What Did Jesus Really Look Like? [PHOTO]

The standard
depiction of Jesus
is an odd
assortment of
Western, anglo
features with a
backdrop of the
Middle East. One
BBC television
program,
however, has attempted to show a different
side of the Christian messiah.
In truth, there may not even be a standard
depiction of Jesus so much as there is a
commercialized depiction of him. One
religious studies professor explains.
"While Western imagery is dominant, in other
parts of the world he is often shown as black,
Arab or Hispanic," notes Carlos F. Cardoza-
Orlandi, associate professor of world
Christianity at Columbia Theological Seminary
in Atlanta.
With the identity of Jesus Christ still largely
up for debate, the BBC program "Son Of God"
aims to construct his face with the most
advanced techniques available. The
construction was not easy, as Mike Fillon (who
followed the researchers during their
reconstruction) notes:
"There are very strong rabbinical laws in
Israel that you cannot tamper with a skull or
any bones, so they needed to reconstruct the
skull. Using a cat scan, which is very common
in hospitals, they were able to recreate the
skull precisely and make a cast of it. Then
they put small wooden pegs, based on
anthropological data, to figure out what the
muscle structure and the skin would look like,
and so they layered that on using clay-like
substances."
As you can see in the picture above, the BBC's
rendition of Jesus's face is anything but
normal. He appears to have a much wider
nose, brutish face, and darker skin than his
popularized counterparts. Not everyone is
buying it, however.
"Unless you believe all first-century male
residents of Israel to have looked identical,
with Judas the mirror image of Christ and
Lazarus the absolute spit of the crucified
robber... the exercise in reconstruction is
pointless." says Catherine Bennett of The
Guardian.
The facial reconstruction did have some merit
in giving a general idea of what he may have
looked like. The researchers studied
archaelogical data from Jesus's time and also
pored over the Bible for clues, realizing,
among other things, that is is unlikely he
would have long hair given the sentiments
found in the book. They acknowledge that this
facial reconstruction is only a guess, however.
"In reconstructing this head, we are not
claiming that this is exactly Jesus' face, but we
are trying to counteract all of those bad
images of blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesuses
running around in Hollywood productions."
says the Israeli archaeologist Joey Zias.