JESUS DID NOT HAVE LONG HAIR

“Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?” (I Corinthians 11:14)

This scripture clearly tells us that if a man has long hair, it is shameful and disgraceful to him. The universal custom for men was to wear short hair, while women had long hair.

Lawrence Schiffman, an authority on Judaism, states: “The Jewish texts ridiculed long hair as something Roman or Greek.” The anthropologist Joseph E Zias, who was also Curator of Archaeology for the Israel Antiquities Authority, who has studied hundreds of skeletons found in archaeological digs in Jerusalem, states: “Jewish men back in antiquity did not have long hair.”

Let us understand, the Holy Spirit Himself, who is the Author of the Bible, inspired Paul to write this portion of his letter to the Corinthians. And therefore it is to be taken seriously as the Word of the Almighty God.

Since all Jewish males had short hair, Jesus could have been easily be spotted, if He had had long hair. But this wasn’t the case.
The Jewish leaders paid 30 pieces of silver to Judas to identify who Jesus was. Jesus looked just like His disciples and like any other normal Jewish male. Isaiah 53:2 says “He had no beauty to attract us to Him, and there was nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.”

In addition to this, Jesus easily escaped from arrest by blending into the crowd every time the Jews tried to seize Him. This happened on at least two occasions in Luke 4:30 and John 8:59.

If Christ had long hair, he would look effeminate. The popular paintings of Christ make Him effeminate, insulting His manhood and His deity.
Jesus was a strong rugged carpenter, a man well acquainted with construction of buildings and furniture, and involved in tasks involving hard labour. With great authority, He drove away the iniquitous merchants in the Temple and overthrow their tables of merchandise. Further only an extraordinarily strong person could have endured the terrible scourging that the Roman soldiers administered to Him, prior to His crucifixion. Even when He gave up His spirit to God, He cried out with a loud voice.

What a shame and affront and insult it is to depict Jesus with long hair! All those who endorse pictures of a long-haired effeminate Jesus will have to stand before a holy and righteous God and face His wrath!

Advice: Do not keep or promote the effeminate and distorted pictures or images of Jesus. Having an image of the Lord Jesus is a direct violation of God's commandment!

While I agree you are most likely correct about the length of His hair, I do not agree there will be wrath from God for misrepresenting Jesus' human appearance.

No one knows exactly what He looked like. Therefore, any representation of Jesus would be incorrect even if the hair was short.

People tend to represent Jesus based on what their culture and demographics are. Research cultural portrayals of Jesus. There is a different look and style for Jesus pictures from Africa, to Europe, to the Middle East, to Asia.

I can't understand this 'cultural' approach that some people have regarding the Bible.

Here is my take on IMAGES OF CHRIST:

I couldn't complete my reply to you, Runningman. So here is my take on the subject of Images of Christ (published over 5 years ago):

There has been a continuing controversy over images or pictures of Christ. This article is written to clarify the issue, to present facts and make people understand that the Bible condemns all forms of idolatry, including ‘christian idolatry’, in no uncertain terms.

In the early church, especially during the first two centuries, there were no images of Christ. It was pure spiritual worship, as our Lord Himself had declared in John 4.23, 24. However, the carnal mind of man (inspired by the evil spirit of Satan) quickly brought in images of Christ as ‘aids’ to worship. The early Church Fathers condemned this idolatry. But the Roman Catholic church which had popularized statues, relics, images, crosses, worship of saints, and all forms of idolatry (and had thereby gained popularity and power) preferred to change the Bible itself, rather than give up images of Christ, Mother Mary and the saints. The Roman Catholics even removed the Second Commandment from their version of the Bible. (Second Commandment: Exodus 20:4-6 and Deuteronomy 4:8-10.) That commandment strictly prohibits idolatry of every kind, including representing God or Christ through images. The Catholics did this in order to justify the existence of images and idols in their Popish churches.

Some may say that the Second Commandment is no longer in force, since the Law has been abolished. That is not true. The moral law as seen in the Ten Commandments is not abrogated; it continues. But the Law does not save; it is there in God’s Word to show us our sin. We are saved by grace, not through keeping the Law. Since the Law is part of God’s Word, and the prohibition of idols is reiterated in several passages in the Bible, we have to heed God’s Word – and not set it aside by man’s foolish tradition.

According to the Second Commandment, no visible representation of God in any shape or form is allowed. Nothing from heaven or earth or even from under the sea is to be used to represent God and Christ. But man’s vain and fleshly imagination seeks to picture God and Christ. Sin always begins in the mind, in the depraved intellect and imagination of ungodly man. None of the artists who portrayed Christ lived morally upright lives. None of them had a clean testimony. None were indwelt by the Holy Spirit (Rom 8.9b); they were not true Christians, not children of God. They might have called themselves Christians or Catholics, but their lives were a travesty of Christ. They were nominal, carnal, licentious ‘christians’.

The popular picture of Jesus with long hair and effeminate features is actually a portrait of the arch-adulterer and murderous criminal Cesare Borgia, who was a close friend of Michelangelo. The gospels do not give us a ‘picture’ of Christ – how he looked. To portray an image of Christ is to violate God’s Word. It is to give precedence to man’s defiled imagination over the pure Word of God. We have thousands of different pictures of Christ according to the different cultures in which they were painted or carved. Can Christ come in a thousand shapes and forms? Can He have so many different faces? The worst insult is to portray Him with long hair, and make Him look like a woman. 1 Cor 11.14 says it is a shame for a man to sport long hair.

