Are images of Jesus allowed?

[ViaCrucis]

Not a legalist.

Nor, am I going to change/deny what the Word declares because it bothers someone whom their bias finds it offensive.

When I was younger (I am now 73) I had long hair when I was a musician in a blues - heavy rock band. But, not long hair to the shoulders like the images of Jesus gets portrayed too often.

Keep in mind. Jews in Jesus day had a "bias." With one exception. When it was a man being under a Nazarite vow who could not cut his hair until the vow was completed. Then to cut it off and have it burned in ritual.

Jews in Jesus day did not have long hair like the converted pagans have handed down to us to believe Jesus looked like one of their past holy men. .

Jesus looked like a Jew. He should be depicted as one.

The Scriptures don't say that men with hair longer than what you consider personally acceptable are effeminate.

You are not working from what "the Word says", you're simply giving your personal opinion.

Greek and Roman pagans didn't have "long hair". They had what most modern western nations would consider relatively short hair, longer hair on men was considered "Barbarian".

Images of the Lord are rooted in cultural context. An Ethiopian image of Christ isn't going to look the same as a northern European image of Christ. Christ is depicted as a man because the Logos became flesh.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[GenemZ]

Firstly, "long hair" is very subjective. In one culture, hair down to the shoulders is not considered long while in another it would be very long. Your interpretation of that verse reflects your own cultural bias. As I've already pointed out, those who had taken a Nazerine vow not to cut their hair were not considered a disgrace, nor was Samson who only had his hair cut once for his demise.
Secondly, the word "κομα" means more than simply long hair but also refers to styled or ornamental hair. It refers to womanly styling of the hair, not simply the length.

You have made some specific claims regarding the source for the images of Jesus you so dislike, and all I have asked is for you to provide evidence of those claims. Thus far you have not provided any and it seems apparent that you have nothing to offer.

Be subjective then ...... Go your own way in peace.

 

[GenemZ]

The Scriptures don't say that men with hair longer than what you consider personally acceptable are effeminate.

You are not working from what "the Word says", you're simply giving your personal opinion.

Greek and Roman pagans didn't have "long hair". They had what most modern western nations would consider relatively short hair, longer hair on men was considered "Barbarian".

Images of the Lord are rooted in cultural context. An Ethiopian image of Christ isn't going to look the same as a northern European image of Christ. Christ is depicted as a man because the Logos became flesh.


-CryptoLutheran

This is about images of a Jew. One named Jesus. According to Jewish culture.

 

[GenemZ]

Id like to see you make fun of this deeply Christian man as effeminate who spent 12 years on the Steelers and is now in the football Hall of Fame, Troy Polamalu.


Even today, Orthodox clergy tend to grow out their beards and hair, at least outside of the US. St. Paisios of Athos who passed in 1994.

This is deflecting off into a life of its own. I did say that long hair does not have to mean effeminate. For men with a barbaric appearance may have long hair. They are not effeminate.

One example of many.. This is not how Jesus could have looked as a Jew ... Many Jews find it absurd. It makes Christianity appear to be some pagan sect, which it is not. Its misleading.

Paul was a Jew. He wrote...

"Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him." 1 Cor 11:14

Its a mockery of Jesus and most do not even know it....

 

[ViaCrucis]

This is about images of a Jew. One named Jesus. According to Jewish culture.

We don't have photographs of Jesus. We can make reasonable guesses about certain things about His appearance, for example He almost certainly had dark skin as a Jewish man living in the Levant and who spent His time outside under the hot Judean sun. But even modern Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews--the traditional Jewish communities of the Middle East--show diversity in features.

What evidence do you have of Jewish hair styles of first century Galilee and Judea to be able to say what Jesus "actually looked like"?

