Why is Jesus always represented as having long hair?

Jesus was of the Nazerene sect of the Essenes. They wore their hair long.

There is no such thing as a "Nazarene sect of the Essenes". The Nazarenes were a sect of quasi-Christians, and not part of the Essenes. If you meant "Nazirites", they're not a sect, although there were Essenic Nazarites; they're people who took a vow to abstain from wine and other grape products, to not touch the dead, and to not cut their hair.

Those guys were not limited to Essenes, and while they would have long hair, all surviving descriptions of Jesus would argue against him being a Nazirite, given that he drinks wine and handles the dead.

Man, Jesus was skinnyfat as fuck

What a fuccboi.

What bullshit.

He was generally depicted beardless.

To illustrate your point guys

Oh shit didn´t see that posted allready.

>Ivory-Jesusmind

>earliest depiction of Jesus is a piece of graffiti making fun of him
Romans bantz > jewish religion

I thought they wore it the roman way, short

Ancient Memes

> the very earliest depictions of Jesus showed him with shorter hair

Whatcha gonna do it about

What does the text say

Alexamenos worships God.

Pretty much this. The good shepherd motifs were probably taken from Dionysus or criophor "ram bearer" imagery.

well yeah a short-haired donkey

the translation i saw on wikipedia was "worships his god"

Jesus, who had his beard plucked out by Roman soldiers, was beardless.

kek

Long haired Jesus is an image intended to shame Jesus; does not nature itself tell us that long hair on a man is a shame?

>does not nature itself tell us that long hair on a man is shame?
No?

(It's a bible verse.)

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Oh sorry I'm not a Christian

was it a shame on Samson?

Not him, but very possibly. Sampson is a permanent Nazirite, and Nazirite-ness is something that has a very ambiguous status. He's pretty much the least accomplished of the judges in the book of the same name, and a large part of that is that he thinks with his biceps, courtesy of him not cutting his hair. Not to mention he flagrantly violates the other two precepts of his vow.

>Jesus had a beard
>Moses had a bead
>Muhammad had a beard
>most male Gods in the Greek/Roman Pantheon has Beards
>same for the main Norse and Mesopotamian Gods
No wonder Dawkins is a atheist.

To the Nazarites, they took oaths to set themselves apart from the rest of the tribes. Those oaths included never having a razor touch their head, and never drinking wine/eating grapes or raisins, vinegar, etc. All of those things combine with yeast in your body and sugar in your food to make alcohol, so the Nazarites were sworn never to drink.

Long hair on a Hebrew man would likely indicate he took the Nazarite oath, and not be a shame to him. (Obviously Samson shamed himself during his lifetime, but his story is more a story of redemption and a return to faith at the end of his life.)

Samson was made to be a Philistine killing machine, and he was a wonderful one at that.

It's funny; no matter how many times you read the same verses, something new always pops up.

Samson was obviously a small, skinny guy.

Don't listen to anyone else on this thread OP. The real reason Jesus had long hair is because hair stylists didn't exist at that point in time. It doesn't matter doe cuz his hair is on point

There's quite a bit wrong with your post. Nazirites were not a separate tribe, and there's no indication that they lived separately from people; guys like Sampson and Samuel did live with the regular community.

And it's not a vow against alcohol, it really is a vow against grapes and grape products. Grapes have certain ritual significances in Judaism as joy-symbols. But while it wouldn't be meritorious, a Nazirite could get drunk off his ass every night on cheap beer or whisky and still not be in violation of his vow.

The "shame" aspect of Nazirite status is unclear in Judaism, maybe even intentionally ambiguous. The three acts closely resemble ones actions when mourning, except that you bring a sin offering at the end of it; there's more than one commentator who views it almost as a rehab like process, something one does to make up for a bad character trait or a series of them, and thus, not a positive at all.

Atheism confirmed low test religion

Reread my post. I said the Nazarite oath set them apart from the rest of the tribes, not made them their own tribe.

Learn something today. If you eat grapes, the yeast in the air and the sugar in your food will ferment the grape into alcohol. If you abstain from alcohol, you must abstain from eating grapes, or you will basically just be making wine inside of you, rather than drinking it.

A Nazarite would never get drunk and consider himself keeping his oath. Where you got this idea is just bizarre.

There is no shame in being a Nazarite.

Did you read my post at all?

