Angela
Elite member
- Messages
- 21,823
- Reaction score
- 12,329
- Points
- 113
- Ethnic group
- Italian
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
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.
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.
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.
https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology...-discovered-in-ancient-negev-church-1.6640744
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.
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.
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.