Above Image:This is an image of Jesus created by a CGI model in 2001 suggesting that Jesus’s skin color would have been darker and more olive-colored than his traditional depictions in Western art. Note also his short hair, in contrast to common modern depictions of a long haired Jesus, which is likely accurate in light of general Hebrew and Christian condemnations of long hair on men during the first century.

Something a bit different here, but what follows is a brief selection from a much lengthier chapter of my dissertation that looked at warrior manliness and crusading. This is taken from an early chapter that considered early Christian views of appropriate hair and dress and how those views later influenced the way medieval clerics judged warriors on the same. 

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Many early Christian commentators worried about the effeminization of Christian men on issues related to hair and clothing. Their concerns were primarily over the abilities of men, who had adopted hair and clothing styles that were perceived as feminine, to remain strong in an age of persecution. Tertullian, for example, worried that the Christian man who had lost the visible signs of manliness would fail when the virtue of his manhood was challenged by the threat of martyrdom.^[1] Thus, for many early Christian writers, it was important to promote a standard of masculine dress and hair that would, in their view, contribute to the manly resolve with which Christian men faced the physical and spiritual dangers of the world. Continue reading →