It turns out our collective image of how Jesus dressed is very wrong (2024)

The appearance of Jesus matters because it cuts to the heart of his message.

By Joan Taylor

May 18, 2020

Posted May 18, 2020

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

Over the past few decades, the question of what Jesus looked like has cropped up again and again. Much has been made of a digital reconstruction of a Judaean man created for a BBC documentary, Son of God, in 2001. This was based on an ancient skull and, using the latest technology (as it was), shows the head of a stocky fellow with a somewhat worried expression.

Rightly, the skin tone is olive, and the hair and beard black and shortish, but the nose, lips, neck, eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, fat cover and expression are all totally conjectural. Putting flesh on ancient skulls is not an exact science, because the soft tissue and cartilage are unknown.

Nevertheless, for me as a historian, trying to visualise Jesus accurately is a way to understand Jesus more accurately, too.

The Jesus we've inherited from centuries of Christian art is not accurate, but it is a powerful brand. A man with long hair parted in the middle and a long beard – often with fair skin, light brown hair and blue eyes – has become the widely accepted likeness. We imagine Jesus in long robes with baggy sleeves, as he is most often depicted in artworks over the centuries. In contemporary films, from Zefirelli's Jesus of Nazareth (1977) onwards, this styling prevails, even when Jesus' clothing is considered poorly made.

Son Of God | Official Trailer [HD] | 20th Century FOX youtu.be

There were many reasons why Jesus was portrayed in what has become the worldwide standard, and none of them were to do with preserving historical accuracy. I explore these in my new book What did Jesus look like?, but ultimately I look to clues in early texts and archaeology for the real Jesus.

For me, Jesus' appearance is not all about flesh and bones. After all, our bodies are not just bodies. As the sociologist Chris Shilling argues, they are "both personal resources and social symbols that 'give off' messages about identity". We can be old, young, tall, short, weighty, thin, dark-skinned, light-skinned, frizzy-haired, straight-haired, and so on, but our appearance does not begin and end with our physical bodies. In a crowd, we may look for a friend's scarf rather than their hair or nose. What we do with our bodies creates an appearance.

And so Jesus' appearance would have had much to do with what he was wearing. Once we've got the palette for his colouring right, given he was a Jewish man of the Middle East, how do we dress him? How did he seem to people of the time?

Dressed in basics

There is no neat physical description of Jesus in the Gospels or in ancient Christian literature. But there are incidental details. From the Bible (for example, Mark 6:56) you can discover that he wore a mantle – a large shawl ("himation" in Greek) – which had tassels, described as "edges"; a distinctively Jewish tallith in a form it was in antiquity. Usually made of wool, a mantle could be large or small, thick or fine, coloured or natural, but for men there was a preference for undyed types.

He walked in sandals, as implied in multiple Biblical passages (see Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:7, 6:9; John 1:27), and we now know what ancient Judaean sandals were like as they have been preserved in dry caves by the Dead Sea.

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He wore a tunic (chit?n), which for men normally finished slightly below the knees, not at the ankles. Among men, only the very rich wore long tunics. Indeed, Jesus specifically identifies men who dress in long tunics ("stolai", Mark 12:38) as wrongly receiving honour from people who are impressed by their fine attire, when in fact they unjustly devour widows' houses.

Jesus's tunic was also made of one piece of cloth only (John 19:23-24). That's strange, because mostly tunics were made of two pieces sewn at the shoulders and sides. One-piece tunics in first-century Judaea were normally thin undergarments or children's wear. We shouldn't think of contemporary underwear, but wearing a one-piece on its own was probably not good form. It was extremely basic.

'Shamefully' shabby?

Perhaps it is unsurprising, then, that Jesus was remembered as looking shabby by a scholar named Celsus, writing in the mid second century, in a treatise against the Christians. Celsus did his homework. He interviewed people, and he – like us – was quite interested in what Jesus looked like. From Jews and others he questioned, he heard that Jesus "wandered about most shamefully in the sight of all". He "obtained his means of livelihood in a disgraceful and importunate way" – by begging or receiving donations.

