How did Jesus Christ Look like? shaved face/ clean cut or bearded and Long haired ?

a reply to: The angel of light

Why is it important what He looked like? It's about what He did. I don't care if He was white, tan, black or if He had long hair or a fauxhawk.

well since i think jesus was the last pharaoh of egypt, who's mom was a greek jew, i think he looked like an egyptian/greek/jew. if he had a beard, it would've been a fake one like the pharaohs wore (he was too young though so i doubt he ever had the fake beard on), that is, until he was sent out of egypt to israel as a child, to save his life from the roman octavian. once there and old enough, he would've grown a full beard and long hair, like the other rabbis.

a reply to: undo

Well dear undo,

There is no doubt that Jesus lived in Egypt when he was a boy, probably he spend some years there, the canonical gospels are not clear in how long it was, but I don't think there is a reliable source that can prove he had anything to do with the Egyptian royalty, as you claim, also it is intriguing your statement about that St Mary could be Greek Jew, which sources can you show supporting those claims?

We know that St Mary was born in Nazareth, while Joseph the legal father of Jesus was also born in Bethlehem.

Is there any connection in between what you brought to this discussion and the recent finding of the eldest fragment of the Gospel of St Marc in an Egyptian tomb?

Egyptians believed since thousands of years ago in the great beyond and they were the first people on earth probably to believe in resurrection, but who ever was buried in that tomb could be a Christian Egyptian or somebody that admired a lot Jesus.

Thanks for your comment,

but again it is intriguing.

The Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: NOTurTypical
a reply to: The angel of light

Why is it important what He looked like? It's about what He did. I don't care if He was white, tan, black or if He had long hair or a fauxhawk.

Its important to many people what He looks like, its important because the antichrist will pretend he is the reincarnated messiah. Will probably impersonate the Messiah.

But its not important either, I know and agree with what you mean.

a reply to: NOTurTypical

Der NOTurtypical,

I agree with you in essence, what it is more important is his message, his teachings, the redemption he offer to humanity, but as I have already said there are fundamentalist Christians in America that claim that his look can't be the one portrayed in all the artworks of the western tradition since the VII century, for the simple reason that it breaks with the canons of what they claim is decent in men.

They are really against any concession in that aspect, because there is the urgency to use the figure of Christ to justify the values of the ultra conservative puritanism in this country, they have in some way kidnapped his legacy to support their cause , is part of their propaganda.

If Jesus was really not the person they claimed they would risk all the prestige they have gained claiming to be the truly followers of him, more over the only real Christians as they like to claim. Jesus is so famous and his prestige is so great that of course it is quite attractive to use him to endorse any cause, in the past many regimes tried to present themselves as continuators of Christ kingdom , including the Italian Fascism and the Spanish Francoism.

Of course, Jesus was not only used by the right wing of the politics, in the 1960s many extreme leftist movements claimed that he was their inspirator, even some Communists tried to use him as propaganda symbol, Frederic Engels the Marxist ideologist of the XIX century even wrote a book claiming that the primitive Christian communities were the first communists of History and Hugo Chavez many times printed posters of Jesus endorsing the Bolivarian Revolution in more recent times. Many smart politicians of very different ideologies, even have used Jesus in their benefit, from Ronald Reagan to Vladimir Putin, from the King Henry VIII of England to Felipe II of Spain.

Now, from many of his attitudes in the gospels it is clear that the truly Christ was a very apolitical figure, he never wanted to perform any political role and he rejected to be used in that way by anybody, he evaded the Sanhedrin for years, he also turned his back to the zealots and he was extremely cautious to never enter in confrontation with the Romans.

it sounds funny, but the discussion of the look of Jesus has political connotations today, it is the debate about if he might be liberal or conservative in the modern meaning of those terms.

nomadicpolitics.blogspot.com...

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: Jamie1

originally posted by: The angel of light
The thread is created precisely to show that the image of Christ many churches portrait in America is far to be accurate and definitively not based in any aspect in the truly Christian tradition, but more in conservative stereotypes of what must be socially accepted according with standards that as a matter of fact were created after the American Independence war.

So you created a thread critiquing what other people think Jesus might have looked like and your support for your argument is that you have no idea what he looked like either?

But "Christian Conservatives" may be wrong?

Why is this important to you?

