BS: What did Jesus look like?

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: woodsie
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 09:13 AM

Son of god, so he must have looked liked Eric Clapton.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: JennyO
Date: 03 Sep 06 - 10:19 AM

Well when I was a kid, I always pictured God as looking something like a cross between Gandalf and Slartibartfast, so I guess Jesus would have to be a sorta younger version.

Hell I don't know. Why does it matter?

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 11:54 AM

What always makes me grin is the religious nutters who, when they have a biscuit, a cow turd, or whatever, that seems to have an image of a face on, if it looks female they say it MUST be the Virgin Mary and if it is male it MUST be Jesus. Why for X sake? I'm as likely as the next man to try to identify images in clouds or flames etc., but why such accidental images would be thought to be supernatural or religious I can't imagine.
RtS
(end of rant, grumpy old bugger signing off)

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 05:03 PM

I agree, Roger. I've never understood the compulsion to 'identify' an image as being someone specific and most especially someone so significant to so many people.

If those images appear in response to some mysterious event why could not that event have been the death of someone close to someone who somehow effected the image? In other words, if a human mind or psyche is capable of conjuring up an image of any sort, isn't it more likely that the image would have significance only to the person who possesses that mind?

If my husband had just died and I was grieving and my grief somehow imprinted an image onto a stone wall or a cowpie or a potato it certainly would have as much or more validity as an image that someone else comes along and identifies as Jesus or the Virgin Mary.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 06:12 PM

Boy. The stuff you people go on about. It's a wonder you ever came down out of the trees! ;-) Ook! Ook!

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 04 Sep 06 - 09:03 PM

>>Are people of Asian/White ancestry White? Yes, according to this inclusive definition of White. Even if they look like whatever people used to think Asians looked like {brown skin, yellow skin}, if they have any White ancestry what so ever, they can say they're White and be enthusiatically accepted into that race.<<

From personal experience, it's quite the other way around. Legally, hapa people in America are Asian-American and not white:

See, e.g., In re Ah Yup (1878) (Chinese are not White); In re Camille 1880) (persons half white and Native American are not White); In re Kanaka Nian (1889) (Hawaiians are not White); In re Hong Yen Chang (1890) (Chinese are not White); In re Po (1894) (Burmese are not White); In re Saito (1894) (Japanese are not White); In re Burton (1900) (Native Americans are not White); In re Knight (1909) (persons half White, one-quarter Japanese, and one-quarter Chinese are not White); In re Balsara (1909) (Asian Indians are not White); In re Najour (1909) (Syrians are White); In re Halladjian (1909) (Armenians are White); Bessho v. United States (1910) (Japanese are not White); In re Alverto (1912) (persons three-quarters Filipino and one-quarter White are not White); In re Young (1912) (persons half German and half Japanese are not White); In re Akhay Kumar Mozumdar (1913) (Asian Indians are White); Ex parte Dow (1914) (Syrians are not White); Petition of Easurk Emsen Charr (1921) (Koreans are not White); Ozawa v. United States (1922) (Japanese are not White); United States v. Thind (1923) (Asian Indians are not White); United States v. Ali (1925) (Punjabis are not White); In re Feroz Din (1928) (Afghanis are not White); United States v. Gokhale (1928) (Asian Indians are not White); De La Ysla v. United States (1935) (Filipinos are not White); De Cano v. State (1941) (Filipinos are not White); Kharaiti Ram Samras v. United States (1942) (Asian Indians are not White); In re Ahmed Hassan (1942) (Arabians are not White); Ex parte Mohriez (1944) (Arabians are White).

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,FUNNY
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 02:16 PM

WHITEYS ARE ALWAYS CHANGING SCRIPTURES IN THE BIBLE..ONE TIME THE BIBLE SAID HIS HAIR WAS LIKE WOOL...NOW THEY CHANGED IT TOO "HIS HAIR WAS WHITE LIKE SHEEPS WOOL"...WHITEYS ALWAYS HAVE A AGENDY AND THE AGENDY IS WHITE SUPERMACY

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 02:45 PM

Aggressive people, whether they are white, black, yellow, brown, or red, always have an agenda, and their agenda is to be top dog and to dominate and control others whatever way they can. The top dog is the one who does the loudest and the most barking...specially WHEN IT'S ALL IN CAPITALS!

The top dog can't understand why the other dogs don't like being under his "thumb", but he doesn't really give a damn. The top dog has no idea that he is totally obnoxious and that the world would be better off without him.

