According to the Catholic church, Jesus Christ is a white European-looking man with piercing blue eyes.

Historians believe that what Jesus really looked like was very different from what Renaissance artists imagined he looked like. They are convinced, on the contrary, that the son of God resembled a typical guy born in modern-day Palestine at the period; shorter in stature, stockier in build, and with curling black hair.

Bas Uterwijk, a Dutch photographer and digital artist, attempted to put an end to the two-thousand-year-old debate over Jesus’ look by attempting to produce an image of him that was as accurate as possible given the limits of his birthplace, using cutting-edge technology. Bas used Artbreeder’s machine learning features to produce the portrait of Jesus.

Of course, the image he has created differs greatly from what we all believe the Messiah looked like.

“I have experience with computer generated images and special effects.”

“The artificial intelligence software employs a neural network trained on thousands of photographs and paintings of human faces.”

“This application allows you to combine multiple sources of faces and merge them into a synthesised version, guided by the user’s artistic decisions.” It’s what I use to make historical and imaginary figures.

“I tweaked the ethnicity to a more convincing Middle-Eastern face, using several cultural depictions of Jesus of Nazareth of Byzantine and Renaissance origin, including Leonardo da Vinci’s “Salvator Mundi” and the Turin Shroud.”

“I was happy with the result as a representation of a collective cultural depiction, but I felt it lacked any historical accuracy,” he added.

“So I changed the hair and beard to a more credible length and style for the time and region, and I added elements from Fayum mummy portraits, pushing Renaissance art to the background.”

“The end result is more of an artistic impression of how this man might have looked than a scientific search for an exact likeness.”

According to the Bible, our Savior was born in a Jewish household in Bethlehem in 4 BC, raised there, and eventually settled in Nazareth in what is now Israel.

According to Joan Taylor, author of What Did Jesus Look Like, the son of God stood roughly 5 feet 5 inches tall. She also claims that the people of Judea and Egypt had olive skin, dark black hair, and brown eyes, which is supported by ancient literature.

“Everyone has an idea of what Jesus looked like. We see images of Jesus all over the place. It’s a universal image. It’s an occurrence. So we believe we can identify him. We don’t even have to put in any effort. However, the classic images in art, such as long hair, robes, and beards, date back to the 4th or 5th centuries,” Taylor noted.

“In fact, he didn’t look like that at all. Jesus was not a pale individual. He wasn’t from Europe. He was a modern-day Jewish man. He was very much of his era and setting.”

“He would have had dark skin and probably had shortish black hair – long hair was very unusual in the 1st Century – a beard and wore sandals,” the author, who is also a specialist on Christian beginnings, noted. He was a nomad. He was living on the streets. He accepted strangers’ generosity. He was among the poor.

“Jesus, according to the 2nd Century philosopher Celsus, was shabby, a vagabond who was unkempt – he looked like a beggar.” This is consistent with all else we know about Jesus. He even stated that he was homeless. ‘Foxes have caves, birds have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,’ he remarked.

Jesus resembled a typical first-century Jewish man who would have had contact with Europeans and Africans.

Richard Neave, a forensic facial reconstruction specialist, attempted to mimic the appearance of a Judean man comparable to Jesus from the first century, who was shown as a stocky guy with dark hair, a clipped beard, and olive skin.

Please SHARE this article on Facebook with your family and friends.

Share on Facebook