Traditional Image of Jesus One of my earliest memories of the image of Jesus is a picture tacked to the wall of some church or another when I was very young. (Like many kids at the time, I had to go to Sunday school, even though my parents were not particularly religious. It was just supposed to be “good” for me.) The picture was one of those standard images of Jesus in an immaculate robe with the little children and a lamb or two surrounding him. Even as a child, one of the things that struck me was how frail Jesus looked. He was skinny and delicate and, it seemed to me, almost feminine. He looked, well, sort of wimpy.
How could this guy do what everyone said he had done? How could he have been a carpenter and still look like he could barely pick up a hammer? How could he look like a fashion plate from the Jerusalem edition of GQ and still get a bunch of nasty, smelly and beat-up fishermen to follow him?
There’s nothing wrong with being slight of build, of course. Lots of men are, and wimpy is more of an attitude than a physical build anyway. But the man in this picture looked more like a girl than a man, and at that age girls were still not that interesting to me. I just did not understand how this guy, this Jesus in the picture, was a guy anyone was going to follow anywhere. There were many images of this sort to be seen in my kid years, and many seemed to have been drawn to wreck any masculine traits that Jesus may have had.
That did not compute in my seven-year-old mind, and it never has.
How could this guy do what everyone said he had done? How could he have been a carpenter and still look like he could barely pick up a hammer? How could he look like a fashion plate from the Jerusalem edition of GQ and still get a bunch of nasty, smelly and beat-up fishermen to follow him?
There’s nothing wrong with being slight of build, of course. Lots of men are, and wimpy is more of an attitude than a physical build anyway. But the man in this picture looked more like a girl than a man, and at that age girls were still not that interesting to me. I just did not understand how this guy, this Jesus in the picture, was a guy anyone was going to follow anywhere. There were many images of this sort to be seen in my kid years, and many seemed to have been drawn to wreck any masculine traits that Jesus may have had.
That did not compute in my seven-year-old mind, and it never has.
Early Jesus from the Catacombs The reason it did not compute, of course, is that this view of Jesus of Nazareth – Jesus Christ – is utter nonsense. I have no real idea why this has come down to us through the ages; images of Jesus from the early Christian churches portray Jesus in a more natural way. The image of Jesus as the Good Shepherd from the 2d Century Catacombs of Priscilla in Rome show a man equal to the work of a carpenter – he has broad shoulders and muscular arms and is easily carrying an adult ram on his back. This Jesus is fully capable of fighting off a wolf or wielding a hammer or any other tool.
But images always have as much to do with the style of the times as they do with reality. Early images of Jesus often portray him as clean-shaven with shorter hair, rather than the bearded man with long hair that we think of today. The Gospels make no mention of that issue one way or the other.
But images always have as much to do with the style of the times as they do with reality. Early images of Jesus often portray him as clean-shaven with shorter hair, rather than the bearded man with long hair that we think of today. The Gospels make no mention of that issue one way or the other.
The Crucifixion - Juan Rexach Later images from the medieval period often go in the other direction entirely, such as in The Crucifixion, by Juan Rexach, a 15th Century Spanish artist. Rexach’s Jesus on the Cross is bearded, but Jesus’ limbs and body are so thin and drawn-out and exaggerated that he barely looks human, much less manly.
In any case, the early Christian churches focused on Jesus’ message rather than his image. The earliest artistic images of Jesus come many decades after the Resurrection, therefore we have no art from anyone who actually met him.
We cannot rely on art when we consider Jesus as a physical man. We simply do not know what he looked like. However, we can make some assumptions about what he was like based upon his times and location and information from the authors of the Gospels.
First, even though Jesus was divine, he was born of a human mother and walked the earth as a man in order to experience and understand life as we all live it. (This is fundamental, and we will address it in future posts.)
We know that Jesus was a Jewish man from a Jewish family and a Jewish people. These were people of the Mediterranean region, where the sun shines hot most of the year. From this we can assume that Jesus was dark and swarthy, not the blond-haired and blue-eyed man sometimes portrayed in European art. (This is not necessarily a matter of prejudice, however. Other cultures have portrayed Jesus as resembling their own, so not too much should be read into this.)
Next, Jesus was probably in his early thirties when he began his ministry. Prior to that, he had worked for a living. The early Gospels written in Greek refer to Jesus as having been a “tekton,” which is often translated as “carpenter.” More correctly, however, the term tekton means a builder. From this we can infer that Jesus may well have been skilled as a carpenter, stonemason, architect and the other skills necessary to build structures. Since the electric hand-saw and the forklift were nearly two thousand years into the future, we can be certain that the work was done with human muscle. There may have been a few beasts of burden around, but the sawing and placing of wood, the chiseling and hammering of stone, the mixing of mortar and the other tasks would have all been done with muscle and sweat.
