance is not described in any surviving writing, canonical or not.

This is the earliest depiction, from 2nd century Syria, but the face is indistinct, although the hair is short.
HGm9ZFI.png


I suppose we could say, however, that the odds are that he was NOT blonde, blue eyed, and small nosed.

This is the depiction by Michelangelo using a young Jew from the Rome ghetto as a model. I think he looks like the "eastern" model which dominated for so long, but whether it was the most common "look" among the Jews of Rome, or Michelangelo just looked for a beautiful young Jew who resembled the iconography with which he was familiar, we can't know.
uihRsdz.jpg

Yup, the whole "Aryan Jesus" movement from the 19th and early 20th centuries is quite ridiculous, at least with hindsight. I honestly think, though, that Jesus would have looked more Italian than anything else, as that's roughly what I imagine the original Hebrews as looking like (more so than, say, the Lebanese). Phenotypically, this comes under the "Litorid" type.
 
Fwiw, anthropologists trying to "reconstruct" ancient skulls from Israel would disagree with you.

1.Man from the Galilee who lived during the time of Jesus

2.Man from Israel 4,000 BC.

3.Philistine woman

4.Sacrificed child 4,000 BC.

m4MLBCx.png
=



First century Judean:
jewish-face.jpg
 
We already have solid representatives of the Ancient Levant in modern Druze, Samaritans, and Palestinians. Not one passes as Italians.
 
Fwiw, anthropologists trying to "reconstruct" ancient skulls from Israel would disagree with you.

1.Man from the Galilee who lived during the time of Jesus

2.Man from Israel 4,000 BC.

3.Philistine woman

4.Sacrificed child 4,000 BC.

m4MLBCx.png
=



First century Judean:
jewish-face.jpg

I mean, the proper anthropologists analysing these skulls in the first half of the 20th century (people like Coon) didn't come to the conclusion that Jews used to look like this:

jesus-negro.jpg


I genuinely think there were big political motivations for that famous reconstruction - he was almost certainly cherry-picked and exaggerated to achieve those features. The Hebrews were an East Mediterranean population, and appropriately were pred. Mediterranid with some Dinaro-Armenid influences from further North.

That reconstruction, terrible as it is, was probably based on someone with the Assyroid phenotype (http://humanphenotypes.net/Assyroid.html). Jews would never have been even close to that dark originally for starters (Samaritans would be somewhat darker than the original Jews, and are probably on par at least with non-Northern Italians), but also as mentioned Jews were and still are mainly of the Mediterranean race, unlike these hobgoblins. The Harvey Weinstein types are and were not even close to as common as the Natalie Portmans, though of course they're a decent chunk.
 
We already have solid representatives of the Ancient Levant in modern Druze, Samaritans, and Palestinians. Not one passes as Italians.

You can keep believing they're accurate representations :) Did that Chalcolithic Israel study hurt your feelings? People in Israel haven't looked like Palestinians since the dawn of time - phenotype can change in a region, you know. Antinous was a natural blonde Anatolian Greek, good luck finding that today. King David was described as a redhead, as were Jews for basically the longest period of time during the second exodus - this is still true to some extent, to the point where in Eastern Europe red hair was and sometimes still is seen as a sign of Jewish ancestry (not to mention medieval Spain and Italy - in fact, only in NW Europe are people more red-headed). Now, tell me, did Ashkenazim gain this red hair from admixture with Southern Europeans?

By the way, in my posts I have gone a bit nuts about red hair before lol, but I am not a red head - it is just a very interesting (in my opinion originally Epigravettian, but that is way back) phenotypical marker of ancestry.
 
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I mean, the proper anthropologists analysing these skulls in the first half of the 20th century (people like Coon) didn't come to the conclusion that Jews used to look like this:

jesus-negro.jpg


I genuinely think there were big political motivations for that famous reconstruction - he was almost certainly cherry-picked and exaggerated to achieve those features. The Hebrews were an East Mediterranean population, and appropriately were pred. Mediterranid with some Dinaro-Armenid influences from further North.

That reconstruction, terrible as it is, was probably based on someone with the Assyroid phenotype (http://humanphenotypes.net/Assyroid.html). Jews would never have been even close to that dark originally for starters (Samaritans would be somewhat darker than the original Jews, and are probably on par at least with non-Northern Italians), but also as mentioned Jews were and still are mainly of the Mediterranean race, unlike these hobgoblins. The Harvey Weinstein types are and were not even close to as common as the Natalie Portmans, though of course they're a decent chunk.

