Image of JESUS was stolen from Alexander the great

I remembered hearing years ago that the image of Jesus Christ was actually borrowed if not stolen from the pictures of Alexander the great.

If you think about where this figure supposedly was born and lived, it sounds actually hilarious that he would have had white skin, blue eyes and brown curly hair.

After some digging in the net i found an article of the subject from The Cincinnati Enquirer.

What did Jesus look like?

No one really knows.

For hundreds of years after the crucifixion, Jesus was depicted as a blonde, curly-haired, beardless youth. It was not intended to be an accurate portrait. It was borrowed from pictures of Alexander the Great.

Early Christians were eager to convert Greeks and Romans to Christianity and so appropriated the image of the great conquered as a symbol for the risen Christ who conquered death. Early statues of Jesus often show him carrying a lamb across his shoulders, which was a standard way to depict the Greek god Apollo, who was also associated with Alexander.

link to source

Here is what he allegedly would have looked like (if ever existed, i won't go into that)...

CNN.com

5-foot-1-inch tall and weighed 110 pounds... i allways thought that christianity have stolen many many things from other religions, but even the main character?...

Any comments? no religious ranting please...

reply to post by scordar


I don't know about the image actually being stolen from Alexander the Great, because, who even is sure what he looked like?

Suppose you lived in a country that had no idea what features were the norm for certain areas of the world. You would just have to go based on what you are accustomed to, and use your imagination. An artist also wants their work to be appealing to whomever might be viewing it.

It takes no great imagination, to see that artists used their imaginations to create works of art.

LOL Yes let's open a debate on whether Christianity stole the image of the Christ which a majority of the people who will come here and agree with you believe never existed and the Bible is made up. So why are you opening a debate on an imaginary character from a made up story book?

There is no actual image of Christ so any image is made up. If God allowed an image of Jesus to exist it would just be worshipped and people would search for others who look like him. It would detract from the message.

I've been through history studies , and you have to know that between the 5th century BC and up to 50 AD, the world as the people knew it was spreading from Italy to Asia Minor, including the Mediterranean coasts. No wonder why the Christians drawers and painters described him as a Greek hero, as Greece was an illustrious civilization, known by almost everyone with culture.
Remember that the very first translations of the Bible were done in greek, not in Latin. Greek was the language of the scientists and philosophers of the world, and up to the XVIIth Century. So the translation probably included archetypal descriptions of Jesus, like the chronicles of Alexander.

good post, OP

Well, there is allways a possibility that he was actually black!

In 2004, Jesus was voted greatest black icon of all time by the New Nation newspaper, which prompted a debate about Jesus’ skin colour. “Despite the common depictions in Western cultures of Jesus as a blond, blue-eyed hippy looking man, all reasonable evidence points to the fact that Jesus could not have been of Scandinavian extraction and certainly was a brotha of colour,” said the paper.

What if he looked like Richard Roundtree in the original Shaft...

History is on the side of a dark-skinned Jesus. Some of the oldest images of Christ show him with the dark, olive-coloured skin of Mediterranean people. One very early mosaic image of Jesus has him with very dark skin, and the images of Ethiopian Christianity – one of the oldest branches of the Christian church – show Jesus as a black person, with an African hairstyle and beard.

Visit the link for pictures

www.rejesus.co.uk...

so the image of Jesus is taken from a gay guy, who let that one slip by? Better than an image taken off from this guy I suppose.




But his hair is divine I must say.

Really though, an artists' conception of Jesus based off Alexander isn't that big of a deal. I'm with the muslims in a way in that I don't think we should have an image of Jesus/Muhammad. I think it is distracting.




[edit on 13-4-2009 by ghaleon12]

I find it hilarious that Christianity would base the image of Christ on a raging homo. But then, some Popes have been raging homos as well, so it should come as no surprise.

Alexander the Great also died at the age of 33. And that these images of Jesus were copied from those of the sun god Apollo is no less significant.

As Christianity spread throughout the world, the cultures that adopted it tended to make their savior in their own image.

In the west, obviously, he had been historically depicted as a white man - blond hair, blue eyes. Asian Christians tended to depict him as an Asian man, and African cultures tended to depict him in their art as one of their own.

The undeniable fact however is that if Christ indeed ever did live, he would have looked very much like the people currently living in Palestine and other Islamic or Arab countries.

