Frequently Asked Bible Questions

What did Jesus look like?

Do all the pictures and statues of Jesus Christ accurately represent what He looked like?

You'll notice that the United Church of God never attempts to represent what Christ looked like in any of our publications.

The common representations of Him by other religious organizations show Him to be effeminate and weak—characterizations that we know to be completely misleading. Jesus worked as a "carpenter," a type of work more akin to what we would call general contracting today. It was heavy labor. Although the Bible says, "He has no stately form or majesty that we should look upon Him, nor appearance that we should be attracted to Him" (Isaiah 53:2, New American Standard Bible), He was unquestionably physically powerful to be able to do the type of work His family business required.

Regardless, no drawing or sculpture was ever made of Jesus that remains. All we have are conceptions that people came up with centuries later. Apparently, their theology greatly influenced their impression of His appearance. It seems they were overly influenced with the concept of making Him appear "gentle," ignoring what the Scripture reveals about His physical strength, as well as the strength of His personality.

While we don't know what Jesus looked like, we do know that He wouldn't have had long hair. After all, Jesus Himself inspired the apostle Paul to write, "Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?" (1 Corinthians 11:14).

Since God did not cause or allow the preservation of any likeness of Jesus Christ, it's clear that He intended us to look instead to Christ's words.

You might be interested in reading our booklet Jesus Christ: The Real Story for a fuller "picture" of who He was and what He taught.

Related Online Resources

What Did Jesus Look Like?
The title proclaims, "The Real Face of Jesus," followed by, "Advances in forensic science reveal the most famous face in history." This article didn't appear in a religious magazine, but was the lead story in Popular Mechanics, challenging the popular view of the appearance of Jesus.

Did Jesus Have Long Hair? from the booklet Jesus Christ: The Real Story
Most people assume that Jesus had long hair. After all, that's the way they've always seen Him portrayed in every painting, drawing or movie. That's the only Jesus they've ever seen. But are those depictions accurate?

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