Can forensic techniques show us what Christ really looked like?
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There have been several images of Christ portrayed in art around the world for centuries. In several images, cartoons, religious artifacts and paintings, Jesus is shown to have long light or dark-brown hair, a fair complexion and a neatly trimmed beard. One retired medical artist has recently released his version of the Son of God, following the use of forensic techniques to establish the most probable features of Christ's face.
Highlights
Catholic Online (https://www.catholic.org)
12/14/2015 (1 decade ago)
Published in Living Faith
Keywords: Jesus, Christ, Biblical figure, Jerusalem
LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Richard Neave recreated the face of Jesus after studying Semite skulls and by using modern-day forensic techniques.
The image he provided shows that Jesus may have had a wide face, contrary to the slender one shown in the Catholic Church.Contrary to popular portrayals, Christ may have had dark eyes, short curly hair and a light brown complexion. Each of these features would have described the average Middle Eastern Jew in Galilee.
Dr. Neave believes his portrait is an image of an adult man who lived at the same time and place Jesus did, but experts believe his recreation is likely to be more accurate than paintings at the hands of great artists.Unfortunately, as there are no skeletal remains of Christ and the lack of detailed physical descriptions of him in the Bible, images of Christ have traditionally been recreated based on societal beliefs or hearsay.
According to Popular Mechanics, Dr. Neave used forensic anthropology and what little information the Bible provides to describe Jesus to created the portrait in hopes revealing someone resembling Christ.
The technique he utilized combines cultural and archaeological data with other techniques similar to forensic analyses to solve crimes by studying different groups of people.
Dr. Neave's team believed Jesus's facial features would be of typical Galilean Semites, based on the Gospel of Matthew.
Three Semite skulls from Christ's time period were x-rayed and Dr. Neave believes Jesus closely resembled his disciples.
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