It’s actually a good question.
John the Baptist is not mentioned as often as Jesus but he is described. John’s clothes were made of camel’s hair, and he had a leather belt around his waist. His food was locusts and wild honey.
Everything we learn from the Bible about Jesus is that he was the light to the world, and the word who became man.
Why is this?
Well, it is because the Bible itself says that John the Baptist was Elijah, and Elijah was described exactly so.
chiribi said
I have read about this, but would like to hear the opinion of people here. I have also raised the issue with Bart and hope that he will give us his take on it at some point.
The earliest church tradition is a 2. century quote from Celsus, saying that he was ugly and small.
Well I think we can be pretty sure that white hippie Jesus in a bathrobe is probably not accurate. Paul mocks long hair on men in 1 Corinthians but of course he never met Jesus in the flesh. Dark complected, medium height? Just the sort of person who would get the boot if he showed up in many of the churches in America.
What’s always fascinated me is the question of his age. We normally thing of a thirty year old as he’s imagined in the tradition and portrayed in the movies as a young man, but in Jesus’ day that would have been pretty old as most people would have been dead by then.
Judith said
gavriel, Would women have bathed Jesus’ feet with their tears and dryed them with their hair if he had been short and ugly?
Quite possible, if they had confidence in him. If the feet-washing story is true, it would not have been motivated by physical appearance. Further, a second century source is not very reliable, so I’m afraid we shall never know anything about this.
Judith said
gavriel, Would women have bathed Jesus’ feet with their tears and dryed them with their hair if he had been short and ugly?
Look at how ugly Charlie Manson is/was. He had quite the harem and was getting it several times a day. In a cult of personality you can convince or compel the right people to do just about anything. I’m not saying this is how it was for Jesus, but some people can make others do things they wouldn’t normally do and looks have nothing to do with it.
In the Bible it is said that there was nothing to admire about his appearance. And it has been speculated that he must have been average in appearance — relative to the typical first century jew in that part of the world — since Judas had to identify him among the group. Further, the Bible says on various occasions that he would dissappear in the crowds, which would have been hard to do if we think of him as looking like one of those Hollywood actors.
I have read that he had dark, curly hair, with a short beard, a moustache, and a long nose. And that he was muscular, like you would expect somebody working with wood and stones/rocks to be at that time, given the tools available to people who worked with their hands.
I have seen a couple of documentaries on TV about his appearance. In one of them he looked as described above; in the other, like he is presented in those calendars in which he appears with dark eyes.
As for his stature, the reports have fluctuated from 5’1″ to 5’7″. Not higher than that, which would not be consistent with the notion that the Shroud of Turin was the real thing, since the man of the shroud must have been around 6’1″.
gavriel said
chiribi said
I have read about this, but would like to hear the opinion of people here. I have also raised the issue with Bart and hope that he will give us his take on it at some point.The earliest church tradition is a 2. century quote from Celsus, saying that he was ugly and small.
This is nothing strange. This is precisely how the suffering servant was described by Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
The suffering servant was not Jesus. ALL Rabbis will explain why.
Jesus never suffered anything other than half a day of flogging and death. Most people suffer far worse.
John the Baptist said he wasn’t Elijah. It was foretold that Elijah would appear before the Messiah and so that must have dealt a blow to the early Christians. The transfiguration didn’t count.
The prophecy said that when the real Messiah comes, peace will reign on the earth. Has it in the last 2000 years?
Dismiss Isaaih 53 as that is nowt to do with Jesus and anyway, it says God delighted in making Israel suffer. Also it says God will prolong his offspring. Jesus didn’t have any and obviously was referring to Israel.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of a myth that is used the whole time by Christians to justify a prophecy and Jesus as the Messiah.
MikeyS said
The suffering servant was not Jesus. ALL Rabbis will explain why.Jesus never suffered anything other than half a day of flogging and death. Most people suffer far worse.
John the Baptist said he wasn’t Elijah. It was foretold that Elijah would appear before the Messiah and so that must have dealt a blow to the early Christians. The transfiguration didn’t count.
The prophecy said that when the real Messiah comes, peace will reign on the earth. Has it in the last 2000 years?