Further, can we portray the humanity of Christ at the expense of His deity? Can His humanity be separated from His deity? Christ is always God, always Man; he is the God-Man. He cannot be separated in this way. Paul says in 2 Cor 5.16 we are to know Christ no longer in the flesh. We are to know Him in the Spirit, through the Word. We are to walk by faith, not by sight, 2 Cor 5.7.

Furthermore, popular pictures of Christ show me as a Westerner, a Caucasian. Though He came into the world as a Jew, the pictures do not show Him with Semitic features. So why these pictures? There is a sensual streak in sinful human nature. Man wants to live by his physical senses; he knows nothing of the Spirit, and his own spirit remains dead (though he may claim to be a Christian!) It is such spiritually dead ‘christians’ who devise these portraits of Christ, which demean Christ, insult God, and diminish the divine glory.

No movie about Jesus, no painting by Michelangelo, no Sunday school book with sketches of the Saviour – can help us understand God. The moment the eye falls upon a false image of Christ, it leads to the corruption of the mind and inevitably to false worship. The devil works through perverted human imagination. Hence we have the greatest insult to Christ – portraying Him with effeminate features – as we see in many movies, most notably, the notorious movie, Passion of the Christ!

Instead of man trying to rise to understand deity, we have deity brought down to the level of man. It is a cheapening and downgrading of our great God and Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. “God is to be adored in the heart, not painted to the eye. To set up an image to represent God is to debase him. Idolatry is devil worship.” ~Thomas Watson. “Our religious worship must be governed by the power of faith, not by the power of imagination. Idolatry is spiritual adultery.” ~Matthew Henry. “Idolatry consists not only in the worship of false gods, but also in the worship of the true God by images.”~ Charles Hodge.

Jesus tells us this plainly in John 4.23, 24 – “God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.” God demands pure spiritual worship. We are to live by faith in the Son of God, by reading and meditating on the Word of God. In the long run, images and pictures do not aid us in worship at all – they negate high thoughts of God and bring in lowly and debased thoughts. They are impediments and not aids. The corrupt the heart and quench the Spirit. Why do we turn to images in movies, or in painted pictures (illustrations), instead of the Bible? It is because we prefer sensuality and soulishness. We prefer to encourage this inveterate flesh of ours. Few, if any, are indwelt by the Spirit; few, if any, walk in the Spirit, or are ‘led by the Spirit’. Hardly any Christian knows what it is to worship God in spirit, or serve Him in spirit.

The comic book approach to Christ or a film-maker’s depiction of Christ only downgrade and diminish the spiritual experience of a believer. Even pictures of Christ in Sunday-school books tend to divert children from understanding who God is or who is Christ. We must learn to teach our children to read the Bible without any pictures of Christ, so that when they grow up they will have high and exalted thoughts about God and Christ and will boldly resist any attempt at idolatry. In the end, God wants only spiritual Christians, not carnal, sensual and soulish ones.

***

Here is my take on IMAGES OF CHRIST:

I understand the op position.

However, what is long? Short?

I need to see the rule book.

Legalism can of worms.

here's mine:

View attachment 228244

“Does not even nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him?” (I Corinthians 11:14)

This scripture clearly tells us that if a man has long hair, it is shameful and disgraceful to him. The universal custom for men was to wear short hair, while women had long hair.

Lawrence Schiffman, an authority on Judaism, states: “The Jewish texts ridiculed long hair as something Roman or Greek.” The anthropologist Joseph E Zias, who was also Curator of Archaeology for the Israel Antiquities Authority, who has studied hundreds of skeletons found in archaeological digs in Jerusalem, states: “Jewish men back in antiquity did not have long hair.”

Let us understand, the Holy Spirit Himself, who is the Author of the Bible, inspired Paul to write this portion of his letter to the Corinthians. And therefore it is to be taken seriously as the Word of the Almighty God.

Since all Jewish males had short hair, Jesus could have been easily be spotted, if He had had long hair. But this wasn’t the case.
The Jewish leaders paid 30 pieces of silver to Judas to identify who Jesus was. Jesus looked just like His disciples and like any other normal Jewish male. Isaiah 53:2 says “He had no beauty to attract us to Him, and there was nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.”

In addition to this, Jesus easily escaped from arrest by blending into the crowd every time the Jews tried to seize Him. This happened on at least two occasions in Luke 4:30 and John 8:59.

If Christ had long hair, he would look effeminate. The popular paintings of Christ make Him effeminate, insulting His manhood and His deity.
Jesus was a strong rugged carpenter, a man well acquainted with construction of buildings and furniture, and involved in tasks involving hard labour. With great authority, He drove away the iniquitous merchants in the Temple and overthrow their tables of merchandise. Further only an extraordinarily strong person could have endured the terrible scourging that the Roman soldiers administered to Him, prior to His crucifixion. Even when He gave up His spirit to God, He cried out with a loud voice.

What a shame and affront and insult it is to depict Jesus with long hair! All those who endorse pictures of a long-haired effeminate Jesus will have to stand before a holy and righteous God and face His wrath!

Advice: Do not keep or promote the effeminate and distorted pictures or images of Jesus. Having an image of the Lord Jesus is a direct violation of God's commandment!

It's shameful and disgraceful for a man to have long hair as a covering for sin because he represents Jesus who needs no sin covering. So in keeping up appearances, he likely did not have long hair.

I don't know why he always is portrayed with long hair.

there is thus far ((so much as i am aware of)) only one archaeological example of preserved Jewish male hair from ~ 1st century AD, ever found.
it was 3-4" long

https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/ancient-cultures/ancient-israel/the-only-ancient-jewish-hair-ever-found/

Oyster is bald. His righteousness therefore far exceeds everyone else's.

It has been assumed by most for centuries that Jesus was a Nazirite (because He was the first born). The Nazirite vow includes not cutting the hair.