And the same is true of you, GUEST, FUNNY. You're not funny, but you are a joke nevertheless.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,bones
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 12:39 PM

what does it matter ,he died for the whole world that is the greatest gift anyone can give.here is a point how many black serial killer r in prison? not many witch realy has nothing to do with anything.there r good people and thee r bad people just treat people the way u your self would like 2 b treated.from where jesus is from i would like 2 think he would have olive skin ,hair of wool.short hair.this has allways caused problems,just remember opinoins r like a butt hole we all have one.i respect yours if u respect mine ,fine now let go have a beer an talk about something else.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: mg
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 01:00 PM

Controlling people always sooner or later come back to that all caps things, which one of them made up. mg

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Mar 08 - 01:42 PM

Some folks say he looks a lot like me.



No, wait - that's Ol' Slewfoot ...

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 11:01 AM

no one's ever done him as a bald bloke.

So here's a good ecumenical point we can all agree on. he wasn't a baldy head.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Cassy
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 11:43 AM

When I was a kid I was told he looked like this
... but then I never exactly looked like one of those kids either :)

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 04:03 PM

"What did Jesus look like?"


                He looked like he was trying to find the answers in all the wrong places.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,Al no cookie
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 04:25 PM

Oi vey.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: gnu
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 04:53 PM

A tad pissed off in the end, I would think.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 05:58 PM

There's a traditional catholic churcr in Leicester that I have been to that has various images of Jesus on the cross, they are all different, and all but one are white.

The last is a crucifix with a black man on it, with African features, hair and eyes.

The priests are your typical old Irish (stereotype would extend this to reactionary, racist etc) parish priests.

here is no issue about it, it is just there, above an altar, beside the door out of which the priests and altar boys process into and out of the Mass.



Seperately, I seem to remember something from RE in school where we read from a document in which an eye witness refers to getting a glimpse of Jesus over the heads of a throng of people, in which he is described as being dark with thin frizzy hair.

Hardly the most reliable or otherwise helpful historical source for you to digest, however meriting at least a brief mention in my view.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: gnu
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 06:32 PM

Jesus comes in many ways. How he comes to you is what is important.

He came to me one Sunday morn, at about 4AM. Enough said.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Mar 08 - 08:25 PM

With regard to GUEST,FUNNY's comment of 07 Sep 06 - 02:16 PM {which I've just read}, the fact that that poster may or may not be funny {as in "ha ha" funny} or the fact that that poster writes in caps, does not negate the point that he or she made.

While I vehemently "reject and denouce" Guest Funny's use of the word racially offensive referent "Whitey", and his {or her} lumping all White people together as promoters of a White supremacy agenda, I believe that Funny's larger point may be valid.

Although I've no documentation to prove or disprove it, I've read that some Biblical scholars or some church congregations changed the Biblical verse which described Jesus' hair as being like lamb's wool to a translation that refers to Jesus' hair being the color of lamb's wool. If this was indeed done, the reason for this change in translation seems clear to me-hair like lamb's wool also can be a description of the hair texture of many people of African descent.
And those pastors/theologians-who may have had some overt or covert racism they had not acknowledged {or maybe they knew they were racist and that was a-okay with them}, wanted to remove that particular lamb's wool Biblical reference and any other Biblical reference that might confirm Jesus' physical appearance as being the same as or similar to the phsyical appearance of a Black or a Brown person.

Again, though I don't agree with the way Funny made his point, he did make a possible valid point.

**

just remember opinoins r like a butt hole we all have one.i respect yours if u respect mine ,fine now let go have a beer an talk about something else
-bones 15 Mar 08 - 12:39 PM]

Guest Bones, that's an interesting way of saying "different strokes for different folks" or "YMMV"-Your mileage may vary" and even if it does, people may or may not still be able to get along {with each other}, but they should at least try.

I say Amen! and I "second that emotion".

I hope that you continue expressing yourself on Mudcat. Or maybe you are doing so but I've just not recognized the name.

Be that as it may, let me say to you Bones, "Write On!"

:o)

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:46 AM

Which verse is that Azizi?

Of course, having been brought up a Catholic, I KNOW what Jesus looked like. He was really scary, he had his heart on the outside.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Thompson
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:02 AM

A programme a couple of years ago investigated this question, and tracked down a family who were apparently direct descendants of the people who lived in the area when Jesus lived there.

They were blue- and green-eyed, fair-skinned and brown-haired; the programme-makers then proceeded to show black-eyed, dark-skinned, black-haired people, voiceovering breathily: "So this is how Mary might have looked..."

In fact, since the Bible doesn't mention much about how he looked, he probably looked deeply ordinary.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:06 AM

Indeed,

It would seem in keeping with the character described in the Gospels and other associated texts that he wasn't glamorous.

We would probably describe his appearance as ugly by todays advertising industry standards.

And he certainly wouldn't have been bothered.