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From the perspective of respectable people, we can surmise then that Jesus looked relatively rough. When the Christian writer Origen argued against Celsus, he rejected many of his assertions, but he did not dispute this.

And so while Jesus wore similar clothes to other Jewish men in many respects, his "look" was scruffy. I doubt his hair was particularly long as depicted in most artwork, given male norms of the time, but it was surely not well-tended. Wearing a basic tunic that other people wore as an undergarment would fit with Jesus' detachment regarding material things (Matthew 6:19-21, 28–29; Luke 6:34-35, 12:22-28) and concern for the poor (Luke 6:20-23).

This, to me, is the beginning of a different way of seeing Jesus, and one very relevant for our times of massive inequality between rich and poor, as in the Roman Empire. Jesus aligned himself with the poor and this would have been obvious from how he looked.

The appearance of Jesus matters because it cuts to the heart of his message. However he is depicted in film and art today, he needs to be shown as one of the have-nots; his teaching can only be truly understood from this perspective.

Joan Taylor is Professor of Christian Origins and Second Temple Judaism, King's College London

FAQs

How was Jesus dressed in the Bible? ›

A good part of Jesus' regular outfit was standard for the time. According to historian Joan Taylor, Jesus wore a prayer mantle/shawl/cloak with tassels (see Mark 6:56 and Luke 8:43-47) called a tallit or tallis which was (and is still used in many Jewish circles) part of the typical ensemble.

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What did Jesus say about dressing? ›

For the LORD does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” It's the heart issue that is important, not the clothes.

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What type of clothing would Jesus have worn? ›

It is likely that Jesus would have worn simple, plain clothing made from wool or linen. He may have worn a tunic or robe, and possibly a head covering such as a turban or shawl.

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What does casting lots for Jesus clothes mean? ›

When the Romans crucified someone, the soldiers carrying out the execution typically had rights to his clothing. In the case of Jesus, the soldiers cast lots to determine how to divide our Lord's garments (John 19:23). John tells us that this act fulfilled prophecy, specifically Psalm 22:18 (John 19:24).

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What does the fact that Jesus was stripped of his clothing signify? ›

The moment of the stripping reminds us of the expulsion from Paradise: GodÂ's splendour has fallen away from man, who now stands naked and exposed, unclad and ashamed.

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Who was the first person to wear a Jesus piece? ›

The first Jesus piece was worn by Christopher Wallace (The Notorious B.I.G.). It was made by Tito Caicedo, Wallace's jeweler (jewelry-maker). Wallace had Caicedo make many more Jesus pieces, paying him about $10,000 for each. Wallace had worn some of these Jesus pieces himself, and gave others pieces to his peers.

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Why did Jesus take off his clothes? ›

Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under his power, and that he had come from God and was returning to God; so he got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.

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What foods did Jesus eat? ›

To be specific, Jesus drank water and wine, ate only whole grain bread, abstained from pork and shellfish, and ate large quantities of healthy foods like olive oil, grapes, figs, pomegranates, various kinds of vegetables, and fish. This is “the Jesus way of eating” [p.

Keep Reading ›

What happened to Jesus' clothes? ›

Tradition has it that when the Romans cast lots for the tunic of Jesus, a Georgian subject, Elioz, was in Jerusalem. He managed to get hold of the robe and took it to his country, giving it to his sister, Sidonia.

Learn More Now ›

Can Christians still cast lots? ›

Casting lots was the attempt to figure out God's direction, which is why the Bible does not condemn casting lots. What we must remember today is we don't have to cast lots anymore, it is simply not necessary. We don't have to wonder what direction God wants us to take because he will guide us by his Holy Spirit.

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How to clothe yourself in Jesus? ›

Clothed in Christ Now

Sometimes the command is to “put on” certain godly characteristics that are a reflection of Christ himself: “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience” (Col 3:12).

How did Jesus look according to the Bible? ›

For many scholars, Revelation 1:14-15 offers a clue that Jesus's skin was a darker hue and that his hair was woolly in texture. The hairs of his head, it says, "were white as white wool, white as snow. His eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace.”