Not one comment you made is supported by anything vaguely factual. Just for starters you didn't provide links to the comments by Coon, or which skulls he was using, for that matter. They certainly wouldn't have been these skulls. The rest is total nonsense. How on earth would you know that Samaritans are darker? Based on what evidence? People have to stop assuming modern Ashkenazim look exactly like Judeans of the first century. Their admixture, for one thing, puts that seriously in doubt.

As for Samaritans, I do indeed see some similarities with the that last posted reconstruction.
samaritan-men-in-conversation-awaiting-the-beginning-of-the-passover-C2N7W6.jpg


kfar-luza-israel-21st-oct-2013-samaritan-priest-yusef-cohen-70-men-dggcwg.jpg


samaritans03.jpg


@Gyms,
Leaving aside the question of who is represented on the Shroud of Turin, I will say that the reconstruction doesn't really look like the shroud picture to me. It looks more likely to be "Semitic" than does the image on the Shroud.

It also rather looks like the reconstruction in my first post of the man from Galilee, and also somewhat resembles this old picture of a Samaritan priest. It may have been a minority "look" among the Samaritans which has now almost disappeared.
I1RVD6y.png


Samaritan_High_Priest_and_Old_Pentateuch%2C_1905.png
 
Not one comment you made is supported by anything vaguely factual. Just for starters you didn't provide links to the comments by Coon, or which skulls he was using, for that matter. They certainly wouldn't have been these skulls. The rest is total nonsense. How on earth would you know that Samaritans are darker? Based on what evidence? People have to stop assuming modern Ashkenazim look exactly like Judeans of the first century. Their admixture, for one thing, puts that seriously in doubt.

As for Samaritans, I do indeed see some similarities with the that last posted reconstruction.

[REDACTED]

I agree Ashkenazim don't look exactly like the Hebrews, I'm not claiming that for one second. That being said, none of the admixture models can explain Ashkenazi pigmentation - none. It follows that this came with them before migration to Europe, and perhaps was enhanced by the bottleneck, for whatever reason. Though, I keep reminding myself of the Minoan models who seemed to be pale too (and that cannot all be explained by the indoor vs outdoor lifestyle).

And those examples are somewhat dark for Samaritans (from a google search it appears you cherry-picked...), but yes, I was wrong in saying they were lighter than Italians. I guess I just personally imagine the ancient Hebrews as being a light olive hue, sort of like Assad - I find it really hard to believe that Ashkenazim became as pale as they are (only surpassed by Northern Europeans) from admixture with the actually almost always darker Southern Europeans, and it is basically impossible that they got that from non-Southern Europeans given the near total absence of WHG amongst other things.

Also one other thing - Samaritans probably took non-Jewish wives. I think this accounts for the darker features, and why they don't all have Assad-coloured olive skin.

AND one final thing - whatever you may say, there is a significant proportion of people with the paler, Ashkenazi-like skin amongst the Samaritans. You would almost never find someone with pale skin and red hair amongst the Palestinians, but amongst the Samaritans it is hardly uncommon. From the Jewish Encyclopedia (it doesn't show any cases of red hair because the sample size is so small, and the percentage of redheads would never ever exceed 5% - it is around 2% probably, because as a rule the percentage of red beards is usually about double that of redheads):

8P7DOqA.png
 
There is a believe among Jews that the father of Jesus was Pantera who (if not mistaken) was a Roman General. (I think its recorded in the Talmund) If this holds any truth then its pointless trying to figure out what Jesus looked like, and probably would have a particular different look to the rest of the people around him. Even in the case for the faithful who believe that Jesus was a result of a virgin birth....would he look exactly like his mother.....Either way it will remain an Enigma.
 
If Jesus had been the son of a Roman General, would have benefited of the courtesy of a clean and maybe private execution.
It seems improbable that the Son of a Roman General would have been Nailed to a Cross for everybody to watch. imo
Romans had different standards for executions.
Even Saint Paul (a Roman Citizen) wasn’t crucified, and got a quick death instead.

The Shroud of Turin (La Sindone) could be a Medieval forgery.
 
I agree Ashkenazim don't look exactly like the Hebrews, I'm not claiming that for one second. That being said, none of the admixture models can explain Ashkenazi pigmentation - none. It follows that this came with them before migration to Europe, and perhaps was enhanced by the bottleneck, for whatever reason. Though, I keep reminding myself of the Minoan models who seemed to be pale too (and that cannot all be explained by the indoor vs outdoor lifestyle).

And those examples are somewhat dark for Samaritans (from a google search it appears you cherry-picked...), but yes, I was wrong in saying they were lighter than Italians. I guess I just personally imagine the ancient Hebrews as being a light olive hue, sort of like Assad - I find it really hard to believe that Ashkenazim became as pale as they are (only surpassed by Northern Europeans) from admixture with the actually almost always darker Southern Europeans, and it is basically impossible that they got that from non-Southern Europeans given the near total absence of WHG amongst other things.