I can't speak for the OP, but I would imagine seeing as this thread is in the religion, faith, and theology forum, perhaps they have an interest in this. You created a post critiquing somebody who may have a genuine interest in why Jesus is portrayed as Western looking, despite being born and living in the Middle East. Seems like a valid query to me.

The thread is created precisely to show that the image of Christ many churches portrait in America is far to be accurate and definitively not based in any aspect in the truly Christian tradition, but more in conservative stereotypes of what must be socially accepted according with standards that as a matter of fact were created after the American Independence war.

Indeed, the OP has something of interest to themselves, and it is stated quite clearly. Is there something here you do not understand?

Why do you constantly ask posters why something is important for them on an internet discussion board? Perhaps it's not important at all, but they are curious. Perhaps they are bored, perhaps there's no compelling reason except to waste time. Why do you care?

Why do you constantly comment, and post the threads you do? Nearly 1300 posts in a month. Why is posting on ATS so important to you? Is there something more more productive you could do with your time rather than focusing on other people and asking for them to justify their posts?

You are thinking of the Renaissance painters who gave that image.

I never in my life was presented by Jesus with blond hair, except for Peter O'Toole and Ted Neely. Really, we know that Middle Eastern people are not Aryan blonds.

Jesus was an Orthodox Jew, dressed in the style of Orthodox Jewry, wore the phylactery and prayer shawl and kittel with fringes. If they had yarmulkes then, he probably wore that as well. He was dressed in the manner that people called him rabbi, which means he was authorized to wear the rabbi regalia.

His hair would have been in the manner of the custom of the law, which meant that as a rabbi, he had to not cut those ringlets nor could he shave the sides of his beard. We know that He was Jewish because at eight days old, according to the law of Moses, he was circumcised by Simeon, who was a rabbi. We know that Mary had to fulfill her seven days, according to the law of Moses, both of which are explicitly stated in the Bible.

We know that He was not Essene nor was He Nazarite, because He was at a wedding in which alcoholic wine was served and at the last supper, which was the seder meal of the Passover, and He kept Passover and the other feasts. We know that He did teach in the synagogues, of which is in the Bible as well.

So if you want to know what Jesus really looked like, look at how Orthodox Jewish rabbis dressed in those days. It was all according to the law.

His family did go into Egypt, along with a lot of other Jews, because Alexandria was a city of a lot of Jews. Historically this is true. Being in Egypt had nothing to do with Egyptian religion, but it was where Jews went. But the Jews were everywhere, it wasn't like they all stayed in one spot.

He was a Galilean Semite.

Olive skin. In Gethsemne they pointed him out, he did not stand out as different to his friends. No golden locks, flowing hair.

Typical male from his cultural group:
Short hair.
Bearded.

I have seen a Roman carving in the Catacombs with a beardless Jesus from about 150AD (memory stretch) and that would have been because Romans and Greeks shaved. Jews did not. Ethiopians made their apostles and jesus black, people depicted jesus to be 'like them' hence the beardless Jesus in Rome.

He was a Jew and was instructed to wear a beard. The idiot Leviticus deemed it so, but maybe JC ignored most of what that maniac said and may have bucked the tradition. Who knows?

a reply to: The angel of light
What are you trying to say. That this depiction of Jesus may be a bit on the historically inaccurate side, and I have been thinking of Jesus all wrong, all these years? Wow! Who would have thunk it.


For all any of you all know jessus could have been some medium hight guy had brown short curly hair, brown eyes, a cool more hooklike midle easter or italian like nose. Oh and a scar runing down one cheek going all the way to his beard, because you know shaving all the time was chore back in those days, good shaving blades not being invented for some hundreds of years yet, so you know everybody instead of shaved, more or less people cut there beards to lower lengths. Oh and he had a awesome cool eyepatch as well.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Hi Dear WarminIndy,

Well, I am going to comment some of your observations:

There were red haired prophets of Israel since thousands of years before Christ, from Abraham to Esau, as well as Joseph, Daniel or even King David. Now traditionally Solomon has been depicted along thousand of years with clear eyes, grey-blue and at least red beard.

- Jesus could be the kind of Auburn hair that is pretty common among the Hebrew people, this is the color more used in the middle east to depict him along many centuries.

jandyongenesis.blogspot.com...

However, there is also other natural blond hair in Jewish people, but it is a dark blond, what in America is called dirty blond, waved or extremely curled , a type of hair that is shared with other semitic groups like the Lebanese people and even some Palestinians, Jordans and Syrians.