And, further, icons are not photographic representations. Icons are written in the culture and the "language" of that culture. A Korean icon of Christ is a valid image, just as a Russian, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Spanish, or Italian image of Christ is valid. The message of the icon of Christ is God became man. Focusing on the superficial details misses that point altogether and demonstrates a modern western bias.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

And then there is

We don't have photographs of Jesus. We can make reasonable guesses about certain things about His appearance, for example He almost certainly had dark skin as a Jewish man living in the Levant and who spent His time outside under the hot Judean sun. But even modern Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews--the traditional Jewish communities of the Middle East--show diversity in features.

What evidence do you have of Jewish hair styles of first century Galilee and Judea to be able to say what Jesus "actually looked like"?

And, further, icons are not photographic representations. Icons are written in the culture and the language of that culture. A Korean icon of Christ is a valid image, just as a Russian, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Spanish, or Italian image of Christ is valid. The message of the icon is God became man.

-CryptoLutheran

But hey, to be able to flip those tables with ease, we have Cross-fit Jesus

 

[ViaCrucis]

And then there is

But hey, to be able to flip those tables with ease, we have Cross-fit Jesus


View attachment 324673

This reminds me of an old video making fun of Mark Driscoll, the former and later disgraced lead pastor of Mars Hill Church.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

The synagogue unearthed at Dura Europos was filled with images depicting scenes from the Old Testament. They did not have images of God because God had never been seen. Since the incarnation, God has been seen.

Where are some of these pagan images of "holy men" that it is claimed images of Jesus were based on? I can understand different ethnicities depicting Jesus with the same ethnic features, but the above claim sounds like pure conjecture.

The word translated as "long hair" literally means "hairdo". The Nazerenes who vowed never to cut their hair were not considered a disgrace. Samson was not considered a disgrace and John the Baptist was not considered a disgrace. It was considered a disgrace if they were styling their hair like a woman would do.

Have you got a reference for that? In ancient Greek it comes from the verb κομάω, "I have long hair".

Thayer's Greek Lexicon

STRONGS G2864:
κόμη, κόμης, ἡ (from Homer down), hair, head of hair: 1 Corinthians 11:15. (According to Schmidt (21, 2) it differs from θρίξ (the anatomical or physical term) by designating the hair as an ornament (the notion of length being only secondary and suggested). Cf. B. D. under the word .)

G2864 - komē - Strong's Greek Lexicon (kjv)

G2864 - κόμη kómē, kom'-ay; apparently from the same as ; the hair of the head (locks, as ornamental, and thus differing from ; which properly denotes merely the scalp):—hair.

www.blueletterbible.org

The noun “kommōtēs,” (Modern Greek) is “a hairdresser, hair stylist”. Literally: “an agent of hairstyles.” To this day, this Greek word still refers to a hairdo.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

This reminds me of an old video making fun of Mark Driscoll, the former and later disgraced lead pastor of Mars Hill Church.

-CryptoLutheran

Dudes and chicks????

Ahhhh.... now I understand. Jesus is The Dude!

 

[dzheremi]

This is about images of a Jew. One named Jesus. According to Jewish culture.

Why is your one example of the wrongness of images of Christ one modern image of Christ produced and particularly popular within Western Christianity, then? Is your problem that Western Christians don't observe Jewish law or custom concerning images or haircuts, or is your problem with the supposed 'paganism' of having long hair, or...what exactly is the problem here?

The iconoclastic side of this thread is really spread thin.

 

[GenemZ]

We don't have photographs of Jesus. We can make reasonable guesses about certain things about His appearance, for example He almost certainly had dark skin as a Jewish man living in the Levant and who spent His time outside under the hot Judean sun. But even modern Mizrahi and Yemenite Jews--the traditional Jewish communities of the Middle East--show diversity in features.

What evidence do you have of Jewish hair styles of first century Galilee and Judea to be able to say what Jesus "actually looked like"?

And, further, icons are not photographic representations. Icons are written in the culture and the "language" of that culture. A Korean icon of Christ is a valid image, just as a Russian, Greek, Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Ethiopian, Spanish, or Italian image of Christ is valid. The message of the icon of Christ is God became man. Focusing on the superficial details misses that point altogether and demonstrates a modern western bias.