Considering Jesus (if he existed at all) was likely an Egyptian Jew -- look it up -- he might not have looked exactly like the locals around Nazareth or Galilee. Maybe a little taller and lighter skinned than average, which we all know puts you in a better position to be listened to as a public speaker.

Here is an accurate or as close as possibly accurate image of Jesus, created from the Shroud of Turin:

www.art-3000.com...

reply to post by jjkenobi


O you mean like making massive curches and selling trinkets with supposed powers to the ignorant to fund it? What about making people jump around and speak in tounges because god will hear them better?

reply to post by Bombeni


Interesting....... I'm looking at the almond-shaped eyes depicted in the artwork you linked..... and....

def..... definately a hybrid. definately.

Originally posted by Bombeni
Here is an accurate or as close as possibly accurate image of Jesus, created from the Shroud of Turin:

www.art-3000.com...

In order to accept that as an accurate image of Christ one would also have to accept that the Shroud of Turin is anything more than an elaborate hoax.

Like all so-called religious relics, its existance means big business for the Vatican.

Originally posted by groingrinder
I find it hilarious that Christianity would base the image of Christ on a raging homo. But then, some Popes have been raging homos as well, so it should come as no surprise.

Christianity didn't base it off of anything. Artists throughout the centuries have been drawing Biblical events, they're just people, they don't have any authority within the Church. The idea that an artist would have adopted an image similar to Alexander the Great really isn't that big of a deal.

It is interesting, like someone pointed out, that each culture made Jesus more similar to themselves. What's worse though is when people change "who Jesus was/is" and what he stood for. Evangelicals have a fire and brimstone Jesus, Liberals have a loving, caring Jesus, PETA has an animal loving Jesus ect. Each person in trying to identify with him, create him according to their own qualities....and if those qualities are bad to begin with, well lets just say it doesn't do Jesus justice.

[edit on 14-4-2009 by ghaleon12]

Lol, good tread
I'm not religious, but I'm ok with art history.

Yes Alexander didnt have a beard, it's speculated he introduced shaving as it was easy to grab beards during fighting.

Origianlly JC was mostly depicted as a symbol. And then his depiction for the next 500 years refelect how the establishment viewed wisdom/philosopher/hero.

Shaving was a sign of aristocracy for the the Romans and as the biggest xian conversions came through the roman world they had a different idea of wisdom and aristocracy (king of heaven) and how to portray this so they portrayed him like a 'aristocrat hero'...beardless

Around the 3rd century philosphers wore beards parted, so the wise were depicted with beards.

Jesus most likely had a beard if he followed all the jewish traditions, but if thats the case his hair would have been short :

"Ye shall not round the corners of your heads, neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard. "(Leviticus 19:27)

Also, Judaic thought was a beard showed age and wisdom as he was seen as a teacher "Priest’s are not to have long hair and are to be trimmed" (Ezekiel 44:20) ....

The image we have now was solidified by the Byzantines from the 6th century.


edit:typo


[edit on 14-4-2009 by zazzafrazz]

reply to post by Monger


Maybe so but the "Alexander" image is definately the most classic one.
There are many people who claim they had "visions" of JC in a dream or that he actually appeared to them personally.

I have never heard anyone claim seeing a japanese or a blonde swedish Jesus no matter where these "sightings" have taken place

reply to post by scordar


You Christian haters SLAY me.

The image was stolen...

The Bible was stolen...
An instructor in college insisted that Christ was stolen from Apollo based on a mosiac in the basement of the vatican saying APOLLO CHRITOS.

We get it. You are angry at Chritianity and want to discredit the religion.

From what I've read the white image of Christ, is really Caesar Borgia and second son of Pope Alexander the Sixth of Rome.

You can check out a link to see what he looks like here:
Cesar Borgia

Here is another that really illustrates how much they look alike:
Jesus or Cesar Borgia

Let me know what you all think.

[edit on 4/14/2009 by atzmaz]

reply to post by atzmaz


Nice pictures, that Cesare Borgia picture surely looks like the good old JC.
Only that it was painted by Altobello Melone in the early 16th century when there were already plenty of JC paintings around, even the last supper had already been painted.
so it is obvious that the artist wanted to present this Borgia as a christly figure, not the other way around.

nice links anyway

[edit on 14-4-2009 by scordar]