Please read: jewishencyclopedia.com...

- The stereotype that all the middle east people is dark skinned and dark haired is coming from the fact that we associate in America Arab world with middle east, and Muslim world extends all along north Africa, where there are moors in great amount , as well as also Nilotic and Nubian people.


Please read: www.answerbag.com...

Surprise! the Holy Prophet Muhammed of the Islam was fair skinned and Yes, Red haired too!

www.godlikeproductions.com...


- Jesus , according with the Shroud was a man not taller than 5 feet 10 inches. This is also a height consistent with the size of the seemless garment of Christ that is stored in the cathedral of Tier, Germany, and among all the candidates is the most likely to be the authentic, although the one located in the Cathedral of Moscow, Russia is another strong runner up, and have similar dimensions.

en.wikipedia.org...

Take in account that Jewish people is in general not so tall, so that height is a good estimate of a male height for that epoch, to accept.

Jesus could have hazel eyes, as many Hebrews and Semitic of the eastern Mediterranean, and in particular grey, honey or Green is what the tradition suggest, even more likely than blue.

- Jesus belonged through his two genealogies, paternal and maternal , that are published in the gospels of St Mathew and St Luke., to the tribe of Jude, and he was descendent of David and Solomon. So he couldn't be a priest, since priests are only the ones of the tribe of Levi, so it is absolutely mistaken to claim that he was a Rabbi, in the sense Jews consider it.

- The people called him Rabbi due to his great wisdom and extraordinary charisma and mystical powers, but he was not a Levi and so no Rabbi at all, he was a Carpenter , the same profession of his father. Possibly this was the most shocking aspect of his personality that the Pharisees didn't like, that a common man got such a knowledge in the scriptures than few high Priests had.

He could be a Nazarite in his late teens and in his twenties, who says no? many years before to begin his public life. The gospels tell us only his very last three years of adult life, after a huge jump from his childhood. , The Canonical gospels tell nothing about his adolescence or twenties, that is a great gap in which every thing could be possible.

- The first mention of Jesus in connection with wine comes from the weddings of Canaan, and that happened when he was a very well grown man, clearly an adult.

en.wikipedia.org...

- John the Baptist is likely that was if not an Essene, at least a person that had a close relationship with that community of faith in the dead sea. There are a lot of coincidences among his teachings and the ones of the great master of the Essenes. Jesus was in his beginning a kind of follower of John so he could perfectly be for a while a novice of Essene according with the rite of John the Baptist.

calba-savua.blogspot.com...

- The Gospels tell us that he spent seasons in the dessert to pray and retire of the people, to meditate deeply and fast. He could be in any moment in contact with the Essenes during any of those trips, since more or less those were also habits of them.

www.sacred-texts.com...

I agree with you that only Romans were beardless in ancient times, they invented the shaving custom for the soldiers and all the citizens.

Thanks for your comment,

The Angel of Lightness

a reply to: The angel of light

As your post was a little long (I keep getting dings for commenting on long posts with my own log comment, so I will break it up here).

The truth about genetics is that we are assuming today what is in the Levant would be the same genetic markings found 2,000 years ago. While the Jews certainly are very admixed in Europe, the truth is genetically it is very hard to differentiate between Italian, Greek, Semite and North African. I know this because my genetics testing was done and with known Sephardi ancestry, and many others like me, it is very hard to show an accurate composition.

And I would like to caution that in some communities 2,000 years ago may not have been as admixed, considering that even today, Ashkenazi is very little admixed, even though they are diverse genetically. But we are cautioned to remember that this is from the past 500 years. Ashkenazi of Europe was known as a bottlenecked population because the women had little outside admixing, but the men did. So, Ashkenazi is indeed a racial group, proven genetically and most Ashkenazi are related to each other, because of the fact they intermarried each other for a very long time. One could say the Ashkenazi are an inbred population, however to be fair, we could also say the same thing of many other culture groups as well. But the Ashkenazi were bottlenecked.

As far as having red hair, the red hair gene is inherited actually from Neanderthal. The Levant was an original location of several haplotypes that interbred with Neanderthal. My own, T2b, is found presently in only 8% of all of Europe, originating in the Levant. But Neanderthal helped spread the haplotypes in Europe and the Middle East.