Also one other thing - Samaritans probably took non-Jewish wives. I think this accounts for the darker features, and why they don't all have Assad-coloured olive skin.

AND one final thing - whatever you may say, there is a significant proportion of people with the paler, Ashkenazi-like skin amongst the Samaritans. You would almost never find someone with pale skin and red hair amongst the Palestinians, but amongst the Samaritans it is hardly uncommon. From the Jewish Encyclopedia (it doesn't show any cases of red hair because the sample size is so small, and the percentage of redheads would never ever exceed 5% - it is around 2% probably, because as a rule the percentage of red beards is usually about double that of redheads):

8P7DOqA.png

Are you aware that you can't do a comparison of modern Samaritans versus Judeans of the first century when you don't have any data for first century Judeans?

I cherry pick nothing. Feel free to post a link for google or bing "Samaritan men" where we can all see all the pictures of light skinned Samaritans.

Make a baseless, scurrilous claim again that I have been dishonest in any way and there will be even more serious consequences.

@board,
There are a lot of scurrilous, non-contemporary claims about Jesus in the Talmud, for obvious reasons. Leaving aside all claims of the supernatural, a young Jewish woman who was "impure" with anyone would have been stoned to death.
 
If Jesus had been the son of a Roman General, would have benefited of the courtesy of a clean and maybe private execution.
It seems improbable that the Son of a Roman General would have been Nailed to a Cross for everybody to watch. imo
Romans had different standards for executions.

Even a virgin birth would have seemed odd and could be interpreted as a reason for execution. Its the very reason why Joseph took Mary under his protection. And if the narration in the Talmund was true, how would they have got to know about it? Complicated.
 
You can keep believing they're accurate representations :) Did that Chalcolithic Israel study hurt your feelings?

The Chalcolithic Israel samples were admitted to be a genetic dead end. Even then, they don't cluster with South Europeans or even Western Jews.

People in Israel haven't looked like Palestinians since the dawn of time - phenotype can change in a region, you know.

Are you denying that any Palestinians look like they belong to the Levant?

Antinous was a natural blonde Anatolian Greek, good luck finding that today.

Indigenous Anatolians cluster with West Asian populations more than European ones so he might have just not been strictly indigenous.

King David was described as a redhead, as were Jews for basically the longest period of time during the second exodus - this is still true to some extent, to the point where in Eastern Europe red hair was and sometimes still is seen as a sign of Jewish ancestry (not to mention medieval Spain and Italy - in fact, only in NW Europe are people more red-headed). Now, tell me, did Ashkenazim gain this red hair from admixture with Southern Europeans?

Contact with Indo-Europeans maybe.
 
Are you aware that you can't do a comparison of modern Samaritans versus Judeans of the first century when you don't have any data for first century Judeans?

I cherry pick nothing. Feel free to post a link for google or bing "Samaritan men" where we can all see all the pictures of light skinned Samaritans.

Make a baseless, scurrilous claim again that I have been dishonest in any way and there will be even more serious consequences.

I am aware, but the point being most consider Samaritans as the closest modern representatives, if somewhat admixed with local women (as the mtDNA evidence seems to suggest - just as seems to be the case with all Jews). How can you explain those statistics? Do you think they somehow have more of these light features than the originals? And yes, I'm not claiming the Hebrews were Irish, but you get the point.

Answer me this if you can, where did Ashkenazi pigmentation come from? I bet you can't give me any good answer. You always seem to pick at my points, and just completely ignore any serious questions I have. For whatever reason, it's hard to have open discussion with you, which is all I want and all that should matter on an online forum.

The Chalcolithic Israel samples were admitted to be a genetic dead end. Even then, they don't cluster with South Europeans or even Western Jews.



Are you denying that any Palestinians look like they belong to the Levant?



Indigenous Anatolians cluster with West Asian populations more than European ones so he might have just not been strictly indigenous.



Contact with Indo-Europeans maybe.

I don't see what a genetic dead-end is meant to be, but regardless, the point is that if I made that claim BEFORE that study, you would have referred to the modern inhabitants in much the same way in refutation, maybe call me a Nordicist or something like that. Populations, and phenotypes, change. The Thracians were well-known for their red hair, yet look at modern day Bulgaria.

And about Antinous and King David, you're completely missing the point. It is so ridiculously simple - phenotypes in a particular region are not static. Therefore, you cannot necessarily make any conclusions based on modern populations, though of course things can be ruled out (they weren't Black or Swedish).
 
