The “Jesus of Nazareth never even existed” argument is mainly advanced by a minority of atheists, but I think this is overstating the case a bit concerning references to the historical Jesus outside of the New Testament. It wasn’t really “loads of historians” so much as it was a few passing mentions; a glowing passage about Jesus in Josephus is widely suspected of having been tampered with later, and may have been a later addition in its entirety. Other reports (such as the one in Tacitus) don’t so much confirm the existence of Jesus as they do the existence of Christians, and obviously no one questions that there were Christians living in the Roman Empire; they eventually took the place over. The Historicity of Jesus FAQ on the Internet Infidels site discusses a number of the extra-Biblical references.
Really, the best evidence for Jesus’ existence is the New Testament. Beginning a few decades after his death you have first letters from his followers and later biographies. Of course modern scholars have looked at these texts and concluded that not all of the letters were necessarily written when and by whom they claim to be; that the biographies aren’t eyewitness accounts and may have borrowed from some of the same sources; and that these writers generally had ideological or theological agendas besides just giving a journalistic account of Jesus’ life. But it’s still better evidence than some stray passage in Suetonius.
Hmmm…on preview I see DaddyMack has weighed in with the “Jesus of Nazareth never existed” argument. Oh, well.
The OP is asking if we know what Jesus looked like, and it is obviously assuming that Jesus was a real person. Daddy Mack is arguing that Jesus never existed at all - we created him and his face. I think it is relevant to the OP.
I wrote this off-line to find cites, so some of it may be repeated by others, and if so, I apologize for any repeats.
I read Cecil’s article that you provided. He’s always a good read, but he devotes many paragraphs to the Shroud with this article while barely addressing these “semi-contemporary historians” to only a single brief paragraph if you’re referring to “Josephus” and “Tacitus” with this. I‘m sure if Cecil had time to elaborate and give a more detailed address to the subject, he would have mentioned that many scholars think these additions to Josephus and Tacitus’ work are probably later interpolations. Josephus remarks about Christ were not even quoted by any church father until the fourth century in Eusebius day, and he’s one of the suspects who possibly put it in there. As other scholars have noted, there are plenty of other early church fathers who needed those quotes and would have used them if they had existed. There are many Jesus’ Josephus mentions elsewhere, just not the Jesus we are looking for. Even many Christian scholars think it to be a interpolation at least with the longer passage where it mentions Christ, the other brief phrase is suspect.
For Tacitus, This too is suspect as an later interpolation. Remsberg and others state that Eusebius in the fourth century cites all of the evidences of Christianity obtained through Jewish and Pagan sources, but yet makes no mention of Tacitus. He also notes it is not quoted by any Christian writer prior to the fifteenth century. Although Remsberg’s *The Christ * was done around the turn of the 20th century, the reasons he gives for Josephus and Tacitus being suspect are probably what many scholars of today would still agree with are sound arguments. Some give other reasons. There are still more scholars and historians that think Jesus existed than not. Some of this may be attributed to most scholars having religious backgrounds. Among the higher critics, they certainly think Jesus’ historical nature is a serious question. But if you ask any of them if there is a single fact we can assert to be truthful about Jesus–I‘d like to hear if one ever gets an answer back.
Art historian crashing in;
There was a forged letter that claimed to be written by a Lentulus, governor of Judea to the senate in Rome or something of that sort, that describes JC as having long chestnut colored hair parted in the middle, etc etc., which was making the rounds in the 15th c. Appears to have been cooked up back east in the 13th or 14th C, and came west via Rome in the 1420s, and probably reflects the most popular Byzantine version of JC at the time, rather than vice versa (the western Europeans viewed anything coming from Constantinople with some credulity and assumed things in the Byzantine style were very old (as the style did stay fairly standardized for several centuries).
Just wanted to cut this one off at the pass in case someone brought it in as fact (I just ran into a credulous website, for example that claimed (based on what?) that it was found engraved in stone in Aramaic in an excavated city).
So in short by the 15th c and earlier farther east there was a document that appeared to verify the conventions that had already developed-- a sort of hidden circular arguement.
Oh, jeez, should also mention. . .