And we assume they were not tall then, because over time any group of men can become taller or shorter, depending on how much their previous ancestors bred with the outcome of height. That is called selective breeding, we know this is what happens because slave owners did that very thing. So to say they were short 2,000 years ago, that is something we cannot judge by today's population. If we went by today's population, then Mexican men must have been midgets only 10 generations ago. And the East Asians are short in stature as well.

Again, eye color is caused by many different factors, certainly genetics plays the part, but like height and hair color, it is also caused by interbreeding blue and brown and selective breeding. Blue eyes are a mutation found also in Neanderthals. We cannot say that Jesus had hazel eyes because of today's population genetics. 2,000 years ago, among the Jewish population in the Levant, there were specific markers that can be identified today. As far as Mohammed goes, he lived 600 years later, meaning that even he lived beyond that 7 generation, 500 year span that geneticists say is offered and can't go beyond that. And you don't know who Mohammed's father was, he didn't even know. So it really is not a viable discussion about Mohammed, he simply lived beyond that time allowed, genetically.

A rabbi wasn't necessarily a priest.

There are still rabbis today that can never be priests, even Paul's teacher Gamaliel was never a priest, but a rabbi. Gamaliel was the grandson of Hillel the Elder, which was a rabbi and teacher, but not a priest. Any Jewish man could study with the rabbis and elders to become a rabbi.

Hillel the Elder if anything, Jesus may have been a student from this yeshiva, because He does espouse the teachings of Hillel.

So your assumption that rabbi and priest are exclusively mutual, you are wrong in that case. Hillel belonged to both Judah and Benjamin, which Paul also says that he was of Benjamin, so in those days, men from any tribe could still go to yeshiva, and there was a yeshiva in Jerusalem.

There is a difference in the rabbinical system and the priestly system, today the Ashkenazi and Sephardi are left with only the rabbinical system who now interprets or upholds previous opinions, but still, those are opinions and all Jews know this. Rambam, Maimonides, was also a rabbi, but his opinions are not regarded by every Jewish person as being the ultimate end-all opinion for them. The Hasidic might think that way, but not Conservative or Reform.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Hi Dear WarminIndy,

I appreciate a lot your time and attention to this thread, it is quite interesting to have the opinion of a person that belong indeed to a Jewish people.

It is quite interesting your remarks about the distinction in between Rabbinic order and Levitic one, it gives a lot of light to the person of Jesus, I was always interested to ask that to a Jewish person.

I myself also have Sephardic Ancestry through my maternal line, but all were converted centuries ago to Christians, so my perspective of this topic naturally may differ to the one of a practitioner Jewish person.

It is also interesting to remark that not all the Sephardic People are really Jews, in the strict meaning of the term, but all are Hebrews. The difference is that there were another 10 tribes of Israel that officially have declared lost, by the Orthodox Rabbis and Priests, but they were really never missed.

A lot of Sephardic people that were originally in Spain and Portugal, and that later were moved to North western Europe, Turkey and North Africa, and the Americas, were really part of those tribes, since their ancestors came to the Iberia Peninsula not from the exodus caused by the Jewish wars against Rome, but during the Invasion of Nabbucodonosor invasion to the Holy land, and also the one of Alexander the Great. That is important since many Converted Sephardies defended along centuries from the Inquisition prosecution precisely arguing that their ancestors never even had the opportunity to met Christ or had nothing to do with the plot to kill him.

So without being a culturally familiar in the same level than you, about Jewish costumes ,I have another interesting question for you: There is the discussion that Jesus couldn't be a long haired guy, because some Conservative Christians use 1 Corinthians , 11 chapter of St Paul to say that it was not admitted such look in a Jewish man at that time.

Why modern Jews cover the head in the synagogue, with the Yamaka , but that paragraph of St Paul letter suggest that possibly was not the way it was at that time, according with it only women covered their heads in the temple. Perhaps there is no contradiction here and everything obeys to a misinterpretation, since all Catholic bishops and higher hierarchies in the Church have wearing it for centuries too.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: The angel of light
a reply to: WarminIndy

Hi Dear WarminIndy,

I appreciate a lot your time and attention to this thread, it is quite interesting to have the opinion of a person that belong indeed to a Jewish people.

It is quite interesting your remarks about the distinction in between Rabbinic order and Levitic one, it gives a lot of light to the person of Jesus, I was always interested to ask that to a Jewish person.

