If you take a look at the Jewish population living in Israel today, you will probably be struck by the huge variety of physical traits. Millions of people all calling themselves “Jews” have gathered together after over 2000 years of being scattered throughout the world: Northern Europe, the Mediterranean Basin, North Africa, Ethiopia, Persia, the former Soviet Union, the Americas and the list goes on. All these Jews look rather different from each other. And yet, all claim to be descended from a single ancestor: “Abram the Hebrew” (Genesis 14:13). Is this really the case? Is it even possible to know what the ancient Israelites actually looked like?
No, unfortunately it is probably not possible to verify with any real certainty what Abraham looked like. Presumably, if he was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, located in modern-day southern Iraq, he would have had dark wavy hair, an olive complexion; an appearance characteristic of the populations that have lived in this region for millennia: Kurds, Turkmen, Jews, Armenians, etc. We can look to the Song of Songs for an description of what the Israelite ideal of beauty was (Song 5:10-16). However, beyond this very vague image, it is nearly impossible to know about the physical appearance of Abraham or of any of his Israelite descendants. If we cannot obtain concrete information about the genealogy of the ancient Israelites (nature), what about cultural features (nurture) of their appearance: clothing, hairstyle, facial hair, etc.?
In popular imagination, one of the most “obvious” features of an ancient Israelite man’s appearance is a full beard. Any modern illustration depicting the biblical period contains lots of dusty, turban-wearing Israelite men with unkempt beards. You will never see a clean shaven Israelite in a biblical film or drawing. Why is this? Is this just meant to make the actors look authentically “old-fashioned” or do we have evidence for the absence of shaved faces among Israelite men?
Contrary to the the ancient Egyptians (who were clean shaven) and Mesopotamians (who wore long groomed beards) who depicted themselves extensively in their art, the Israelites hardly left us images of themselves. The biblical prohibition against making graven images (Exodus 20:4) prevented the Israelites from producing art depicting themselves. So scholars mostly need to use textual descriptions found in the Bible to reconstruct the Israelites’ physical appearance.
The Hebrew Bible contains many passages which make it clear that beards are vital part of Israelite fashion. The Book of Psalms compares dwelling in peace with one’s brothers to “fine oil on the head running down onto the beard, the beard of Aaron, that comes down over the collar to his robe” (Psalm 133:2). Listen to two different musical versions of these words here and here. This metaphor is difficult to understand. Why is a well-oiled beard similar to brotherly harmony? Is it because dwelling in peace creates a feeling of overflowing bounty similar to the oil on Aaron’s beard? Is it because in the ancient Near East guests were welcomed by being anointed with fine oil? Perhaps. The main point for our purposes is that the high priest, Aaron, had a very long beard.
But lest one conclude that beards were only worn by the priestly class, we can find many biblical passages that indicate otherwise. Every Israelite man is commanded “you shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard.” (Leviticus 19:27). This is the biblical basis for the sidelocks of hair (Hebrew: pe’ot) that Ultra-Orthodox men wear to this day, as seen in the image below. One might even go as far as to say that long sidelocks were the most distinctive feature of the Israelites’ appearance (circumcision was also very distinctive, but not outwardly visible). Jeremiah refers to the foreign nations that surround Israel collectively as “all those with shaven temples who live in the desert” (Jer. 9:25).
Among ancient Israelite men it was apparently considered humiliating to have one’s face shaven. When King Hanun of Ammon clips off half of the beards of David’s courtiers, he instructs them to “remain in Jericho until your beards grow back” (2 Samuel 10:5). Waiting several weeks for the hair to grow back in the ghost town of Jericho (abandoned since Joshua’s destruction of the city) was evidently preferable to the easier solution of simply shaving the other side off. A common form of greeting a fellow Israelite was to “grab his beard with the right hand to kiss him” (2 Samuel 20:9). Prior to visiting king David, it was imperative for Saul’s son Mephibosheth to prepare himself by doing the following: taking care of his feet, trimming his mustache, washing his clothes (2 Samuel 19:24). The mustache (Hebrew safam) was trimmed, but not the beard (zakan). Maybe the reason why shaving one’s beard was humiliating was that it was a pagan rite (Leviticus 21:5), a mourning practice (Job 1:20), or alternatively, a symbolic act performed by a holy man. The prophet Ezekiel, for example, is instructed as follows:
Now, son of man, take a sharp sword and use it as a barber’s razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and divide up the hair. (Ezekiel 5:1).
