The earliest visual depiction of Jesus is a
painting that was found in 1921 on a wall
of the baptismal chamber of the house-
church at Dura Europos, Syria and dated
around 235 A.D. This picture of Jesus is
called “Healing the Paralytic Man” (Mark
2:1- 12 ) and displays him as being
short and dark-skinned with a small
curly afro. This description has now
been supported by the new science of
forensic anthropology.
In 2002 British forensic scientists and
Israeli archaeologists reconstructed what
they believe is the most accurate image
of Jesus based off of data obtained from
the mulch-disciplinary approach.
In December 2002 Popular Science
Magazine published a cover story on the
findings which confirm that Jesus would
have been short, around 5’7 - 5’9, hair
“short with tight curls,” a weather -
beaten face “which would have made
him ap pear older,” dark eyes and
complexion: “he probably looked a
great deal more like a dark-skinned
Semite than Westerners are used to
seeing,” they concluded.