That victory for historicity got me thinking about all the other false depictions of Jesus. As an overweight person, I notice that Jesus doesn’t look like me. (Note my tongue in my cheek) The adult Jesus is always pictured as trim and handsome. The popular television series The Chosen is the most recent perpetuation of this myth. Where does the Bible ever say that Jesus was thin and good-looking?
The “suffering servant,” passage in Isaiah, which is thought by Christians to be a messianic prophecy, says the opposite. In the context of him growing up, it reads: “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.”
If this is a prediction of how Jesus looked all his life and not just on the cross, this means that Jesus was not attractive. Yet he is never pictured this way. Why? Because no one wants an ugly Jesus. If Jesus were portrayed in films as unsightly, no one would watch them. In fact I am sure there would be outrage from the Christian community.
The same would be true if Jesus were depicted as overweight. I have never seen Jesus portrayed as heavy in any film, picture, or painting, until I did an internet search before writing this article. Then I discovered the Columbian artist Fernando Botero. His work is refreshingly original and challenges our stereotypes. I include his “Head of Christ” with this article.
Why is Jesus never portrayed as obese? Would he not still be the Son of God if he carried a few extra pounds? It is because obesity is considered unattractive in our weight-conscious culture. We prefer Jesus to conform to our cultural ideals. So we sing: “Beautiful, beautiful. Jesus is beautiful. And Jesus makes beautiful things of my life.” No one wants a portrait of a fat Jesus hanging in their church.
Yet in the gospels Jesus’ opponents described him as “a glutton and winebibber.” They were accusing him of overeating! Many of the parables of Jesus are about parties and banquets. His first miracle was turning water to wine at a wedding feast. In another famous miracle he fed 5000 people and had food left over. He liked that miracle so much he did it again with a group of 4000! The most important ritual of the church involves eating. Jesus loved to eat and drink! It is not unreasonable that his love of food showed in his body shape.
Also Jesus is often pictured groomed and washed – all ready to attend church. He looks more like a model for a hair shampoo commercial than a homeless itinerant preacher. Yet Jesus said that he “had no place to lay his head.” In other words he lived rough. That means it was probably a challenge to keep clean and well-groomed.
As far as his physique is concerned, Jesus is never pictured as muscular. Stallone and Schwarzenegger were never offered the role of Jesus in a film. I just finished watching the television series “Reacher.” The star of the show, Alan Ritchson, has the physique of a body-builder. I am pretty certain that he is not going to be cast as Jesus anytime soon.
But the gospels say Jesus was a “builder.” This is usually translated as a carpenter, but he was more likely a stonemason. There are very few trees in the Holy Land, but there are lots of rocks. Builders in that time and place worked more with stone than wood.
Jesus was a stonemason when there was no heavy machinery to help move the stones. All the work was done with human labor. Jesus was a laborer in an occupation that demanded great physical strength. He was almost certainly a large muscular fellow.
So was Jesus fat? Probably not. He burned too many calories. He worked too hard during this career as a builder and walked too much during this career as a wandering preacher. But I imagine him as a big guy.
In short Jesus did not look like a light-skinned, light-haired, blue eyed, trim, handsome, well-dressed megachurch pastor. Jesus looked like a large, muscular construction worker, with dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. He was probably unattractive to look at. He would not be chosen for The Bachelor reality show.
But you will not see Jesus depicted in this way in Christian art or film. That would not sell the product that the modern church is selling. So the church ignores all historical evidence about Jesus and crafts an alternate image of Christ to conform to our cultural stereotypes in order to compete in the religious marketplace. After all, you’ve got to fill the pews and the offering plates!
I prefer the historical Jesus. It does not matter to me what he looked like. I think he is beautiful, even though he may have not been attractive by worldly standards. In fact I think the ordinariness of the historical Jesus is an advantage. It forces us to look beneath the surface of every person we meet. If Jesus was ordinary, then we are more apt to love ordinary neighbors – and strangers - with the same love that we love Jesus. For as we treat the least of our human brothers and sisters, so we treat Christ.
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9 comments:
I agree with your assessment. However, I believe Jesus was attractive for one reason. Love transforms. I had a friend in my youth who had horrible acne, which I found somewhat unattractive. Yet over the years, my friend became more attractive in my eyes and I truly do not know whether his acne improved or my love for my friend transformed my perception. Those who loved Jesus, I believe, would not have found him unattractive for this very reason. He was so loving, he was so filled with God's love and the Spirit's energy and it is that which made him attractive. The problem with any physical rendering of Jesus is that it cannot possibly capture that aspect of him. Ann Cady
Perhaps his appearance can partially be reconstructed from the "shroud of Turin".
