Transcript

A bunch of news articles have come out recently saying that new research has proven the Shroud of Turin is 2,000 years old, and so it is Christ's actual burial shroud.

And some people have used AI to try to flesh out what Jesus looked like based on the image on the shroud.

The image, for those of you who are listening by podcast, looks a little like Mormon Jesus, but you might also say it looks like the Christ Pantocrator icon, an early 6th century painting of Jesus.

But in today's episode, I need to talk about people who are getting really weird about what Jesus looked like, and I also wanna talk about legitimate questions regarding Jesus's physical appearance that raise theological questions.

Before I do that though, I wanna say that I am not weighing in on whether the Shroud of Turin is authentic or not, and so that this is or definitely is not an image of Jesus Christ.

That would require a very long episode of its own, and people are free to accept or not accept the authenticity of the shroud.

I would, however, caution people to not be overly confident in the latest research.

You don't wanna overplay your evidence.

This research is based on wide-angle X-ray scattering technology, and that technology to use for dating is really new.

It's only been cited a handful of times prior to this paper.

Moreover, the study gets a date of 2,000 years old in the shroud by assuming that the Shroud of Turin stayed between 68 and 72 degrees, and 55 and 75% humidity for 2,000 years, which is a pretty big assumption.

So, that's just my caveat about this new shroud research.

But what I find more worrying is people who get so attached to this image of Christ that they end up saying really awful things.

Here's a post that got nearly two million views on X. Remember when British forensic experts and Israeli archeologists claimed that Jesus was this hideous brown guy?

Now that the Shroud of Turin has been confirmed authentic, AI has been used to determine what Jesus actually looked like, and it matches how he was always depicted.

Another popular post says that the earliest eyewitness accounts of Jesus say that Jesus looked like the typical long hair, blue-eyed, amazing cheekbones Jesus, and it cites an ancient source, Publius Lentulus, as confirming this.

All right, so here's what's wrong with these memes.

First, the image on the left that he calls the ugly brown guy, this image never tried to represent Jesus Christ.

In 2001, the forensic anthropologist Richard Neave created a model of a Galilean man, just a random Galilean man from the first century, for the BBC documentary Son of God, and he did so working on the basis of an actual skull that was found in the region, as noted in this clip from the BBC.

Now, on the left of your screen you'll see the traditional depiction that we have of him in a church's stained-glass window with long hair and a beard, but on the right is a reconstruction of a 2,000-year-old skull of a man from the Galilee area.

The point was that this is what the average man in Jesus's time probably looked like, which makes it reasonable to believe that Jesus probably looked something like this since the prophet Isaiah said the following of the Messiah: He had no form or comeliness that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.

On a side note, this description also applies to Jesus's height.

If the average height of men in Jesus's time was five foot five, then it's possible the man in the shroud could be Jesus, because the man in the shroud's height has been estimated to be between five foot seven and six foot two.

If he was five foot seven, Jesus would have been slightly taller than average.

But other sources say the average height of men in Jesus's time was five foot one, which calls into question the shroud being an authentic image of Jesus, since if that was how tall people were in Jesus's time, and Jesus was six to 13 inches taller based on the shroud estimates, Jesus would have been considered a giant.

King Saul was noted in scripture for being a head taller than every other man, and if Jesus were so freakishly tall, Judas Iscariot would not have needed to identify him with a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He could've told the guards to seek out the really tall guy.

Second, the claim that the alleged earliest sources always described Jesus as looking like AI Jesus, well, they're based on forgeries.

The meme, for example, cites the Letter of Lentulus, which claims to be from the governor of the Jerusalemites addressed to the Roman Senate and people.

It says of Jesus, His hair is of the color of the ripe hazelnut, straight down to the ears, and it is parted in two on the top of the head.

And his eyes are blue-gray and bright.

But there's no evidence Lentulus existed, and the letter first appears in the historical record in the 15th century after Christ.

The Catholic Encyclopedia, written in 1912, says the following: The Letter of Lentulus is certainly apocryphal.

There never was a 'governor of Jerusalem.' No 'procurator of Judaea' is known to have been called Lentulus.

A Roman governor would not have addressed the senate but the emperor; a Roman writer would not have employed the expressions 'Prophet of truth,''sons of men,' 'Jesus Christ.' Instead, the earliest depictions of Jesus make him look very Roman, especially by having no beard.

This can be seen in a house church from the third century and a catacomb from the third century.

Over time, depictions of Jesus begin to change and reflect the cultures in which the art was created, such as by giving Jesus a beard.

Since we don't have a divinely revealed answer to the question, What did Jesus look like?

artists are free to depict Jesus in different ways, including by having him belong to other races, like being Asian.

In doing this, artists show that God became man as part of a universal mission to redeem all of mankind, which refers to all human beings of every race and ethnicity.

Artists can take this liberty in portraying holy people because God Himself takes some liberties in how holy people appear.

Luke 24 describes how the disciples on the road to Emmaus were kept from recognizing Jesus, which may mean Jesus looked different from their perspective.

Marian apparitions, like Our Lady of Guadalupe, La Salette, and Akita, among others, often involve the seer beholding Mary looking different in accord with the different cultures of the seer.

Seers who receive private revelation also differ in whether they see Christ being crucified with one nail going through both of his feet or two nails going through each of his feet.

Pope Benedict XIV wrote a book in the 18th century about beatification and canonization of servants of God called Heroic Virtue.

In the third volume, the pope talks about how seers might see different numbers of nails, or they might have visions of Saint Jerome with a lion as a companion, even though that is a later legend and not historical.

The pope says that, Raptures may be above nature, and in their substance divine, but in their circumstances conformed to the ideas naturally received, which God leaves in the state they are in.

He gave the example of the Blessed Clare of Montefalco's vision of Christ's nails, and he wrote the following: Will you decide that the Crucifixion was so because that holy woman's meditations on the Crucifixion assumed that form?

I think not, if you have common sense.

These instruments were engraven on her heart, not to delineate the Passion of Christ, but to make known to posterity the fervent love of Clare.

Private revelation and relics aren't meant to reveal mysteries about God to the whole world.

That is what public revelation is for.

The Catechism says of private revelation, It is not their role to improve or complete Christ's definitive revelation, but to help live more fully by it in a certain period of history.

Private revelation is a way to see our own relationship with God more clearly, and to grow in holiness by emulating the saints who were blessed with these visions or who safeguarded these relics.

So, let's keep that at the focus when we meditate on something as awe-inspiring as the appearance of the incarnate God-man, Jesus Christ.

Thank you so much for watching, and I hope you have a very blessed day.