Dismiss Isaaih 53 as that is nowt to do with Jesus and anyway, it says God delighted in making Israel suffer. Also it says God will prolong his offspring. Jesus didn’t have any and obviously was referring to Israel.
But don’t let the facts get in the way of a myth that is used the whole time by Christians to justify a prophecy and Jesus as the Messiah.
Wow! Okay, I understand.
Stephen said
Well I think we can be pretty sure that white hippie Jesus in a bathrobe is probably not accurate. Paul mocks long hair on men in 1 Corinthians but of course he never met Jesus in the flesh. Dark complected, medium height? Just the sort of person who would get the boot if he showed up in many of the churches in America.What’s always fascinated me is the question of his age. We normally thing of a thirty year old as he’s imagined in the tradition and portrayed in the movies as a young man, but in Jesus’ day that would have been pretty old as most people would have been dead by then.
LOL
moose said
gavriel said
chiribi said
I have read about this, but would like to hear the opinion of people here. I have also raised the issue with Bart and hope that he will give us his take on it at some point.The earliest church tradition is a 2. century quote from Celsus, saying that he was ugly and small.
This is nothing strange. This is precisely how the suffering servant was described by Isaiah.
Isaiah 53:
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3 He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
Could be, but in this case it would indicate that Celsus, an opponent of Christianity, lifted his view on smallness and uglyness from Christian sources. It is hard to say if the earliest Christians found Isaiah fitting to historical reality or if they invented “historical reality” by accepting every detail found in Isaiah. If one (for other reasons) accepts the hypothesis of a historical Jesus, it is reasonable to conclude that these early Christians found many matching elements between the Jesus they knew, and the description of The Suffering Servant. Or else they would not have considered Isaiah 53 to be prophesying on Jesus. Secondly, over time they also came to accept elements in Isaiah which did not originally match. Therefor it is difficult to say what was in the original set of matching elements. Jesus was perhaps small, insignificant and ugly, or they deduced it from Isaiah. Who knows?
I don’t think Isaiah 53 helps at all in determining Jesus’ physical appearance. We can only assume he looked more or less representative of Jews in the first century. The earliest visual depiction we have of a Jew is in a third century synagogue in Syria. The person depicted has dark olive toned skin with a short cropped beard and short curly black hair. Of course that’s like comparing hair styles between now and 1815!
Useful to remember that Judas had to point him out at Jesus’ arrest. Probably looked fairly typical.
Stephen said
I don’t think Isaiah 53 helps at all in determining Jesus’ physical appearance. We can only assume he looked more or less representative of Jews in the first century. The earliest visual depiction we have of a Jew is in a third century synagogue in Syria. The person depicted has dark olive toned skin with a short cropped beard and short curly black hair. Of course that’s like comparing hair styles between now and 1815!Useful to remember that Judas had to point him out at Jesus’ arrest. Probably looked fairly typical.
It is a fairly strong hypothesis that the early Christians searched Scripture for passages that were thought to prophesy the coming of Jesus. Possibly they read Isaiah 53:1-3 and found that since it speaks of an unimpressive figure, they thought that it fitted Jesus, who they knew had an unimpressive appearance. At least it cannot be ruled out. It may be more likely than not. They certainly did not find anything about the Messiah, so that part of it was not a fit.
The “average” view doesn’t help much – every ethnic-cultural unit in any society has a fairly wide distribution of facial/bodily types. One may construct an average of this, but it says nothing, except excluding a blond, straight-nosed Jesus. The singling out of Jesus by Judas at dark night to a guard who scarcely knew him, doesn’t help neither. It is a good guess to think that he was unimpressive, physically, for reasons given.
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.
I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
gavriel said
chiribi said
Following your logic, to say that he was “unimpressive” does not help much either, as there are many individual differences in terms of what people find impressive.I agree, but it is something in place of nothing, in addition to what we know about the average physical properties of people from this area in ancient times. Also, there is nothing in Isaiah that supports “uglyness”, so that may be some kind of polemic introduced by Celsus.
Maybe LXX says it clearer?
he has no form nor comeliness; and we saw him, but he had no form nor beauty. 3 But his form was ignoble, and inferior to that of the children of men;
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