In fact, there are works of art from the period of the Bible that do depict Israelites. For example, this frieze found in the throne room of Sennacherib in Nineveh depicts the famous battle of Lachish. This was one of the most important battles fought by the Assyrians as they conquered most of the southern kingdom of Judah in 701 BC. In the image below we see Israelite prisoners being led off into captivity. Note the short curly beards on the faces of the men. These are closely cropped as opposed to the long beard of the Assyrian soldiers.
Here is a depiction of King Jehu of Israel bowing down to the Assyrian king Shalmaneser III. Note the beard.
Another rare artistic depiction which might be depicting Israelites is this tomb painting from Egypt. A detail from the tomb of Khnumhotep II, an aristocrat buried in the Beni Hasan cemetery in Middle Egypt. This painting depicts a family of nomadic traders entering Egypt from Canaan in the 19th cent. BCE. This is a very rare depiction of ancient Semites, dressed in colorful tunics, as opposed to the Egyptians wearing only white waistcloths. Perhaps they have come to buy grain. The man bending over the ibex is named “Abisha the Hyksos” according to the inscription. This is a very nice visual counterpart to the story of Jacob’s sons migrating to Egypt.
The Hebrew word for beard is zakan (זקן) and appears 19 times in the Hebrew Bible. Interestingly the Greek equivalent pogon (πώγων) does not appear even once in the New Testament. What should we make of this? Were Jews clean shaven during the Roman period? No. Certainly the majority of Jewish men still had beards, as they did during the period of the Hebrew Bible. There was a small population of highly Hellenized Jews that might have shaved their beards, as was the custom among Romans. But it would have been very odd to see a Jewish man in the Land of Israel without a beard until the 20th century. The Babylonian Talmud states that Rabbi Yohanan was very handsome but did not possess perfect beauty because he lacked a beard. Interestingly, the beard is referred to by the alias “the adornment of the face” (Baba Metzia 84b). Let’s conclude by quoting one of the rare examples of a description of an ancient Jew. The following description of the physical appearance of the apostle Paul is found in the the 2nd century apocryphal book, the Acts of Paul and Thecla:
He was a man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were projecting, and he had large eyes and his eyebrows met, and his nose was somewhat long, and he was full of grace and mercy; at one time he seemed like a man, and at another time he seemed like an angel.
Not a very flattering description! Evidently, Paul’s beard was so obvious that the author did not even see the need to mention it.
Josephus the Jewish historian in his Dissertation 111 History of the Jews says that Jews were mistaken for… Egyptians but most people thought they were Ethiopian …which means they appeared to be African
Ancient Hebrews look nothing like contemporary Jews. Why?
[…] What did ancient Israelites look like? […]
Hi
The etymology of the English term Jew originates from the Biblical Hebrew word Yehudi, meaning “from the Kingdom of Judah.” So theoretically those Ten Tribes of the Northern kingdom of Israel were known as Israelites, a much older term than Jew. Therefore, to be a Jew (after 931 BCE), one must have been born and lived in the kingdom of Judah.
Furthermore, after the diaspora of the Israelites (2 Kings 15:29), anyone that lived north of the border of Judah after 721 BCE, were foreigners as described in 2 Kings 17:24.
