What did
Jesus look like? Unfortunately, no one knows the answer to this question but
one thing we can be sure of is that he did not look like the image portrayed in
art and movies.
Jesus was a
Jew from Palestine which means that his skin was darker than those of us from
Norwegian ancestry. Most Jewish men in Jesus’ day wore long untrimmed beards
(think Duck Dynasty) and there is no reason to think Jesus was any exception. We
don’t know how long Jesus’ hair was but I wonder if the image of a long-haired
Jesus comes from confusing Nazarene with Nazarite. Jesus was a Nazarene, i.e. someone from
Nazareth, but we have no reason to believe he was a Nazarite which is someone
who took a religious vow that involved not cutting one’s hair (like Samson).
Jesus was an
itinerant Jewish prophet, which meant that he and his disciples traveled from
town to town along dirty, dusty, and sometimes muddy roads littered with the
droppings sheep, goats and other animals. Bathing and oral hygiene was a luxury
that Jesus and his disciples probably rarely enjoyed. As a result they were
often dirty, sweaty, stinky and may have had bad breath! In other words, the
image of a nicely groomed and squeaky clean Caucasian Jesus with pearly white
teeth is the stuff of pious western imagination. This much is pretty certain.
I’d like to
press a bit further, however, and propose that Jesus may have been a physically
large man. I would imagine Jesus something like a bearded Jewish version of
Hoss (Dan Blocker) in the old Bonanza TV series, or Michael Oher, the Baltimore
Raven’s tackle who was portrayed as a gentle giant in the movie, Blind Side.
People in
Jesus’ day tended to be smaller than they are today so I’m not suggesting that
Jesus was actually 6’4” or 300 pounds like Dan Blocker or Michael Oher. I am
suggesting, however, that Jesus, like Saul in the Old Testament, may have stood
head and shoulders above the rest—and was probably powerfully built. In the
Gospels Jesus is described as a carpenter (Matthew 13:55). A carpenter may have
made furniture. On the other hand, a carpenter may also have worked with large,
heavy beams for building construction. The Greek word for carpenter could also
mean stone-cutter. If so, it would mean that Jesus regularly worked with large
stones. Working with heavy beams or large stones would tend to make someone
quite strong.
Let’s adopt the
idea of a large, powerfully built Jesus as a hypothesis. The strength of any
hypothesis is its explanatory power and this hypothesis would explain several
pieces of evidence in the Gospels.
First, it
would explain why Jesus was attacked for being a glutton (Matthew 11:19). After
all, no one calls a skinny person a glutton no matter how much they eat.
Olympic swimmers, for example, may consume thousands of calories but no one
accuses them of gluttony because they are thin.
Second, it
would explain why no one is ever recorded as trying to stop Jesus when he
overturned the money changers in the temple. If Jesus was just average size, why
wouldn’t someone stand up to confront this man who was destroying their
livelihood in front of their very eyes?
Third, why
is it that the Gospels only record Jesus as having been confronted by groups of
people—never by individuals? Numerous times
in the Gospels people get so outraged at Jesus they want to kill him, but no
one ever dares to shove him down and tell him to shut up. Perhaps the Gospels
just don’t record such instances, or perhaps Jesus mere physical appearance was
enough to intimidate most would-be attackers.
Fourth, a
large Jesus would explain a very puzzling story surrounding his preaching in
the synagogue in Nazareth. The crowd became outraged and “drove him out of the
town” and intended to throw him off a cliff. Once they got to their
destination, the text says “he walked right through the crowd and went on his
way” (Luke 4:28-30). This could be explained as a miracle but there might be a
more down-to-earth explanation. Suppose Jesus passively allowed himself to be
driven out of town but, because “his time had not yet come,” he would not allow
himself to be thrown off a cliff. Perhaps he then turned on his captors (maybe
throwing a few of them aside like tables in the Temple courtyard) and then
walked through the crowd with no one person daring to be the first to try to
stop him.
Fifth, one
might wonder whether his size was a contributing factor in his early death.
Scholars have long noted that people generally survived crucifixion much longer
than Jesus did. This could have been supernatural. After all, Jesus did give up
the spirit—No one took it from him. Without denying that Jesus gave up his
life, there may have been a natural explanation as well. For example, a
person’s survival time on the cross may have been inversely proportional to the
severity of the flogging. On the other hand, it could also be that Jesus’ size
and weight caused his heart to give out earlier than would be the case with
average size men. It could also be a combination of all three.
Finally,
when Jesus was arrested, it was not by a few temple policemen but “a large
crowd armed with swords and clubs” (Matthew 26:47). The perceived need for this
crowd could be because Jesus was known to travel with a group of disciples,
some of whom were armed (Matthew 26:51); but if Jesus was a big man who was
powerfully built, it would make sense for the authorities to be prepared just
in case of violent confrontation with the one who had just that week singlehandedly
disrupted temple business.
One possible
objection to this theory could be that being overweight is sin and Jesus was
without sin. The western world today is obsessed with being thin but this
obsession may be more cultural than biblical. The Bible never speaks in terms
of being overweight. It speaks of the sin of gluttony. Wealthy elites would
sometimes eat until they couldn’t eat anymore, and then induce vomiting—not
because they had an eating disorder but simply so they could go back to the
party and eat more, like a never ending Thanksgiving dinner! I would suggest
that this is an example of gluttony. Jesus was not a glutton. Besides, I’m not
suggesting that Jesus was morbidly obese, just big. Being a big man could open
him to false charges of gluttony.
While no one
knows what Jesus looked like, I would argue that it is more likely than not
that Jesus was a tall, large, and powerfully built man. But so what? What
difference does it make? Ultimately it doesn’t make any difference—or the
Gospel writers would have mentioned it. On the other hand, a large powerfully
built Jesus does make sense of some otherwise puzzling data in the Gospels.
But there
may be a more practical implication. I would suggest that one of the biggest
obstacles to men accepting the Gospel is the stereotype of Jesus as the meek
and mild wimp. Few men want to follow a meek and mild wimp! Regardless of
Jesus’ physical size, the stereotype is false. Jesus was no wimp. Jesus was fearlessly confrontational and his
bravery in facing even life-threatening danger was second to none.
Nevertheless, the image of Jesus as a gentle giant like a Hoss or Michael Oher
would be a much more evangelistically appealing to most men than an ancient
version of Mr. Rogers.
Another
practical implication is that the discussion itself may help to stem the tide
of creeping Docetism—the idea that Jesus just appeared to be human. All
Evangelicals believe that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, but in popular
Christianity the humanity of Jesus is often given little more than lip service.
We sing, for example, of the “Beautiful One I adore” which is a wonderful song
as long as we remember that “Beautiful One” was probably not the first phrase
that came to mind when someone saw Jesus coming down the road.
Without in any
way downplaying the deity of Jesus, the humanity of Jesus is important because
we must never forget that Jesus felt those thorns on his brow, the lash on his
back and the nails in his hand just as we would have. Jesus’ humanity was important because “he
himself has suffered when tempted, [so] he is able to help those who are being
tempted” (Hebrews 2:18 ESV) and he is “one who in every respect has been
tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15 ESV). The humanity of Jesus
is important because we do not just get our instruction for life from divine
communication with the cosmic Jesus, but from the divinely inspired
remembrances of the teachings of the real human Jesus as he traveled from place
to place with his disciples.
What Jesus actually looked like is not important.
That Jesus was not only God but was also human is extremely important.
