Computer-generated sketch of boy Jesus based on Shroud of Turin (courtesy Retequattro-Mediaset)
We are people with great curiosity and if it were me, I would be tempted to regress the age of the man whose image is on the Shroud of Turin to the age of his bar mitzvoth to see what he looked like. That is exactly what the researchers of the Shroud of Turin actually did in the year of 2004. They took the forensic experts and used the computerized imaging of the man whose image was impressed upon the burial linen shroud. Then they took the features of the image, the width of the nose, the width of the eye set, the delineations of the tapering of the lips, plus the shape of the jaw, and thinned the face downward with youthful features and this is what experts saw.
These are all scientific measurements that forensic science do every day especially with lost children that were suspected of being kidnapped. With the reverse process called “aging” technology, they can give the facial appearances of what they might look like as a teen or a young adult. This time it is in the reverse.
The startling results were revealed in a documentary titled, “Jesus Childhood” that aired on Italian TV station Retequattro of Mediaset Group in December 2004. As reported by a Mediaset public relations agent, “While some features, such as the color of the eyes and the hair's length, cut and color, are arbitrary, others come directly from the face impressed on the shroud."
The composite picture by the forensic technicians depict that the facial proportions between the youth’s picture and the shroud image are the same. This includes also the shape of the jaw. Then they produced a facial imagery of a “fair-skinned child with ruddy blond, wavy hair and dark eyes. As the police deputy, Carlo Brui explained to the Italian paper, Corriere della Sera stated in interview, “We made a rigorous effort based on the Shroud of Turin, but it's clear that the data at our disposal were limited. Let's say we have made an excellent hypothesis."
The physical description of Jesus during His adult ministry does not exist. What evidence do we have that the boy Jesus (Yahshua) looked like a Northern European or American individual? What we do know from scripture was as a Davidian Prince of the royal lineage of Kings David and Solomon, we can access a description of King David when he was a youth when the Prophet Samuel was instructed by Adonai, “I have provided Myself a king among his sons.” He was sent to Bethlehem to visit Jesse the Benjaminite and inquire about his sons. After reviewing what appeared all the sons of Jesse, and Adonai rejecting each of them, Samuel inquired of Jesse, “are there any more sons?” To the field the servants were sent to bring David the Shepherd. When David arrived, he was described as though he was fair-skinned with a ruddy face and reddish hair.
I Samuel 16:12 – “Now he was ruddy, with bright eyes and good looking.”
It would be reasonable to assume that Jesus was of Middle-Eastern appearance; olive or dark skin in appearance. With a little knowledge of Jewish genealogy we now know that Yahshua’s (Jesus’) great uncle was the rich man of Jerusalem, Joseph of Arimathea. Prince Joseph, also a Davidian prince was a half brother to Mary’s father, the heir to the throne of the Maccabees, Prince Alexander II Helios, known as “Heli” in the Luke genealogy of Yahshua (Jesus) was Princess Miriam’s father, the mother of Jesus (Yahshua).
Joseph was a metal merchant and a powerful Roman Decurion controlling the extraction of the strategic metals needed by the military of Rome, tin and lead from the tin mines in Cornwall, England. From every appearance, the wife of Joseph was of Welsh Silurian birth, a Cymric by nationality, and a Lost Israelite by prophetic understanding. With such close relations with the Isles of the West, for Yahshua to have the appearance of a Lost Israelite living on the Isle of Britannia would not be unreasonable.
The prophetic description of the future Messiah as given by the Prophet Isaiah does suggest that Yahshua HaMaschiah (Jesus the Messiah) looked very ordinary and normally would not stand out in a crowd.
Isaiah 53:2 – “For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of the dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.”
It was Professor James Charlesworth, from Princeton Theological Seminary and a Jesus research expert on the Gospel of John, did comment when asked to comment on the computer generated image of the Shroud of Turin, stated;
James Charlesworth – “Too many Christians look down the well of history, seeking to see Jesus' face, and see the reflection of their own image. Those who follow Jesus find him attractive and thence always tend to portray him as a very attractive male, as in this new image. It shows clearly an Aryan Jesus, just like the Nazis proclaimed. Jesus was a Jew, looked like a Jew, and followed Jewish customs."
Understanding fully that a Prince of David could marry an Israelite of another tribe and still be halakhic pure for the Princes of David from the royal lineages of Kings David and Solomon descended from male to male lineage and not, as from the Jews of the House of Judah, “to be a Jew, your mother must be a Jew.” If the man, whose image on the shroud is the Messiah Yahshua, then this may be what he looked like. If not, he still could have been of Jewish birth and one of the many Jewish Zealots, most of the leaders whom were the uncles and cousins of Jesus.