The Reason Why They Gave Jesus a Beard

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Why do depictions of Jesus always seem to portray him with long hair and a full beard? The reason stretches back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. The first images of Jesus actually depict him as beardless, but by the 4th century, bearded Christ was much more common.

Bibliography:
Thomas Mathews, "The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art," Princeton University Press, 1999.

Joan Taylor, "What Did Jesus Look Like?" Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018.

Michael Peppard, "The World's Oldest Church," Yale University Press, 2016.

Claudine Chavannes-Mazel, “Popular Belief and the Image of the Beardless Christ,”

John Dominic Crossan, “The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images,"

[PS-fghp]

Archeologists from the far future will be befuddled discovering the poster of blue-jeans wearing Jesus leaning over a Harley Davidson.

[Omega_Orion]

"There was no standard Jesus."
So, everyone could have their own personal Jesus?

[aitorboadabenito]

Love this! On the conclusion: in Cambodia, Jesus is depicted crucified and with only one leg as to remember the mines that spread all around the country and their casualties. Such a fascinating topic! Love it! 😍

[mdl]

I think he's actually depicted as having a beard, because it says in the bible they plucked out his beard to torture him. Therefore he had a beard (though that does imply he had much of his beard ripped out before he was crucified). The reason Greeks probably showed him without a beard as they depicted men without beards as did early Romans, they probably assuemd he didn't have a beard like most of them rather than like a Hebrew who would like have one.

[fietehermans]

Also: beards were commonly seen as barbaric by the Romans. When looking at Roman portrait busts, beards only start appearing from around the first half of the second century (specifically the emperor Hadrian). Therefor, I presume it was also either a mark of respect, or a sign to pagan Romans that Jesus was a worthy or civilised figure.

[kyzendelaguia]

Dunkey: *works hard to plow fields*
Romans: “what a pathetic creature, lowest of all the beasts”
Dunkey: *sad dunkey noises*

[ArtAntiDe]

One more point to consider: Artists often work from a life model / reference, especially starting with the Renaissance. This just drives home the notion that the depiction of Jesus simply reflects the beauty ideal of that time. But it's worth a mention that artists are persons, too, with their individual skills and intentions. And to some extend the Patrons had a bit of influence on the depiction, too.

[FanFicnic]

Seeing how beautifully that Serapis painting is preserved is like euphoric to me. THAT is what I call a miracle. The Fayum portraits are just amazing.

[rjltrevisan]

I also like how in Japan they depict Jesus, Mary and the saints. There they are painted in the Japanese style and with Japanese characteristics.

[MisterJang]

Maybe Jesus with a donkey head is a callback to the story where Jesus rode a donkey into Jerusalem.

[nomiau]

"This surprised looking guy" made me laugh!

[robertperry]

The use of the staff as a motif is interesting...in te Hebrew scriptures Moses used his staff for miraculous events.

[Confused_Mista]

Depiction of Jesus is basically a fanart, then someone make a fanart of fanart, so on and on until the original art get lost in the vast sea of fanart

[istvansipos]

Luckily, there is a clean shaven Obi-Wan, too. The memes can go on, beard or not.

[jlouis]

Maybe because he had a beard? He wasn't portrayed as a bearded man in early Roman art because the Romans were clean shaven and beards were seen as barbaric.

[beatrizr]

Thank you very much for the subtitles, I don't take them or the effort to make them for granted.

[hive_indicator]

Why did I have to go to the About page of your channel to find out you got that piece of paper that means so much? Congratulations, Dr. Henry!

[hugofuenmayor]

The "hollywood jesus" looks like a vegan guy from San Francisco who sells stuff from eBay

[jesseberg]

The first thing God says to Moses, in Exodus, is to take his shoes off since he is on holy ground. Some of the oldest Egyptian art (predynastic) depicts proto-Pharos praying, with their shoes sitting next to them. In an Egyptian context, taking one's shoes off was a sign that you were about to pray. This doesn't mean that the Israelites were copying the Egyptians, trying to say that their God was a Pharo, it just means that this was a familiar way to indicate that someone was interacting with divinity.

[Somali]

I must admit that I gain a lot of knowledge from this channel thank you so much.