-CryptoLutheran

You're all over the playing field...

One more time???

How many will it take?

(Its the Word of God)

"Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him." ​

1 Cor 11:14


.

 

[GenemZ]

Why is your one example of the wrongness of images of Christ one modern image of Christ produced and particularly popular within Western Christianity, then? Is your problem that Western Christians don't observe Jewish law or custom concerning images or haircuts, or is your problem with the supposed 'paganism' of having long hair, or...what exactly is the problem here?

The iconoclastic side of this thread is really spread thin.

Aye?

This is about how Jesus looked in the day when the Jewish people were all under the Mosaic Law. I am not discussing today's customs. How else can we know how Jesus DID NOT LOOK?

 

[prodromos]

One more time???

How many will it take?

Yes, one more time. What evidence do you have that pagan converts depicted Jesus after the manner of pagan priests and how do you know what pagan priests looked like?

(Its the Word of God)

"Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him."​

It's the Word of God with your very subjective opinion attached.

 

[dzheremi]

Aye?

This is about how Jesus looked in the day when the Jewish people were all under the Mosaic Law. I am not discussing today's customs.

You say that, but again your one example of why you have such a problem with depictions of Christ is a western painting (not even an icon) from 1940. So it would seem your problem really is with today's customs, despite your protestations to the contrary.

To put it another way: you're doing a great job explaining why you don't think a certain style of religious art is appropriate (and I would happen to agree that it isn't, albeit for different reasons than you have given), but a rather less-than-great job dealing with the topic of the thread. You'd think if images of Christ were really disallowed, you'd have some more substantial reasons than "Jesus didn't look like a member of the Allman Brothers" (agreed), or "Jews weren't 'allowed' to look like this painting that a non-Jew made in 1940, therefore paganism" (which doesn't even make sense).

How else can we know how Jesus DID NOT LOOK?

Why does it matter to you either way if you come from some kind of iconoclastic tradition? This would be like me, an Orthodox person, getting upset that others aren't saying "The Sinner's Prayer" correctly when that isn't even a feature of our Christianity to begin with.

 

[GenemZ]

Yes, one more time. What evidence do you have that pagan converts depicted Jesus after the manner of pagan priests and how do you know what pagan priests looked like?

It's the Word of God with your very subjective opinion attached.

Williams College did not bring in amateurs to lecture.

A visiting museum curator lecturing at Williams college in Williamstown, MA told us about the origins of how we ended up with the commonly held misconception of the look of Christ.
Welcome

The school has on display major classical works of art that many of us have seen in books.
The Clark – Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute

 

[Roymond]

Secondly, the word "κομα" means more than simply long hair but also refers to styled or ornamental hair. It refers to womanly styling of the hair, not simply the length.

I still haven't found anything solidly supporting that; the word itself is hard to find so I'm hunting the verb behind it, κομάω. The closest is "wear tresses of hair", which indicates it is kept attractively and possibly decoratively. Later on, by a half dozen centuries (or a bit longer) the word is used of caring for hair and beautifying it, but projecting a meaning backwards over centuries is as bad as projecting one forward over centuries. What I can say so far is that κομάω includes the meaning of "styled or ornamental hair" but does not require it.

Though there's another issue: Paul uses the same word about women; are we to read that women must style their hair just as men aren't to style theirs? That's kind of pushing it. I found on conjectured compromise: "wearing hair long enough to be styled", which has its own problems -- who decides hair is long enough to be styled?

Of course then there's the matter of "nature": what view of nature is Paul basing this on? Remember, he's writing to the Corinthians, and Corinth was Greek in its founding, Roman in its governance, and very cosmopolitan in practice, so is he referring to a Mediterranean culture understanding? or is he referring to Jewish culture? To answer that we'd have to know the makeup of the church at that time, something I'm not familiar with.

You have made some specific claims regarding the source for the images of Jesus you so dislike, and all I have asked is for you to provide evidence of those claims. Thus far you have not provided any and it seems apparent that you have nothing to offer.