Even with today’s tools, you see no wimps on a construction site.
So now we have an image of Jesus as a man of labor. He was no stranger to hard work in the hot sun and he required the physical build to go with it. He may have been short-haired and clean-shaven or not. He have been big and beefy or he may have had a hard and wiry build, but his clothes were rarely spotless and he certainly did not look like that guy in the picture I saw as a kid.
And here I will add another image, and I admit that it is speculation. I have no proof of it, but I think it is logical.
Jesus of Nazareth chose fishermen as his earliest followers. Fishermen, as everyone knows, are not delicate souls. They are tough, hard-bitten men and have been from time immemorial to today. A wimp is not going to impress them.
But Jesus, in relatively short conversations, convinced these men to drop what they were doing and follow him into history and into a life of hardship even greater than they had already known. And they followed him to the death.
From this I think it is logical to assume that Jesus was a man with something special about him, as would fit the Son of God. He must have had a presence that inspired confidence in other men. Even if some of his presence was divinely inspired, if he had looked and acted like a wimp, those tough fishermen might have made short work of him.
So now we can create an accurate image in our minds of Jesus the man: Impressive. Manly. A man who inspired other men to do great things, things they never dreamed to be possible. A man to follow.
Whatever his physical build, he was a man who inspired thousands of others, men and women, to follow him as well. A man who changed all of history.
In short, Jesus was a tough guy.
It is from this vantage point that we shall explore the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
In any case, the early Christian churches focused on Jesus’ message rather than his image. The earliest artistic images of Jesus come many decades after the Resurrection, therefore we have no art from anyone who actually met him.
We cannot rely on art when we consider Jesus as a physical man. We simply do not know what he looked like. However, we can make some assumptions about what he was like based upon his times and location and information from the authors of the Gospels.
First, even though Jesus was divine, he was born of a human mother and walked the earth as a man in order to experience and understand life as we all live it. (This is fundamental, and we will address it in future posts.)
We know that Jesus was a Jewish man from a Jewish family and a Jewish people. These were people of the Mediterranean region, where the sun shines hot most of the year. From this we can assume that Jesus was dark and swarthy, not the blond-haired and blue-eyed man sometimes portrayed in European art. (This is not necessarily a matter of prejudice, however. Other cultures have portrayed Jesus as resembling their own, so not too much should be read into this.)
Next, Jesus was probably in his early thirties when he began his ministry. Prior to that, he had worked for a living. The early Gospels written in Greek refer to Jesus as having been a “tekton,” which is often translated as “carpenter.” More correctly, however, the term tekton means a builder. From this we can infer that Jesus may well have been skilled as a carpenter, stonemason, architect and the other skills necessary to build structures. Since the electric hand-saw and the forklift were nearly two thousand years into the future, we can be certain that the work was done with human muscle. There may have been a few beasts of burden around, but the sawing and placing of wood, the chiseling and hammering of stone, the mixing of mortar and the other tasks would have all been done with muscle and sweat.
Even with today’s tools, you see no wimps on a construction site.
So now we have an image of Jesus as a man of labor. He was no stranger to hard work in the hot sun and he required the physical build to go with it. He may have been short-haired and clean-shaven or not. He have been big and beefy or he may have had a hard and wiry build, but his clothes were rarely spotless and he certainly did not look like that guy in the picture I saw as a kid.
And here I will add another image, and I admit that it is speculation. I have no proof of it, but I think it is logical.
Jesus of Nazareth chose fishermen as his earliest followers. Fishermen, as everyone knows, are not delicate souls. They are tough, hard-bitten men and have been from time immemorial to today. A wimp is not going to impress them.
But Jesus, in relatively short conversations, convinced these men to drop what they were doing and follow him into history and into a life of hardship even greater than they had already known. And they followed him to the death.
From this I think it is logical to assume that Jesus was a man with something special about him, as would fit the Son of God. He must have had a presence that inspired confidence in other men. Even if some of his presence was divinely inspired, if he had looked and acted like a wimp, those tough fishermen might have made short work of him.
So now we can create an accurate image in our minds of Jesus the man: Impressive. Manly. A man who inspired other men to do great things, things they never dreamed to be possible. A man to follow.
Whatever his physical build, he was a man who inspired thousands of others, men and women, to follow him as well. A man who changed all of history.
In short, Jesus was a tough guy.
It is from this vantage point that we shall explore the life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
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