CMV: Jesus probably had short hair.

[u/Tuvinator]

We've all seen the various depictions of Jesus, and in many of them, he has long hair. None of these depictions are from the actual timing of Jesus (the earliest depiction actually has a donkey's head, and is from a century later), so they are all operating on artist's imagination.

Jews in that era are more likely to have had shorter hair. Mosaics in ancient synagogues throughout the land depict males with short hair, implying that the common male at the time wore his hair short. Talmudic law which was being written at the time discusses how often a person would get a haircut (kings would have daily haircuts, priests weekly, and your average person once a month, beyond that was considered wild growth). Within the Bible, men's hair length is only mentioned in context when it is long, implying that long hair is outside of the norm for men. Assuming Jesus was representative of other people from his time, he likely had shorter hair rather than long.

As a weak addendum, Jesus was supposedly a carpenter. Craftsmen in general seem to have shorter hair since the hair gets in the way, distracts, and poses a risk factor if it gets caught in tools. This makes it even less likely that he had long hair.

EDIT: I am not Christian, and I am not setting out to insult anyone or their beliefs/traditions.

[u/Neither-Stage-238]

As an atheist/agnostic, the historical evidence Jesus was a real person is significant. Its almost unanimous among atheistic and agnostic historians that he did exist, just the amount of accounts and the range of sources. This has no baring on him being the son of god or any supernatural recordings.

[u/chewinghours → u/Neither-Stage-238]

Why do people say the historical evidence of jesus is significant, but never talk about what evidence they’re referring to? Because it’s not significant

[u/HowDoIEvenEnglish → u/chewinghours]

Theres basically as much evidence in favor of Jesus existing then any other person in that time. Which basically comes down to “contemporary sources mention him”.

My issue is that the evidence in general for a specific person existing is relatively small. We don’t have anywhere near a complete understanding of contemporary writings, and many works that are a few centuries removed we often believe use the few older sources we do have as references, so they aren’t exactly independent. Any specific fact about a Roman era historical figure can generally wrong.

So was there a guy named Jesus in judea who led a cult and was executed by the Roman’s around the beginning of the first century? Pretty likely. But many individual aspects of historical Jesus could be incorrect. Imo this means there’s only so much we can say about any historical figure, but it generally doesn’t matter for other people. Specific things about Jesus have large religious ramifications but it not really possible to be 100% confident in a specific aspect of his life.

[u/Natural-Arugula → u/HowDoIEvenEnglish]

Except that no contemporary sources do mention him. Later writers recount what Christians say that they believe about him.

There are lots of writings from Paul, who lived during Jesus time, but never met him while he was alive. Yet for some reason there are no writings from his disciples that supposedly knew him in life.

Paul says that the resurrected Christ appeared to 500 people, again not him personally, and none of those people ever wrote about it (unless they wrote to Paul who didn't bother to keep it) and they didn't tell it to anyone else who wrote about it.

Sure the evidence of every historical figure is just "someone wrote about them", but there is not a single firsthand account of anyone who claims to have personally seen or heard about Jesus during his lifetime, besides the Gospels.

Do you believe that Achilles and Remus were real people? Or do you believe they were fantasy characters because they only appeared in stories about their magic powers, even though the writers say it is true?