I myself also have Sephardic Ancestry through my maternal line, but all were converted centuries ago to Christians, so my perspective of this topic naturally may differ to the one of a practitioner Jewish person.

It is also interesting to remark that not all the Sephardic People are really Jews, in the strict meaning of the term, but all are Hebrews. The difference is that there were another 10 tribes of Israel that officially have declared lost, by the Orthodox Rabbis and Priests, but they were really never missed.

A lot of Sephardic people that were originally in Spain and Portugal, and that later were moved to North western Europe, Turkey and North Africa, and the Americas, were really part of those tribes, since their ancestors came to the Iberia Peninsula not from the exodus caused by the Jewish wars against Rome, but during the Invasion of Nabbucodonosor invasion to the Holy land, and also the one of Alexander the Great. That is important since many Converted Sephardies defended along centuries from the Inquisition prosecution precisely arguing that their ancestors never even had the opportunity to met Christ or had nothing to do with the plot to kill him.

So without being a culturally familiar in the same level than you, about Jewish costumes ,I have another interesting question for you: There is the discussion that Jesus couldn't be a long haired guy, because some Conservative Christians use 1 Corinthians , 11 chapter of St Paul to say that it was not admitted such look in a Jewish man at that time.

Why modern Jews cover the head in the synagogue, with the Yamaka , but that paragraph of St Paul letter suggest that possibly was not the way it was at that time, according with it only women covered their heads in the temple. Perhaps there is no contradiction here and everything obeys to a misinterpretation, since all Catholic bishops and higher hierarchies in the Church have wearing it for centuries too.

Thanks,

The Angel of Lightness

I am a Christian, not a Jew by religion, but do understand the Jewish perspective and have studied it for a long time. I am kind of like a Messianic Jew, if that is close enough. But I do have cousins that are rabbis and I am related to the well-known David Brickner of Jews for Jesus.

My mother also has relatives that were Jewish who died in Dachau, Bergen Belsen and Auschwitz. So even though I was raised Christian, the Jewish side is very clear and evident in my family. I did a lot of research to find these names of relatives who died. I think of all the records I found of relatives in Jewish cemeteries in Ukraine and Poland, the one that made me cry the most was Max Brickner, died at Dachau. There was something so blunt in that record, it was heartbreaking to read.

My Jewish cousins that are rabbis are the same old family of Cleveland, Ohio that started the first synagogue and my Sephardi ancestry is benShanan and Cohen of Baltimore, by the way of Jamaica from Spain. I know these relatives who are benShanan and they are all over the world. A famous soccer player Gilad benShanan, plays now for Israel.

Culturally, I was raised Christian, but very Jew-centric. I hope that explains it and I also keep Passover.

Now, the verse you are referring to in Corintthians was toward the Hellenistic Christian community, there has been much scholarly research into ancient Corinth and a lot of understanding was drawn from the ancient philosophers. Maybe this link may help because it does give insight by the many sources that have been studied.

Plutarch discusses this because even though Corinth was Greek culturally, it was still a Roman colony

it should be noted that among the Romans, even the men covered their heads at worship. In Moralia, The Roman Questions 10, Plutarch asks, "Why is it that when they worship the gods, they cover their heads, but when they meet any of their fellow-men worthy of honour, if they happen to have the toga over the head, they uncover?" The only exceptions to this covering at worship that he lists are in the worship of Saturn and the god called "Honor" (Moralia, The Roman Questions 11, 13). And Virgil presents Aeneas as saying, "before the altar veiled our heads in Phrygian robe" (Aeneid 3.545).

It was a custom according to Plutarch that Paul was addressing to the citizens of Corinth that were already aware of the social custom. Even the verse about women not speaking in church, that was also a custom in Hellenistic Corinth.

That is why Paul says "but WE have no such customs", referring to that social ideology present. The We was Jewish/Christian, and that is why it stands in juxtaposition. Christians came from not only Jews, but Roman, Greek and Persians as well. The first European convert outside of Italy or Greece was a woman named Lydia from Illyria, or what we associate today with near Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia.

Jesus was never Greek and they understood this very well, He was an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and as such would have worn His hair according to the customs of the times and the law of Moses.