In addition to the shroud of Turin there were a couple of other “miraculous images” making the rounds in the medieval era-- the “sudarium” (Veronica’s cloth, the ‘vera icon’) and the mandylion (a similar object-- forget the story, but with a Byzantine provenance). Although the modern skeptical historian might assume that these are fakes, and reflect the taste of a tradition, they were seen as proof that the already developed convention was accurate. Same can be said for a mosaic at Sta Croce in Gerusaleme (I think) in Rome which was ordered made by St Gregory after he had his very own miraculous vision of Christ himself. More or less accurate copies of this object (prints, et al) became wildly popular, especially after a fat indulgence was associated with it. In the same manner St Luke (a painter in addition to being a doctor) was also reported to have painted the Virgin from life, and the most popular Byzantine icon type of the Virgin and Child were accepted to be very close copies of an authentic, from-life image, and the western Europeans understood icons of this sort as highly authentic depictions and dated them as very old (so there are several of the original image floating around-- anything of a Byzantine style, again, was estimated with a very early date).
So, in short again, a convention developed (arguably. . the early depictions are pretty generic-- a long haired Byzantine looking guy wasn’t too much of a stretch, really) and enough corroborating ‘evidence’ showed up over the centuries to ensure that the tradition had a healthy life.
There is a spurious, but still widely circulated description of Jesus allegedly written by onePublius Lentulus, supposedly the governor of Judea before Pilate. He is supposed to have written the following to the Roman Senate:
This pops up on a lot of web sites as “proof” of Jesus’ existence, but it seems to be a medeivel forgery. The Catholic Encyclopedia (which I linked to) affords it no credibility at all, but I thought it might be interesting to post anyway, both because some people still take it seriously, and because it’s at least something that claims to be a contemporary description.
Was just re-reading the thread and noted that someone. . . Flowbark, mentioned how early early depictions of JC have his as a young beardless man, which is interesting and I had forgotten (although these images are sometimes explained as not being OF Jesus but of a more allegorical Good Shepherd figure). I’m trying to think of examples. . . ok, in the Galla Placida mausoleaum mosaic, for one, the good shepherd is definitely Christ and has long hair but no beard. So there’s a 5th c example of that (as Father Crossen of Flowbark’s cite didn’t give an example).
Not an eyewitness, but a prophecy described him as “disfigured.”
I’ve heard it said (sorry, no cite remembered) that this was not meant as a physical description of the person, but more as a prophecy of the mostly unwelcome reception he would receive.
(1) Didn’t actor Jeffrey Hunter portray a blond, blue-eyed Jesus in the film I WAS A TEENAGE JESUS?
(2) Was portraiture uncommon among the Jews of that period? Did the Roman occupiers have any practice of making visual representations of scenes they witnessed, important personages, etc?
A PBS documentary that I saw claimed that for a while after Jesus’ time, no one drew any pictures of Jesus, since those Christians of Jewish background still considered it a sin to make an image of the man they believed to be God. When the religion spread, however, those of non-Jewish descent felt no such restrictions. However, not having seen Jesus, they modeled him after thier own God, Zeus.
I’m not sure how much I bought the part about the image of Jesus being taken from Zeus, since the comparison morph they showed didn’t look anything alike.
I was once told that drawing of Jesus depict him as having long hair based on a mistake that some thought he was a Nazarite (a Jewish sect who did not cut their hair or drink grape juice/wine), not a Nazareen (people from Nazareth).
As Christianity spread, each culture imagined him looking like their own people. You virtually never see him depicted as looking stereotypically Jewish.
Only His mother was Jewish. God, the Father, was not limited in His influence upon the creation of His Son’s physical body. At least, that has always been my view of this matter.
This is probably backwards. Archaeological evidence shows that the village of Nazereth probably did not exist before the second century. The the mistake in Nazarite/Nazarene was very likely the other way around.
Even if “only his mother was Jewish” this would still, by definition, make Jesus a Jew. I don’t really know what your point is here, but even if you buy into the virgin birth (a late tradition, unknown by Paul) you would still have to say that 100% of Jesus’ DNA was Jewish, since presumably, God does not have DNA (not being a biological organism and all). Jesus was a Jew, by birth, by culture and by religion.
One could probably guess that he had charisma in order to gather disciples, draw the crowds, and generally incite the people enough for the authorities to kill him.
But since the New Testament doesn’t say anything particular about his appearance, I assume that he was pretty much average. I’m thinking about the representations of Buddha, he was supposed to have some peculiar characteristics which were recorded for posterity.
I just got finished looking at this article. Did it strike anybody else as being INCREDIBLY STUPID?
If I follow the technique aright, they used a skull of a Hebrew man that lived at about the same time as Jesus, and took data for details like hair and eye color from an average sample of the current Semitic population. All very interesting, but how the hell is that supposed to add up to Jesus?! That’s like taking the head of some random 18th century slob, pasting on some skin and expecting it to look like George Washington.
Man, I’m starting to think that you can’t trust the Popular Mechanics to provide reliable theological insights.