>Reread my post. I said the Nazarite oath set them apart from the rest of the tribes, not made them their own tribe.
Yes, and that's meaningless. How are they "set apart" from anyone, let alone "The tribes" (which is distinct from other people how exactly)? They don't leave the area, they don't form their own communities, they just essentially act as if they're mourning when nobody died.

>Learn something today. If you eat grapes, the yeast in the air and the sugar in your food will ferment the grape into alcohol. If you abstain from alcohol, you must abstain from eating grapes, or you will basically just be making wine inside of you, rather than drinking it.
Completely irrelevant to the point at hand. The Nazirite oath is not about booze, it's about grapes.

>A Nazarite would never get drunk and consider himself keeping his oath. Where you got this idea is just bizarre.
Well, for starters, from the text of the oath. Secondly try Mishneh Torah, 5:1-3.

>There is no shame in being a Nazarite.
Well, except for that which he sinned which is explicitly mentioned in the whole Nazirite thing. (Numbers 6:11) Secondly, you might want to read the Talmud sefaria.org/Taanit.11a?lang=bi which goes into some of the back and forth over the issue.

>Did you read my post at all?
Yes, and I pointed out all the nonsense in it.

Initially he was depicted with Semitic curly hair. As more gentiles began to join they eventually took the Greco-Roman aesthetic and applied it to him. This was resisted heavily by Semitic Christians but eventually Indo-Eurooean Christians hugely outnumberes them so the center-part wavy-hair Jesus won out.

Then the Renaissance happened and Jesus was depicted as Cesare Borgia which lead to him being a bearded woman.

I've only heard about this on Catholic Forums and this was the only example I saw of it and I'm not even sure if it really is of Jesus or some saint.
In the Roman catacombs he was painted beardless like a typical Roman. The frescos made for the Dura-Europos synagogue are probably the best representations of what Jews of the Hellenistic era looked like.

Here is the actual reason.

It is a staple of religions that focus entirly on one deity that it must represent BOTH genders. If you don't do this your religion is simply too alien for one gender and they don't follow it. This is accomplished either making the deity both masculine and feminine or by being entirely devoid of gender (see the Old Testament where God has no gender, it's not even called "father" but "lord" which in the original language is gender neutral.

I will give an example

In the Dionysian cults, they acknowledged other gods exist but only cared about Dionysus. So the cult's deception of him was an effeminate young man. Think your Japanese bishounen.

Those that depicted Jesus just followed the trend. They made him long haired and effiminate so women could relate to him. Keep in mind that historically speaking Mary wasn't considered an importaint figure till the late Middle Ages. And at about the time Mary becomes significant depictions of Jesus and his follwers get more manly. This is because now women can relate to Mary, rather than Jesus directly.

To add to this. The early Jesus cult had a lot of women in leadership positions so they were probably a driving force in making sure their deity was depicted in an effeminate way so they could relate to him.

Also all of the oldest Jesus depictions Jesus is very effeminate. The oldest image has him as a twinkish 14 year old boy that could easily be mistaken for a woman.

Depictions of Jesus don't start cropping up until a few centuries after the resurrection and by that point women did not have leadership positions within the church and even within the very early church the extent that women exerted leadership is still a hotly debated topic.

you're killing him

it's probably not about female leadership so much as its about the ability of females to relate to christ as a figure (and therefore to integrate into the institution of christianity). the androgyny of depictions of buddha have a similar function i think.

BACK IN THE A.D. I WAS ON A VERY FAMOUS CRUCIFIX

Where was your source, you fucking wannabe high school teacher's aide?

>le triggered autist
I didn't make any claim you douche

perfect man created in gods image

Exactly.

If you look at any religion, except ones that strictly forbidden certain genders, if there is only one figure of any holy significance it is always androgynous so both genders can relate to it.

Even the Old Testament deity is occassionally described in effeminate terms as nurturing with it's bossum. There is even a curious bit somewhere (forget which book) where Yahweh is described as the bride of his followers.

The Old Testament deity though is a special case because it rarely is described in genered terms, so both sexes would feel equally alien to it. Remember that the Old Testament deity does not have the title of 'father' but a gender neutral term which has been translated into "Lord" but really means something like "ruler"

Ok but I was responding that user's mistaken assumption that women in church leadership positions had influence on how Jesus was depicted in icons.

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Nature tells us that lions have manes, so no, that's a silly argument.

Long hair symbolizes a kingly lifestyle: if you have long hair, you can afford to be lice-free and wash it.

A beard is necessary, unless you're an androgynous Gnostic catamite.