Will the Real Jesus Stand Up? 
Think about it..........................

 Haven't you ever wondered how Jesus really looked?  We have no photographs, no life paintings, no descriptions!  The first drawings were 500 years after Jesus.  Some relatively new research in this regard has revealed results that were quite surprising: 

There was a lot of early debate about Jesus' appearance.  Many felt since Jesus was the result of a miraculous birth, how he looked was more divine will than biology.  Others however insisted that  Jesus must have inherited his mother's characteristics, as well as the lineage of King David, according to the prophecies.

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A sculpture of Jesus by a forensic artist, Richard Neave, who studied the skeletons and DNA from first century Jerusalem.    
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Matthew's description of the events in Gethsemene offers an obvious clue to the face of Jesus....a typical Galilean Semite.

Neave acquired skulls and skeletons from near Jerusalem, the time and region where Jesus lived and preached. Using the latest technology, he reconstructed the typical face of that era.  He determined that Jesus was dark skinned with a height about 5 ft. 1 in. Since Jesus worked as a carpenter until age 30, it seemed reasonable to assume he was more muscular with a weather beaten face which would make him appear older. From Paul's writings, he learned that short hair was the preferred style.  And from coins and drawings of that era, that Jesus hair was probably curly, nappy as wool. Of course, Neave only claims that it is a likely likeness.

This kind of image is strange to us because through the ages most artists depicted him as part of their own culture.  The familiar paintings resulted from the claim of Church Fathers that Jesus must have been ideally beautiful in face and body.  For the Roman church this meant a fair haired, fair skinned Jesus, a European Jesus. 
 
"The fact that he probably looked a great deal more like a darker-skinned Semite than westerners are used to seeing him pictured is a reminder of his universality," says Charles D. Hackett, director of Episcopal studies at the Candler School of Theology in Atlanta. "And [it is] a reminder of our tendency to sinfully appropriate
him in the service of our cultural values."