He never intended to appeal to vain people, being preoccupied with a more enduring beauty.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: skarpi
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 07:41 AM

!!!!!!!!(((((((( LOVE )))))))!!!!!!!! he was a man kind with a lot of love and care .


that is who he looked like a BIG LOVE , but some mankind full of greedy
and power blinded of that they they took it away from those who would follow hill , be able to give away from your self to help others
that is a gift we all have.

But Sadly in this world of man kind not everyone things like that.

atb Skarpi

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,Jonny Sunshine
Date: 17 Mar 08 - 04:26 PM

As a T-shirt I once saw said " Jesus had long hair (and look what happened to him)"

But seriously, we have nothing to go on, other than the reasonable assumption that he (sorry, He) was a Jew. Most of what we "know" about Jesus is faith and interpretation rather than verifiable historical fact, so what He actually looked like is really irrelevant.

How people represent Jesus is a different matter..

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 02:50 PM

How 'bout this representation of Jesus?

http://www.joyfulnoiseletter.com/risen_Christ.asp

Yes, he still looks more European than he should, but other than that, this piece of artwork shows a fairly radical new take on his spirituality and, well, attitude. I kinda like it.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 03:54 PM

Looks like he's got a Bud in the other hand ...

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Thompson
Date: 18 Mar 08 - 05:25 PM

Of course there are two Jesuses - the young radical rabbi with his message of peace, intransigence and stringent Judaism, and Paul's reworking of his message as a messianic cult.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 02:45 PM

"What did Jesus look like?"


                He might have looked like he was confused!

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:14 PM

I think he looked like every mother's son.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: MaineDog
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:15 PM

It's clear that His appearance was quite unremarkable. Eealy in his career he was able to pass through a crowd and escape, when they were attempting to throw him over a cliff.
Later on, the Romans had to get Judas to betray him, because, again, He looked like any other Jew, He didn't stand out at all, even from the company of eleven disciples.
MD

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 03:41 PM

Interesting...no stage outfit for the gigs then?

Most priests and preachers do something to draw the attention. I mean he wasn't a fool - he would have done what was necessary.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:02 PM

Yeah, look what Jeramiah Wright does to draw attention to himself!

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Bee
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 04:36 PM

I noticed the Shroud of Turin came up.

http://www.sillybeliefs.com/shroud.html

Quote: "There are serious anatomical problems with the image. Jesus' face, body, arms, and fingers were unnaturally thin and elongated (like figures in Gothic art), his left forearm was longer than his right, and his right hand is too long. The man is impossibly tall, being 6ft 8in (2.03m). The head is disproportionately small for the body, the face unnaturally narrow and the forehead foreshortened, and ears lost. The front and back images, in particular of the head, do not match up precisely, and the back image is around 2 inches (5cm) longer than the front. The back of the head is wider than the front of the head. The Shroud image is, in fact, so unusually very long and narrow that one pro-Shroud pathologist suggested that Jesus must have had Marfan's syndrome!"

So, if the Shroud is authentic, then Jesus was a skinny giant with a small, misshapen head, and one short arm, who appeared to have a serious genetic disorder. You'd think one of the Apostles might have mentioned that in passing...

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,sinky
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 05:03 PM

like that hairy guy who plays rugby for france

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 05:06 PM

"...the face unnaturally narrow and the forehead foreshortened, and ears lost."


                         You gotta wonder how he lost his ears, huh?

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Donuel
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 06:05 PM

There is a beautiful 2 part documentary on PBS titled the face of Jesus. The art alone is worth a viewing.

Semetic people are certainly bronze in color.

Don't believe a word Jorn said. He was the original sexist and racist "Republican" of the bunch. He sold out Mary in a heartbeat.
He may have been a closet gay jealous SOB for all I know.


White people are merely a recent adaptation to living in sunless/low sun level enviorments. The advantage is in being able to synthesize vitamin D in low light conditions by allowing more light to reach receptors in the skin. or so I've been told.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Slag
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 06:46 PM

Well, you knew I'd chime in at some point, didn't you? First let me say that some of you are never going to get it that Little Hawk is nothing but a figment of that crazy simian, Chongo. He baits you and you all go for it every time!

So, what did the Apostle Paul really look like? How about Saint John the Divine? Andy Devine? Zachariah? Daniel? Who really cares?

The Isaiah prophecy say that he (the Messiah) would be very ordinary in appearance. In the negative, he wouldn't be head and shoulders above the rest (contrast with the image of King Saul), he wouldn't be handsome and when the mobs were through with him, he wouldn't be recognizable at any rate (Isaiah 53)! If you think about it theologically, you would see that if it was the physical appearance of him that drew the crowds it would be a thing of the flesh, not of the spirit. It was the words of Jesus that both attracted and repelled people.

