What, if anything, can be known about the face of Jesus

“When a group of strangers came up to the disciples, they expressed a desire that would be felt by millions upon millions of people ever since. Speaking to Philip they asked: "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." That is the same question that has motivated Christians across these millennium. It's the question that has inspired artists from Michelangelo to Dali; it has been the driving force behind works of scholarship and literature; it touches us as we reflect upon the importance of Jesus Christ for our lives. "Sir, we wish to see Jesus." There's something in us that will not rest until we have a clearer picture of the one Christians revere as the very Son of God. Biblical affirmations, theological statements, creeds and sermons, however effective, still leave us with that elementary desire. We'd like to have a sharper image and a closer knowledge of this man whom we call the Savior of the world. Fortunately, today, on the Internet, there is a profusion of images and artwork which provide us with plenty of material to look at as we pursue this age-old question.

As there were no cameras at the time of Christ, as there were no Polaroids, no Nikons, and certainly no video cassette recorders, we'll have to rely upon the imagination of the artists to render an image of what he must have looked like.

These mixed reactions immediately show us the difficulty and the complexity involved in any attempt to respond to that age old desire to have a clearer picture of Jesus. This is a problem made all the more difficult because the New Testament contains no physical description of Jesus, the gospel narratives don't even tell us much about his personality. During the first several hundred years of church history, people did not even try to render Jesus visually. The early Christian paintings or symbols, were of things like ships, fish, sea shells, and other symbolic objects. The first efforts to picture Jesus directly seem to have been Byzantine, meaning that they were done within that branch of the early Christian movement that centered around the city of Byzantia, the Turkish Capital, once Constantinople, now Istanbul. Many of them were mosaics completed in the third or fourth centuries, well after all the people who had known Jesus personally were long deceased. These Byzantine mosaics and later paintings depict a more severe countenance than we are used to; the dark eyes and stern expression, reveal a Christ seated securely upon a throne of power, not the sort of person most American Christians are likely to warm up to. . . .

Many of the earliest artists formed their image of Jesus from his passage. An early church historian who lived in the year 200 said of him: "There was nothing outstanding about Christ's flesh. And it was just this contrast with his personality that struck everyone. Far from emanating divine radiance, his body had not even a simple human beauty. The passion and humility he suffered left their mark and he was deprived of charm by suffering."

Thus it is a long way from this earliest tradition in which Jesus was said to possess little physical beauty to contemporary  images of Christ which are intended to appeal to the eye. And as the Christian movement spread from its origins in the Greco-Roman world, artists around the world have always painted the image of Christ as they saw him in their imaginations. To people of the Far East, he was oriental. To the Indians, Indian. To the Africans, he was black.
Still, in our own western tradition, much of the Christian art is based upon a single description of Jesus not recognized as authentic. Legend holds that it was written by a public official in Jerusalem during Christ's lifetime: "There has appeared in our city a man of great power named Jesus. The people call him a prophet and his disciples the Son of God. He is in stature a man of middle height and well proportioned, with a venerable face. His hair is the color of ripe chestnuts smooth almost to the ears, but above them wavy and curly with a slight bluish radiancy. And it flows over his shoulders. It is parted in the middle after of fashion of the people of Nazareth. His brow is smooth and very calm with a face without a wrinkle or a blemish lightly tinged with red. His nose and mouth are faultless. His beard is luxuriant of the same color as his hair. His countenance is full of simplicity and love. His eyes are expressive and brilliant. He is terrible in reproof, sweet and gentle in admonition. His figure is slender and erect; His hands and arms are beautiful to see. He is the fairest of the children of men.”

What, if anything, can be known about the face of Jesus
http://christianity.about.com/cs/thebasics/a/seeJesus.htm

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