For Christians the world over, the true face of Jesus is one of the great mysteries of the faith. Depictions of the Son of God vary from a caucasian man with blonde hair to a Roman man with darker locks.
Truth is, no one know what Jesus looked like as there is no reliable physical description in the Bible or any other texts.
But now a retired medical artist has used the latest forensic technologies to recreate the face of a man who lived at the same time as Jesus, basing his reconstruction on three Semite skulls found in Israel, plus passages from the bible.
The features of “Jesus” would likely have been typical of Middle Eastern Jews in the Galilee area of northern Israel.
Richard Neave used forensic anthropology commonly used in solving crimes, working with Israeli archaeologists to come up with what is believed to be the most accurate recreation of Jesus’ face in history.
According to Christian Today, Matthew records in the bible hat it was hard to tell Jesus apart from his disciples during his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, indicating that Christ had features that were typical of Galilean Semites of His era.
After studying the skulls, the team used a special computer program to re-create the muscles and skin.
The skulls did not, however, provide two key pieces of information about Jesus’ appearance: his hair and his skin colour. To be able to determine these, the researchers analysed drawings found in various archaeological sites in Israel and concluded that Jesus had dark eyes and wore a beard, following Jewish tradition.
The researchers deviated from the common belief that Christ had long, straight hair. Instead, they assumed that Jesus Christ had short hair with tight curls, based on their analysis of the Holy Bible.