Jewish laws and customs

But there is a small group of Jews who are Karaite and they believe that one is only obligated to follow the Torah and not the rabbis. Even right now, there is some disagreements within the Jewish community worldwide, because Hasidic do not accept Conservative or Reform as really Jewish, even though their own opinions are such that a person is Jewish according to mother, some non-Jews can be considered part of the nation if they follow Jewish law, but never converting.

While the worldwide Jewish community is struggling to maintain identity, they are very accepting of those who they perceive as non-Jews who perform mitvoh, which you and I do, even if it is only one. Today, being a Jew is different than 2,000 years ago and this was understood as they accepted certain people, such as Ruth, who married into the Jewish faith.

To be a Jew then meant someone who kept mitzvoh. Today, it means someone who identifies with the larger Jewish community. Paul never rescinded his Jewish identity and neither did Peter. Today, Peter would be classified as a Jew for Jesus.

a reply to: WarminIndy

Dear WarminIndy,

Again your comments are giving a lot of light to this discussion, they are indeed showing that here has prevailed a dramatically wrong interpretation of the scriptures, I am talking about those Christian sects that attack terribly the long hair style in men.

It can't be correct their interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11, for the simple reason that enters in absolutely evident contradiction with a precept that is contained in a major compilation of the Law, the Leviticus.

In Leviticus 19:27-28 it is clearly commanded:

“(27) You shall not round the edge of your head, nor shall you destroy the edge of your beard. (28) And you shall not make a cutting for the dead in your flesh, nor shall you make a written tattoo upon you; I am Yehovah.”

In these two verses all the Hebrews are forbidden to make four types of “cuttings”:

◾1) Cutting the head or hair
◾2) Cutting the face or beard
◾3) Cutting the flesh
◾4) Inscribing writing on the flesh

This commandment makes impossible the interpretation that St Paul is talking about length of the Hair in Men, but it makes logical that he is referring to cover the head while praising in the temple, that makes sense since this refers to covers the face as it can be done with a veil.

Notice that the letter compares the hair of women with a natural veil, so it gives a powerful hint of what kind of hair style is talking about, is not just to have the hair long, but to allow it to fall over the forehead and face.

The Pony tail hair dressing that it is found in the Holy Shroud and in the Holy Sudarium also explains satisfactorily how is possible that Jesus had long hair but at the same time was obeying the precept of Leviticus.

Thanks for your comment.

The Angel of Lightness

originally posted by: The angel of light
a reply to: undo

Well dear undo,

There is no doubt that Jesus lived in Egypt when he was a boy, probably he spend some years there, the canonical gospels are not clear in how long it was, but I don't think there is a reliable source that can prove he had anything to do with the Egyptian royalty, as you claim, also it is intriguing your statement about that St Mary could be Greek Jew, which sources can you show supporting those claims?

We know that St Mary was born in Nazareth, while Joseph the legal father of Jesus was also born in Bethlehem.

Is there any connection in between what you brought to this discussion and the recent finding of the eldest fragment of the Gospel of St Marc in an Egyptian tomb?

Egyptians believed since thousands of years ago in the great beyond and they were the first people on earth probably to believe in resurrection, but who ever was buried in that tomb could be a Christian Egyptian or somebody that admired a lot Jesus.

Thanks for your comment,

but again it is intriguing.

The Angel of Lightness

well, since the story of jesus actually spans since before the creation of the adam, that's where tracing the info has to start. without that, the rest of the information goes willy nilly all over the place, resulting in what you see today, with splinters of splinters in every direction and few agreeing with each other. the problem is, that route is long, requires dedication and the ability to recognize what you're reading. we naturally put up barriers to knowledge that disagrees with prior accepted canon, and rightfully so: "test it to see if it be of god," is not an empty concept.

in short, in order to explain what i mean, would require going back to the "beginning" and for that, we'd need a different thread.

originally posted by: The angel of light
a reply to: WarminIndy

Dear WarminIndy,

Again your comments are giving a lot of light to this discussion, they are indeed showing that here has prevailed a dramatically wrong interpretation of the scriptures, I am talking about those Christian sects that attack terribly the long hair style in men.

It can't be correct their interpretation of 1 Corinthians 11, for the simple reason that enters in absolutely evident contradiction with a precept that is contained in a major compilation of the Law, the Leviticus.

In Leviticus 19:27-28 it is clearly commanded:

“(27) You shall not round the edge of your head, nor shall you destroy the edge of your beard. (28) And you shall not make a cutting for the dead in your flesh, nor shall you make a written tattoo upon you; I am Yehovah.”

