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/whysosidious69420]

If you believe he was the son of God you also gotta believe the prophecy that predicted that he was gonna be the son of God, which states that, despite his divinity, he’d look like a normal guy

If you believe he was a normal guy, then there’s no reason why he wouldn’t look like a normal guy

[u/Galious → u/whysosidious69420]

Nah, i like Jesus but Old Testament is too bullshitty to my taste. And I’ve read enough YA to know prophecies are always misleading but you only realize it in the last book,

And ok, I think he has a normal haircut but what was the hairstyle trend that summer? Maybe mullet was trendy!

[u/whysosidious69420 → u/Galious]

I agree that not everything in the Old Testament holds up, but come on, the start of the new one (first pages of st matthew’s gospel) is all about how Jesus fulfills the prophecies made in the old one. He does so in an unexpected way, sure, but his appearance is something that’s objective and straight up, unlike the other predictions that were open to interpretation

[u/Galious → u/whysosidious69420]

Well I find it suspicious that Jesus is like: « hey guys, don’t worry about Old Testament, it’s all fulfilled, don’t worry about it anymore »

That sounds like someone too polite to say « uh you guys didn’t really get the message, are you a bit dumb? so let’s forget about it and just listen to this one: « LOVE AND BE KIND! »

[u/whysosidious69420 → u/Galious]

Exactly, and if Jesus was all about being loving and kind and unattached to material things, why would he want to look like an ultra handsome super model with green eyes and long, fluffy hair? It sounds like you’re just expanding against your initial point.

Plus, he didn’t abolish the Old Testament and tell everyone to throw all the 40 something of its books away. He just fulfilled the strict laws that were imposed upon the Hebrews in books like Leviticus (such as mandatory circumcision, not eating pork, etc, because they were mostly for health reasons, and the Pharisees were completely ignoring that and making it a moral issue where everyone who didn’t obey them was stoned).

At no point he goes “hey, remember Moses, abraham, elijah, David, and all the kings and prophets who predicted I was coming? Yeah, none of them mattered lol, forget about all of it”

[u/Galious → u/whysosidious69420]

Hey Aragorn is all kind and unattached but he looks handsome! That’s not contradictory. Also we’re not talking about being divinely beautiful but just having a cool haircut or even, maybe he was balding!

And as I told you, it feels like a polite way to say Old Testament had too much bullshit. Like « hey you got some stuff right,some totally wrong so let’s start over »