The standard depiction of Jesus is an odd assortment of Western, anglo features with a backdrop of the Middle East. One BBC television program, however, has attempted to show a different side of the Christian messiah.
In truth, there may not even be a standard depiction of Jesus so much as there is a commercialized depiction of him. One religious studies professor explains.
"While Western imagery is dominant, in other parts of the world he is often shown as black, Arab or Hispanic," notes Carlos F. Cardoza-Orlandi, associate professor of world Christianity at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta.
With the identity of Jesus Christ still largely up for debate, the BBC program "Son Of God" aims to construct his face with the most advanced techniques available. The construction was not easy, as Mike Fillon (who followed the researchers during their reconstruction) notes:
"There are very strong rabbinical laws in Israel that you cannot tamper with a skull or any bones, so they needed to reconstruct the skull. Using a cat scan, which is very common in hospitals, they were able to recreate the skull precisely and make a cast of it. Then they put small wooden pegs, based on anthropological data, to figure out what the muscle structure and the skin would look like, and so they layered that on using clay-like substances."
As you can see in the picture above, the BBC's rendition of Jesus's face is anything but normal. He appears to have a much wider nose, brutish face, and darker skin than his popularized counterparts. Not everyone is buying it, however.
"Unless you believe all first-century male residents of Israel to have looked identical, with Judas the mirror image of Christ and Lazarus the absolute spit of the crucified robber... the exercise in reconstruction is pointless." says Catherine Bennett of The Guardian.
The facial reconstruction did have some merit in giving a general idea of what he may have looked like. The researchers studied archaelogical data from Jesus's time and also pored over the Bible for clues, realizing, among other things, that is is unlikely he would have long hair given the sentiments found in the book. They acknowledge that this facial reconstruction is only a guess, however.
"In reconstructing this head, we are not claiming that this is exactly Jesus' face, but we are trying to counteract all of those bad images of blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesuses running around in Hollywood productions." says the Israeli archaeologist Joey Zias.
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