In these two verses all the Hebrews are forbidden to make four types of “cuttings”:

◾1) Cutting the head or hair
◾2) Cutting the face or beard
◾3) Cutting the flesh
◾4) Inscribing writing on the flesh

This commandment makes impossible the interpretation that St Paul is talking about length of the Hair in Men, but it makes logical that he is referring to cover the head while praising in the temple, that makes sense since this refers to covers the face as it can be done with a veil.

Notice that the letter compares the hair of women with a natural veil, so it gives a powerful hint of what kind of hair style is talking about, is not just to have the hair long, but to allow it to fall over the forehead and face.

The Pony tail hair dressing that it is found in the Holy Shroud and in the Holy Sudarium also explains satisfactorily how is possible that Jesus had long hair but at the same time was obeying the precept of Leviticus.

Thanks for your comment.

The Angel of Lightness

And there were indeed more restrictive laws for the Levites, those who were the Kohanim, or the priestly class. As priests, they were forbidden to enter mixed marriages, marry a woman that was divorced, wear clothing that was mixed or made them sweat.

But the Levites also were not given any land that could be inherited, but were to be funded for their work by the rest of the tribes. So as much as the Levites were set apart, it was for a specific reason, and that was to administer their duties as priests. Certainly some Levites took advantage of the economic situation, which some prophets decried.

Most modern Jews today descend or claim to descend from Levi, and the rules for the Orthodox are what you see today. However, the Hasidic are the ones who are following that, the Conservative and Reform aren't so adhering to those old commandments..lol.

What people don't realize is that when it comes to art, the depictions are according to the artists' own perception. Those Renaissance painters and sculptors drew from what they observed in their world, that's why that famous statue of David as a Shepherd...he isn't circumcised. I pointed this out to my art history professor, she became embarrassed because I saw that while she was explaining it.

So see, for anyone to rely on the image of Jesus from the Renaissance, all those artists had patrons who more or less "advised" them on what they wanted, because the patrons were paying the money.

Those Christian groups that interpret scripture according to the art presented, which is what happened, somehow believed the whole Bible has been from the Roman and Greek perspective, for a very, very long time it was taught that Christianity didn't even arise from Israel, but in Rome. Certainly though, given the cultural aspects of what contributed to Christianity, there were indeed supplanting of what we view today as Pagan ideas into Christianity.

You have to consider the cultures in which early Christians lived and it was very diverse. But over time, people didn't know much about the earlier cultures and assumed the ancient world consisted of only Roman, Greek and Hebrew.

One thing I would like to say though, as often as you have heard that Joseph was a type and a shadow of Christ, to show what was to come, as Joseph wore a coat of many colors, Jesus does also.

a reply to: WarminIndy

oh i didn't realize that about david's statue. how interesting and insightful.

the hair issue isn't the only problem with paul. or rather, other people's view of paul's writings. paul was an apostle, no doubt about it, but he was also still a human being with his own shortcomings. giving his letters the same importance as that of jesus' words, is perhaps the wrong way to read his work.

Is there a single church or organization in the western world that depicts Jesus as a Middle Eastern man with dark hair, dark eyes and sun scorched skin? If you look at Sephardic Jews, they too have these traits.

Innocent quirk or xenophobia?

originally posted by: undo
a reply to: WarminIndy

oh i didn't realize that about david's statue. how interesting and insightful.

the hair issue isn't the only problem with paul. or rather, other people's view of paul's writings. paul was an apostle, no doubt about it, but he was also still a human being with his own shortcomings. giving his letters the same importance as that of jesus' words, is perhaps the wrong way to read his work.

There are several passages that Paul indicates that some things are his own opinion and doesn't come from God. That's up to the reader to determine if they agree with Paul or not on that particular subject. But Paul and Peter didn't get along all the time either.

I think the saddest thing is that people want to believe the Bible has stopped being written, as though the Apostolic Age was the end all and God stopped speaking then. The NT is just letters to churches, they weren't originally part of a book, but became that.

That is something I find very sad, because God hasn't stopped speaking today and God hasn't stopped working today. I am of the opinion that we today should also write what God is doing in our lives, the Apostolic Age might have ended, but the Age of God Speaking To Us Now has never ended. That's my opinion.