I don't see what a genetic dead-end is meant to be, but regardless, the point is that if I made that claim BEFORE that study, you would have referred to the modern inhabitants in much the same way in refutation, maybe call me a Nordicist or something like that. Populations, and phenotypes, change. The Thracians were well-known for their red hair, yet look at modern day Bulgaria.

Yeah, modern Lebanese are lighter skinned than Bronze Age Canaanites /Israelites.

And about Antinous and King David, you're completely missing the point. It is so ridiculously simple - phenotypes in a particular region are not static. Therefore, you cannot necessarily make any conclusions based on modern populations, though of course things can be ruled out (they weren't Black or Swedish).

Samaritans, Druze, and Christian MENAs like Palestinians have traditionally not married outside their groups and so would be spared the foreign DNA that impacted their Muslim neighbors. They are all darker than Europeans. Which goes in line with the finding that the Sidon samples from Haber's (who cluster nearest with modern Samaritans) were darker than modern Lebanese.
 
Yeah, modern Lebanese are lighter skinned than Bronze Age Canaanites /Israelites.



Samaritans, Druze, and Christian MENAs like Palestinians have traditionally not married outside their groups and so would be spared the foreign DNA that impacted their Muslim neighbors. They are all darker than Europeans. Which goes in line with the finding that the Sidon samples from Haber's (who cluster nearest with modern Samaritans) were darker than modern Lebanese.

I personally doubt that the modern Lebanese are lighter (and I do not remember that ever being reached as a conclusion - only that they picked up a bit extra Steppe), but that is all very speculative, as I am unaware as to the physical descriptions of the Phoenicians given iirc they wrote on some unstable form of parchment that has almost all degraded. Regardless of what you say, even though it is Chalcolithic, the point still stands that aDNA has shown that in the past, Levantine people were in fact lighter.

But we can just use some simple deductions - tell me where Ashkenazi pigmentation comes from, for example...
 
https://www.cell.com/ajhg/fulltext/S0002-9297(17)30276-8

In addition, SNPs associated with phenotypic traits show that Sidon_BA and the Lebanese had comparable skin, hair, and eye colors (in general: light intermediate skin pigmentation, brown eyes, and dark hair) with similar frequencies of the underlying causal variants in SLC24A5 and HERC2, but with Sidon_BA probably having darker skin than Lebanese today from variants in SLC45A2 resulting in darker pigmentation

They were darker. And being a genetic dead-end means that the Chalcolithic samples wouldn't have overall contributed to the region's gene-pool.
 
Yeah, modern Lebanese are lighter skinned than Bronze Age Canaanites /Israelites.



Samaritans, Druze, and Christian MENAs like Palestinians have traditionally not married outside their groups and so would be spared the foreign DNA that impacted their Muslim neighbors. They are all darker than Europeans. Which goes in line with the finding that the Sidon samples from Haber's (who cluster nearest with modern Samaritans) were darker than modern Lebanese.

Ah, how could I forget this...

Races2.jpg


Second from right is an Asiatic (a Levantine, so candidate Hebrew). The Libyans (the four elaborately dressed men on the left, clearly of high social status, so it would be interesting to learn their story) actually look like modern Northern Atlantic folk, which is interesting to say the least. Far right is an Egyptian, and the black guy is Nubian. This is ancient Egyptian in origin, by the way, but a reconstruction - from similar actual pictures of the real murals, it appears the Asiatics (the candidates for Hebrew lookalikes) had somewhat of an olive hue to them, but a light olive, which is how the artist was able to mistake them for being that White.

From ancient Egyptian depictions, which are the only known depictions of Levantines to my knowledge, it appears that the ancient Hebrews could be interpreted as having the sort of skin colour of Jerry Seinfeld, and presumably somewhat lighter due to tanning:

jerry-seinfeld-net-worth.jpg


jerry-seinfeld-59.jpeg


Also, in case you go googling him, it seems some images that pop up are him with a very obvious tan, so just saying. As far as I'm aware, you can't tan in the opposite direction, though, meaning the above images can be considered representative at the darker end of the spectrum even.
 
I think this guy is a great specimen too - American Syrian Jewish Chief Rabbi Saul Kassin:

kassin.big.jpg


Shaul-Kassin-5-696x496.jpg


corruptionarrestsrabbis130420-300x300.jpg


I think you get the point of light olive-skin - that's how I see the ancient Hebrews...

8d0e7a2d869642d79c1badf576bbaf55_18.jpg


bashar-al-assad.jpg


TR1hSmz.jpg


Godspeed, Assad.
 

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