There have been several studies on the appearance of Jesus Christ. In countries where the majority is white, people have presented Jesus as a white Caucasian for two millennia. But since the end of the last century, several people have come to realise that Jesus was not white at all like the inhabitants of Europe. More people were also convinced they should do more righteousness to the man who gave his life to save that of others.
If a lot more whites were aware that it was a coloured person who gave his life for them, that might also help a little in tolerating coloureds.
In the West Jesus has been portrayed mostly as a Caucasian type and since the end of the previous century, a lot of debate has gone on within the Christian church.
In general, a lot of research has been done in recent years on the appearance and customs of the people from the regions where Jesus and his relatives came from. A recent project has created facial reconstructions from the 30,000-year-old remains of a human discovered in the Nile Valley, providing a deeply personal snapshot of prehistoric Egypt.
In pathological science, ED construction of heads based on a found skull has been used for several years. This allows one to reconstruct a head in such a way that one can better identify the corpse and find the victim more easily. For several years people said jokingly such scientists, originally conforming to the scientific method, unconsciously began a pathological process of wishful data interpretation to come to certain conclusions. But since Rudolf Virchow in 1858 argued that the nature of disease could be understood by means of the microscopic analysis of affected cells those researchers have become taken more seriously. The bacteriologic theory of disease developed late in the 19th century by Louis Pasteur and Robert Koch provided the final clue to understanding many disease processes.
By the end of the 19th century, pathology as a separate speciality was fairly well established, next to examining surgically removed body parts, blood and other body fluids, urine, faeces, exudates, etc. it also includes the reconstruction of the last chapter of the physical life of a deceased person through the procedure of autopsy, which provides valuable and otherwise unobtainable information concerning disease processes and in forensic research could help to solve deaths.
Archaeologists Moacir Elias Santos and 3D designer Cícero Moraes, both based in Brazil made facial reconstructions. The pair based their work on an almost complete skeleton that was found at the prehistoric Egyptian site of Nazlet Khater 2 back in 1980.
This handsome fella roamed around the Nile Valley long before the pyramids were there. Image credit: Moacir Elias Santos/Cícero Moraes (CC BY 4.0)
The skeleton belonged to a young male, perhaps in his late teens or twenties, of African ancestry who stood at around 165 centimeters (5 foot 4 inches) tall.
Early attempts to put a date on the skeleton fell flat because of the highly fragmented bone quality and the relatively basic level of radiocarbon dating technology available in the early 1980s. Fortunately, a stone axe was found alongside the body, which was dated somewhere between 35,000 and 30,000 years old.
Their paper notes that the skull can be considered “modern”, suggesting this man had the potential to have similar cognitive abilities to humans of the present day. However, they note that the remains do feature some “archaic” characteristics, most notably a larger jaw compared to modern-day Homo sapiens, the species to which all modern human beings belong.
By means of photogrammetry, using photographs for surveying after capturing the shape of the skull, the missing parts of the remains were then pieced together using an array of scientific techniques.
By facial reconstruction, combining both art and science, they used found skulls as a foundation to reconstruct a face with clay. By using charts of specific points of skin and tissue thickness, scientists can produce a relatively unique face that can then be used to help identify the decedent. Once a complete skull approximation was put together, the scientists had to work out where and how the soft tissue would sit on their skull.
It is known that the act of facial reconstruction using just a skull is not an exact science, so some artistic license is needed. This is because the shape of the skull can only provide limited insights into how soft tissue, such as muscle, and fat, would actually appear on a person’s face.
As such, the duo created two final images: “one more objective and scientific and the other more subjective and artistic.” While the “scientific” image is more of a rough bust, the “artistic” example features hair, a light beard, and expressive eyes.
“Although it contains speculative elements about the individual’s appearance, as it is a work that will be presented to the general public, it provides the necessary elements for a complete humanisation, very difficult to achieve only with exposure of the skull and deficient in the objective image in grayscale with eyes closed,”
the researchers write in their paper.
This man would have lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, armed only with stone tools and his brain. It wasn’t until 6000 BCE, around 25,000 years after this guy lived, that permanent settlements started to appear all over Egypt.
This, of course, was the location that gave birth to one of the most impressive of all ancient civilisations, known for its highly complex culture and architectural feats. How Ancient Egypt came to be so advanced is often portrayed as a deep mystery, but researchers have recently started to gain a clearer idea.
Far from being mysteries, we actually know a great deal about how people like the ancient Egyptians performed their technological and engineering feats. From the many archaeological finds a good archaeological timescale can be made and some fair ideas can be formed of the way of living and going of people.
As such, we have a fair picture of how those people in the East lived and moved around.
About the colour of the skin, we can say Jesus and his relatives lived in regions where there was, and still is, a lot of sun, which made their skin form pigments and protection against the rays of the sun. The appearance of the skin is partly due to the reddish pigment in the blood of the superficial vessels. In the main, however, it is determined by melanin, a pigment manufactured by dendritic cells called melanocytes, found among the basal cells of the epidermis. The orientation of melanin suggests that it is there to protect the cells from damaging ultraviolet rays, and experiments with tissue cultures support this view. In addition to protecting the skin from ultraviolet radiation, epidermal pigmentation forms epigamic markings.
Jesus’ skin colour was partly determined by the circumstances in which he lived. We know about him that he travelled around a lot and gave speeches in the open air. By being out in the open a lot, his skin underwent certain changes, during which it also became duller. Even though he wore long clothes, his face was largely unprotected from the bright sunlight of those regions in which he moved. Hence, we may be sure that he had a dark complexion, not only from his family origin or lineage but also because of the region where he lived and travelled.
We also know from the scriptures that Jesus did not look different from an ordinary man of his age. He probably was not a very strong or greatly build person. people around him could also see a man of trade (son of a craftsman, who for some time also worked in the atelier of his father Josef who had died). He was not looking majestic, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief, and looked as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and was not esteemed. There was even no beauty found in him that people would desire him. (Isaiah 53:2). We can understand from the Bible that Jesus was looking just like any other human being of that region. Also, when he was raised from the dead, he appeared to many people. Then he showed his wounds, to prove it was him and not a spirit like his heavenly Father is a Spirit, not having bones, flesh and blood.
When the apostle John describes his appearance in the Last Days, he sees the older Christ, and then describes him as we can see many old people, having grey hair.
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Preceding
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Additional reading
- A dark skinned Jesus (Our World)
- Most probable and accurate image of Jesus Christ according British scientists
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Related
- Jesus. What did He really look like?
- What Did Jesus Really Look Like?
- Is THAT What Jesus Looks Like?
- Coffee and Revelation 9 – 1:14 – The Hair and Eyes of Jesus
- John 14:19-24 (Jesus’ Heart Devotional)
- Christ’s second coming: Will you stand before the son of man?
- God’s Supreme Revelation
- Image of Jesus in ‘Heaven Is for Real’ Painted by ‘God-Taught’ Young Girl Akiane Kramarik
- The Minimal Facts Theory, Proof that Christianity is True?
- The Appearance of Christ to His Disciples after His Resurrection
- The apperance of Christ on the road to Emmaus – YouTube
- Appearances, pt.1
- Appearances, pt.2
Bijbelvorser = Bible Researcher 