But! There is some internal evidence of his appearance. When he was seen in public the people hailed him as "Rabbi" that is, as a Jewish religious teacher and as such he must have worn the traditional garb and his hair and facial hair would have looked very much like the Hasidim of today, the orthodox Jews. If you don't want to view him as divine consider the accounts of how he escaped the Pharisees on several occasions. He just turned into the crowd and was lost from view. The perfect spy who looks like everybody and nobody at all.

I'm really tempted to sermonize but I will spare you. Just think about what the ones who nailed him to the cross looked like? I think they looked a lot like you and me.

Lastly for you who don't believe that Jesus was a historical reality; isn't it then all the more amazing how much this one non-existent person change the entire world? It also strikes me as to how the followers of this non-existent person were willing and able to face the most grim and torturous deaths rather than deny him. And among those who laid down their lives were those who claimed to have known him during his time upon the Earth.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 08:19 PM

I have it on good authority that Jesus looked a lot like Weelittledrummer...to begin with. And he sounded a fair bit like Rinslinger too.

But he realized that that just wouldn't do!

So when he went to the Mystery Schools in Egypt, he got a complete makeover and training in posture, elocution, and presentation that radically altered his appearance into one far more suitable for his public role.

The rest is history. ;-)

Damn good thing about those fashion and posture consultants at the Mystery Schools. Without them, you'd all still be worshipping Baal!

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 09:19 PM

You just can't argue with success!

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Mar 08 - 09:21 PM

So true.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Slag
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 01:29 AM

So Chongo! You're a mystery to me!

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 03:30 AM

Why else d'you think Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a musical about him - he recognised a kindred spirit. The Showbiz zeitgeist!

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 05:58 AM

I don't kno nuffink about scheitgeist WLD, but I knew Jesus and you ain't no Jesus. First, those two fingers are supposed to be together and the other way round. Second, you not got no stingmata. Fourth, your heart aint on the outside. And tenth and lastly, you can't turn water into wine.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 09:04 AM

Ossama Bin Laden released an audio tape yesterday vowing that recent European cartoons showing the face of Mohammed will not go unavenged.

The 13th century of the war between inconoclasts and anti-iconoclasts is still hanging on with the help of the some ol religion of peace Islam.

Religious nuts of Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths have at one time or another decreed that picturing the face of dieties is a sin.

Eastern faiths have not run into this kind of intolerent idiocy to my knowledge. In fact they have always relied on the artful hand of man to demonstrate the various aspects of God. They have even depicted the aspect of the unknowable.
Of course to the muslim Taliban the 3,000 year old statues of Budda must be destroyed.

By the Way... the nose of the Great Sphinx was defaced by a muslim fundamentalist and not Napolean cannon fire as historic rumor implied.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: GUEST,PMB
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 09:19 AM

picturing the face of dieties is a sin... and rightly too!.

By the way, the Bamyan Buddhas were "only" about 1500 years old, not 3000- that would put them 500 years older than Buddha himself. And what would Gautama have said about them I wonder? Statues are objects, material possessions, and what goes up must come down?

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 09:26 AM

I think he was probably fat, bald, and with buck teeth.

I defy anyone to show that I'm wrong.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 09:56 AM

Good editorial correction PMB

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Donuel
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 09:57 AM

Uncle Dave, you have described Budda. you might be on to something.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Ruth Archer
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 10:13 AM

I dunno if this has been pointed out yet, but the accepted gospels are only a fraction of the earliest writings about Christ. The Gnostic Gospels, or Apocrypha, comprise another 20-odd "books" of writings. The 4 recognised gospels which comprise the New Testament were legitimised by the early church, but that doesn't make them any "truer" than the Gnostic Gopels, which hold a wealth of information about Jesus and his times. But the early Christian Spin Doctors threw out the bits they didn't like.

The idea that we have a prescribed set text of "facts" about Jesus in the New Testament is flawed, and without the Gnostic Gospels there can only ever be a fragment of the informaton and ideas which comprised the original Christian faith(s).


I was taught by nuns from southern Italy who used to tell us great stories about Christ's childhood that were drawn from the Apocrypha; I've been told since that they could have ben excommunicated for this. I remember the story in the English folk song The Bitter Withy being told to us, about Jesus drowning the princes who wouldn't let him play with them; and another about how Jesus used to carve birds in Joseph's workshop and breathe life into them, so that they flew around.

Of course, according to the accepted gospels, his frst miracle wasn't till Caana.

Subject: RE: BS: What did Jesus look like?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Mar 08 - 12:19 PM

Yes, there is an absolute wealth of information to be found in writings about Jesus that were NOT included in the officially sanctioned Bible as we know it. That is a fact that seems to escape most people, both Christians and non-Christians. They spend their whole lives either using the Bible as the one and only true source about Jesus...or attacking it as the one and only false source about Jesus.

In either case they are missing the forest over one particular small grove of trees.