Seeking and Finding Wholeness

Why do people think Jesus had a European looks (long soft blond hair and green/blue eyes)?

The above photo is the face of Jim Caviezel, who plays Jesus in the movie “The Passion of the Christ,” is similar to many modern-day images of Jesus.

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Do you remember your childhood memories of Jesus?

Do you remember seeing images of him in bibles, posters, Sunday school literature or seeing conceptualization of Jesus in statues?

If you are White or Hispanic, Catholic or Protestant (even Orthodox or Evangelical,Born Again, Baptist etc) you just may remember a blond Jesus with long hair.

One famous image of Jesus was a painting by Warner Sallman, called “The Head of Christ” (1940). It showedd Jesus with flowing blond hair and blue eyes. He’s clean-looking, safe, passive, and even feminine to a degree.

This is Sallman’s Jesus:

Let us take a look at more conceptualizations of Jesus from around the world,

The image above is from a popular Children’s Bible (popular in the 70′s), Jesus had blond, blue-eyed Jesus throughout

The image above is of Jesus is from Ethiopia, from the 17th or 18th centuries.

The image above is from a church in Rome, dates from AD530.

The image above of a black Jesus surfaced in the 1960s, artist and source are unknown

The image above is a portrait based on the image on the Shroud of Turin, which is believed by some Christians to be the burial shroud of Jesus. It is of a man estimated to be 5′ 11?” to 6′ 2″ tall.

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Arguably, the most accurate depiction of what Jesus would have looked like is this:

Richard Neave, a medical artist retired from the University of Manchester in England, and a team of researchers: “… started with an Israeli skull dating back to the 1st century. They then used computer programs, clay, simulated skin and their knowledge about the Jewish people of the time to determine the shape of the face, and color of eyes and skin.” source

I am not saying that we can be a 100% sure what Jesus looked like, or that he was about 5 feet tall and had dark wavy hair and dark eyes.

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The images above show how humans tend to domesticate a deity, creating Jesus in their own image.

Take home:

Many took the idea of Jesus and “customized” it, by making him look familiar by making him in their image.

The real Jesus, his real life, his actions and his messages have also been “customized” by organized religious institutions leading to alterations and omissions. The real Jesus and his life history have, at best, been altered or totally lost in history, that is assuming that he did exist.

Just wanted to share these thoughts with you.

now go,

in love and peace

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