Blond Jesus

[The Norseman]

Buy this, and really screw up your children's idea of Jesus:

Brings whole new meaning to, "I am the light!"

 

[JimBenArm]

Buy this, and really screw up your children's idea of Jesus:

Jesus turns us on!

 

[Frinkiak7]

For more sportsy-fun good times with the big J, try here:

http://www.catholicshopper.com/products/inspirational_sport_statues2.html

 

[jasonpatterson]

The Wiki article doesn't have any pictures of a truly blond Jesus, though that was popular for a time. I can't find the painting now, but I recall from an art history course that Jesus was depicted for a time as essentially Scandinavian in appearance. In my hometown there is a church that had a giant hamburger helper hand nailed to a cross to symbolize Jesus. That is my favorite version, a cartoonish white glove...

 

[ugot2bekidding]

Based on the culture and ethnic group he was supposedly a part of, a historical Jesus would have likely looked something like this.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/research/1282186.html

Thanks for the link. I love these comments...(bolding mine)

127. RE: Real Face Of Jesus: December 2002 Cover Story
You are entitled to your scientific "discoveries" but the Son of God/Man was a pleasant looking, attractive man with a halo around him most of the time. Could you attempt to reproduce his features when he was transfigured on Mount Thabor or indeed anytime he was in intense prayer? Or maybe you first need to know what is meant by the term transfiguration because normal people, being vile sinners do not get transfigured... Please publish for the sake of a democratic debate

126. RE: Real Face Of Jesus: December 2002 Cover Story
Personally i find this picture offensive.

 

[Belz...]

It's all a cover up for the fact that he was a green-skinned, pink haired, quadropedal xenomorph from Pluto. The blond thing was a wig.

I thought he was the progenitor of our reptilian overlords ?

Damn. I think I've got my conspiracy theories mixed up.

 

[Starthinker]

http://www.jesusoftheweek.com/ has all the jesus's you can shake a stick at. (I've submitted 3!!)

 

[TX50]

Roman artists appear to have recycled the templates they used for their
depictions of pagan gods and heroes. The very earliest Roman depictions of
Jesus date from the early 3rd Century and have him looking like a Dionysus or
Aeneas (ie. clean shaven with wavy brown hair). Obviously his appearance is
dictated by the culture in which the art is created. The "ancient hippy" look
with beard and long straight hair (a la Robert Powell in Franco Zefirelli's
film, and in a billion cheesy souvenirs) is pervasive but the most convincing
representation I've ever seen was in some Discovery channel schlock that
had recruited an average-looking Israeli actor to play him.

ETA: Actually the earliest known depiction has him with a donkey's head. A
contemporary Roman taunt was that the Jews worshipped a donkey. Christians
were just another sect of the Jews as far as most Romans were concerned.

 

[Madalch]

I don't think I've ever seen a blonde Jesus. They've all had brown hair.

 

[Cavemonster]

All the earliest images are pretty direct knockoffs of Apollo imagery. A young, beardless man with a dome of curly hair.

The bearded, older Jesus, with that long nose-bridge and those European features seems to have started in the 6th century.

 

[Marquis de Carabas]

Yeah, funny how he's never described physically.

He is described physically.

1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps* with a golden girdle.
1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
1:15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.

*paps is tits, by the way

This is your Savior...

 

[aggle-rithm]

Yeah, funny how he's never described physically. Could that because none of the bible's writers ever actually saw him???

No, it's because everyone in that part of the world looked alike.

Ask any ancient Roman.

 

[Pardalis]

He's not blond, he's chestnut.

 

[Aquila]

Jesus is Jewish.

 

[Lucian]

Jesus turns us on!

Little children turn Jesus on.

 

[linusrichard]

In Catholicism, the Madonna is also a blonde haired blue eyed caucasian.

Maybe in European Catholicism. I have a "Madonna and Child" from Japan - guess who has straight black hair, a kimono, and what appears to be the ol' epicanthic fold?

 

[JimBenArm]

Little children turn Jesus on.

Jesus loves the little children. All the little children of the world.

 

[TimCallahan]

Ron Cobb did an excellent cartoon on what Jesus looked like, based on the T.V. quiz show "To Tell the Truth." In that show three contestants would all claim to be a certain person. A celebrity panel of four would guess who was the real whoever. In the cartoon, three Jesuses, each lebeled, are sitting behind their vote tallies. The three are: Protestant (3 votes), Catholic (1 vote) and historical (no votes). The Protestant Jesus is your well-heeled Anglo-Saxon type. The Catholic Jesus is emaciated, with blood dripping down his face from a crown of thorns. The Historic Jesus was just this funky guy. The caption of the cartoon was the off-stage moderator's voice saying, "And now, will the real Jesus Christ please ascend."

Many of the early depictions of Jesus, dating from as late as the fourth century - Roman mosaics and reliefs, etc. - depict him as beardless.

As to physical descriptions of Old Testement characters, other than the size of Goliath and the fact that Samson didn't cut his hair, we are told that Saul was taller than everyone else (1 Sam. 11:23) and that the youthful David was "ruddy, and had beauthiful eyes and was handsome" (1 Sam. 16:12). His son Absolom was praised for his beauty, was without blemish and had long, thick hair (2 Sam. 14:25, 26). Adonijah, another of David's sons, was also described as "very handsome" (1 Kgs. 1:6). It is noteworthy that all of these descriptions were probably from a single document, the Court History, which comprises significant portions of 1 Samuel, all of 2 Samuel and the first two chapters of 1 Kings.

Other than that, there is the implication that Adam, like David, was ruddy, in that his name may be a variation of the word for "red" (admoni or edom) and may mean "to show blood in the face" (i.e. ruddy).

We also know from a bizarre story in 2 Kings - in which the prophet Elisha curses some little boys for making fun of him, with the result that two she-bears maul 42 of them (2 Kgs. 2:23, 24) - that Elisha was bald. What the bratty little boys said to him was, "Go up, you baldhead!" The words "Go up" might be better rendered "Go away." Since abundance of hair was associated with good health and, by implication, sexual prowess (Absolam, after he drives David out of Jerusalem, publicly copulates with David's 10 concubines), baldness was associated with impotence. Thus the boys were essentially saying to Elisha, "Go away, limp-d**k!"

 

[Madalch]

I seem to recall a webcomic that featured both a drunk and bitter Jesus and a white supremacist Jesus. If you're going to search for it, be warned that it was nowhere near work-safe. Quite the opposite.

 

[TX50]

Jesus is Jewish.

Yes, that's pretty much like the Israeli actor I mentioned. A look at some
of the imperial Roman period mummy portraits from Egypt might give a
reasonably good indication of his type too (except a bit scruffier and
not quite so well dressed).