I took a brief look for that and found zip, zero, nada -- though along the way I found a bunch of images of classic Greco-Roman sculptures.

 

[PsaltiChrysostom]

I still haven't found anything solidly supporting that; the word itself is hard to find so I'm hunting the verb behind it, κομάω. The closest is "wear tresses of hair", which indicates it is kept attractively and possibly decoratively. Later on, by a half dozen centuries (or a bit longer) the word is used of caring for hair and beautifying it, but projecting a meaning backwards over centuries is as bad as projecting one forward over centuries. What I can say so far is that κομάω includes the meaning of "styled or ornamental hair" but does not require it.

I quoted Thayer and Strongs early but didnt know if you saw it:

G2864 - komē - Strong's Greek Lexicon (kjv)

G2864 - κόμη kómē, kom'-ay; apparently from the same as ; the hair of the head (locks, as ornamental, and thus differing from ; which properly denotes merely the scalp):—hair.

www.blueletterbible.org

κόμη, κόμης, ἡ (from Homer down), hair, head of hair: 1 Corinthians 11:15. (According to Schmidt (21, 2) it differs from θρίξ (the anatomical or physical term) by designating the hair as an ornament (the notion of length being only secondary and suggested). Cf. B. D. under the word .)

One thing is that koma is only used twice in the NT, and in 1 Corinthians. So we have to look at other sources for an expanded meaning. So long hair on a man might mean past the shoulders whereas long hair on a woman could be like Crystal Gayle:

 

[Roymond]

Be subjective then ...... Go your own way in peace.

LOL

The point is that YOU are being subjective. You've made a number of claims but not backed up any of them, which means your positions are purely subjective. If you had a degree in the material at hand you might be accorded some respect due to your study of the matter, but you haven't given any reason to believe you have such expertise.

We're still waiting for sources on the whole business of why Jesus got pictured with long hair. Personally I'd love to see some, it's an interesting idea and it would be great if you could show it has merit.

 

[Roymond]

Thayer's Greek Lexicon

STRONGS G2864:
κόμη, κόμης, ἡ (from Homer down), hair, head of hair: 1 Corinthians 11:15. (According to Schmidt (21, 2) it differs from θρίξ (the anatomical or physical term) by designating the hair as an ornament (the notion of length being only secondary and suggested). Cf. B. D. under the word .)

G2864 - komē - Strong's Greek Lexicon (kjv)

G2864 - κόμη kómē, kom'-ay; apparently from the same as ; the hair of the head (locks, as ornamental, and thus differing from ; which properly denotes merely the scalp):—hair.

www.blueletterbible.org

The noun “kommōtēs,” (Modern Greek) is “a hairdresser, hair stylist”. Literally: “an agent of hairstyles.” To this day, this Greek word still refers to a hairdo.

View attachment 324674

OK, the usage as given by Strong's doesn't indicate more than keeping hair looking good, which fits what I've found. The modern usage is irrelevant except perhaps to show a direction of drift of meaning. So as I wrote earlier, κομάω includes the meaning of "styled or ornamental hair" but does not require it.

I really wish I hadn't given away my TDNT!

 

[GenemZ]

LOL

The point is that YOU are being subjective. You've made a number of claims but not backed up any of them, which means your positions are purely subjective. If you had a degree in the material at hand you might be accorded some respect due to your study of the matter, but you haven't given any reason to believe you have such expertise.

We're still waiting for sources on the whole business of why Jesus got pictured with long hair. Personally I'd love to see some, it's an interesting idea and it would be great if you could show it has merit.

Jewish men, other than those who had taken a Nazarite vow.... did not wear long hair.

Jesus was a Jew. Given the fact that he drank wine? Jesus was not under a Nazarite vow.

And, Judas needed to point Jesus out with a kiss. One reason? He wore hair like the typical Jewish young man. Like everyone else.

Absalom had long hair and the Scriptures made it a point to make it known. It was not the norm in Israel. Same for Samson.