Who Should Play Jesus?

In art, literature and film, depictions of Jesus are many and varied. How the man Jesus is portrayed is dependent on the artist’s, writer’s or filmmaker’s religious upbringing and personal beliefs, their geographical location and culture, and the era in which they lived. This makes sense as there is little historical evidence to suggest what he really did look like.

In the bible it is suggested that “his body was like beryl”, (Daniel 10:6), a clear mineral that may also vary in colour, currently described as crystals or precious stones. This description is possibly the origin of the auric glow that is often emanating from Jesus’ body in paintings and murals.

In this verse (Daniel 10), Daniel is seeing Jesus as a vision that others cannot see, including “his face like the appearance of lightening” and “ his eyes like torches of fire” so not actually the man himself. He describes Jesus’ “arms and feet like burnished bronze in colour” as does John in Revelation (1:15) envisioned the spirit of Jesus with feet “like fine brass“. John also describes hair “white like wool” and “white as snow”, and “eyes like the flame of fire”.

For descriptions of Jesus, the man, and not as a vision, the only information the bible provides is that “he has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isaiah 53:2). In context, this is more about the peoples’ view of him under certain circumstances than how the man himself actually appeared.

The Jesus in film’s produced in Europe and the USA is more often than not played by an actor with light brown hair, fair skin and attractive features, influenced by the Jesus of the renaissance art movement. It is unlikely that this image of Jesus is accurate, and forensic anthropologists have suggested how he might have looked (Fillon, 2002):

An actor with these physical characteristics is unlikely to be an attractive option as a leading man for a major Hollywood production therefore what is required is an actor somewhere between this image and his fair skinned predecessors-an actor of Jewish or Middle Eastern appearance who is attractive and charismatic, but who is not the usual Hollywood type. May I suggest Adrien Brody?

References

Fillon, Mike. The real face of Jesus. 2002. http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/forensics/1282186

Holy Bible: New King James Version. Thomas Nelson Publishers: 1994

Image sources

 http://www.printsofchrist.com/jesus_wallpaper.php

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/forensics/1282186

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/adrien-brody/images/19659392/title/adrien-brody-photo