I have seen some fairly compelling reasoning for it to be considered a genuine relic, despite the results of the scientific tests on it in the 70s and 80s.
Rene Thomas
England
Thank you for making me smile as I read about all your thoughts on what Jesus might look like. Your wordsmithing is a glorious gift. Thank you for sharing it!
Blessings, Deb
Like God, I feel you should not hold Jesus in an image. Nor yourself or your neighbor. If you must, use your own image as Christ in you.
Christopher Emmons
I normally enjoy your nondual talks and interpretations but I feel the need to call you out on this statement.
“Jesus looked like a large, muscular construction worker, with dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. He was probably unattractive to look at”
This statement you made above is problematic and shows your own unconscious racism/white supremacist thinking. You have associated large, muscular, dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes with unattractive. As if it were a fact. And you associate a white blond man with light eyes and thin as attractive. As if that were a fact. White people have been doing this since forever- associating their opinions and delusions of grandeur with fact and shoving it down our throats. You need a little more self awareness to be aware of your own unconscious white supremacist thinking.
Zeina: You are mistaken in your interpretation of my post. I feel like you are judging me unfairly. I do not equate large, muscular, dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes with being unattractive. I thought I made it pretty clear in this post that I do not not accept this cultural standard. If that point did not come across in the post, then I failed. I was combatting racist stereotypes, yet you accuse me of racism! And on MLK Day! One of my heroes!
The reason I mentioned that Jesus may have been unattractive was because of the messianic prophecy that says he was unattractive. That is the sole reason. You can read it in its entirety for yourself. It has nothing to do with race. That prophecy says nothing about race, nor has it ever been interpreted that way to my knowledge. The fact that you interpreted it this way and assumed that unattractive had to do with race is your own assumption. It is not there.
And it is not in me, except insofar as all people are unconsciously bias toward their own culture. Be careful about judging others without first examining your own bias. Jesus said that using the metaphors about logs and splinters. Also be aware of assuming that physically unattractive is a negative. That is a cultural stereotype as well, which I also reject.
I wanted to clarify something after thinking about this. Based on your words “You accuse me of racism”, “You are judging me unfairly,” it seems that my original post must have come across as a personal attack for which you need to defend your good character. But I don’t want to make it a personal attack as “you are a bad person and guilty” or on trial. I could have done a better job of phrasing my original post to not sound personal, as the issue I am getting at is actually impersonal as it applies to all as a collective consciousness. The statement “ “Jesus looked like a large, muscular construction worker, with dark skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. He was probably unattractive to look at” I feel is problematic as some like myself have read the two statements to be related as per the author’s viewpoint. You made it clear that was not your intention. In my perception I think this wording is still problematic but as you say it could be the log in my own eye.
I want to mention that white supremacist (false) beliefs are in the collective unconscious mind that we are programmed with worldwide at some level regardless of race and it harms us all. We are also programmed with many other beliefs such as sexist and speciesist which are equally harmful to all. Many are aware of these beliefs in ourselves and are actively trying to deprogram from that in the mind and to be free of these beliefs, the first step is to be open to acknowledge those beliefs in ourselves in order to let them go. I don’t want to label and scapegoat people the way society does but I want to make us aware of these beliefs are there in the collective mind. Society has a witch-hunt mentality that says either you are a racist (and are thus cancelled or burned at the stake) or you are not and proclaimed innocent and free. It puts white people in fear of approaching this topic at all in fear of being “accused of racism”, but as I said, the world is operating on these certain beliefs (I have seen it operating at some level in every country I have visited and lived in and I travel a lot). The black and white witch-hunt thinking is a way for all of us not to be accountable for the beliefs that the ego in us is holding and puts our focus on defending ourselves. It pushes the label “racist” on some and others are free of the Scarlett letter. We are collectively programmed with these false beliefs by the ego. It would do us good to acknowledge and examine them. I can see I need to express this differently but I feel it’s important especially to convey this as “It’s okay we all have these beliefs, let’s examine or be aware of it and let it go each time it comes up because it’s false and not who we are”
This is a general comment to all, and not a reply to previous comments. In my post I quoted only two lines of the Old Testament passage that Christians believe describe Christ. I abbreviated the quote to keep the post shorter. Now I think it might be helpful to add a little more context from that messianic prophecy in Isaiah 53 in which the Suffering Servant is described.
If this is truly describing Christ earlier in his life and not purely a description of his crucifixion, which seems to be described in later verses in this chapter, then it seems to imply that he had some health issues or a painful physical condition that made people avoid looking at him. But then again, this chapter may not have anything to do with Jesus of Nazareth, but rather someone else, or it is symbolic and representative. In any case here are the verses that got me thinking that Jesus might have been physically unattractive.
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
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