On the obsolete (after 721 BCE) Northern kingdom of Israel, which from the reign of King Omri (884-873 BCE) was renamed, Samaria. Omri after reigning for six years moved from his old capital of Tirzah to his new capital also called Samaria, see 1 Kings 16: 23-24.
Galilee was inhabited by Gentiles?
23 There is no gloom where there had been distress. Where once he degraded the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, now he has glorified the way of the Sea, the land across the Jordan, *Galilee of the Nations.[a](Isaiah 8:23 NIV)
Footnotes
8:23 The territories mentioned in this verse are those which the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser III took from Israel and incorporated into the Assyrian provincial system as a result of the Syro-Ephraimite War of 735–732 B.C. (2 Kgs 15:29). Zebulun…Naphtali: regions of the former Northern Kingdom of Israel. The way of the Sea: the area along the Mediterranean coast south of Mount Carmel which became the Assyrian province of Dor. Land across the Jordan: the province of Gilead east of the Jordan. Galilee of the Nations: the territory north of Mount Carmel which was incorporated in the Assyrian province of Megiddo. Galilee apparently had a large non-Israelite population. Mt 4:15–16 (see below) cites this verse in the context of the beginning of Jesus’ public mission in Galilee.
*Galilee of the Nations means the people that the king of Assyria forced to repopulate Samaria/northern kingdom of Israel from 721 BCE onward (see 2 Kings 17:24).
15 “Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali,
the way to the sea, beyond the Jordan,
Galilee of the Gentiles,
16 the people who sit in darkness
have seen a great light,
on those dwelling in a land overshadowed by death
light has arisen.” [Matthew 4:15-16 NABRE]
Source: For both Isaiah 8:23 and Matthew 4:15-16
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+8%3A23&version=NABRE
The Gentiles who write the genealogy of Jesus did not research the information contained in the Hebrew scriptures or Israelite history.
The post ends by citing: 48 The Jews answered him [Jesus], “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” [John 8:48 NIV]
Cofion
Jero Jones
From the four corners of the earth are all the locations of the lost tribe (Isaiah 11:12) meaning after thousands of years, there is no such thing as a “pure” Jew for tradition continues. There is no Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3:28-29). All who are of Jesus Christ are grafted in the same olive tree, (Romans 11:11-31). Timothy was half Greek and jew (Greek father, Jewish mother) in (Acts 16:1 onward). So because of that, just like Christians are of all ‘Ethnic’ groups, so are the Jewish, but their features are truly like Semitic origins. Let’s remember that in the kingdom of God, we are all one body, one spirit and while there is racial debates here on this forsaken world, there shall be none in heaven.
Sadly, many caucasians are unwilling to acknowledge or accept that Jesus is not a Caucasian. Let’s look at geographically where He is from and His lineage. Jesus is of Jewish descent and born in Bethlehem which is Israel. Therefore, He definitely is not Caucasian skinned, blondish brown haired and blue eyed like many Caucasians believe Him to be. Some will concede to brown-eyed and many pictures in churches portray Him as such. I respectfully disagree with these portrails. If you look at drawings, Stone carvings and historical descriptions of Israelites in biblical times, they were tan skin toned and often had dark brown or black hair that was more course then most Caucasian hair and often was wavy or curly. In Matthew 2, Mary and Joseph we’re told to hide baby Jesus in Egypt. If He was Caucasian in any way, shape or form, He would stick out like a sore thumb in Egypt! Therefore, in Matthew 2, Mary and Joseph were told to hide baby Jesus in Egypt. Luke 2 tells of Jesus at about 12 sitting in the temple listening to the teachings & teaching. Now, if he looked Caucasian, He never would have been allowed to go into the temple! We have a tendency to follow what we are told/taught by our parents/grand parents & not question it. It’s tradition. Even in church, we often don’t question what the pastor says. If you look at paintings of Jesus over time, He’s been painted as what the time or culture dictates. Paintings of Jesus have been done where He looks Asian or African or Russia, etc. It’s the artist’s perception. Isn’t He all things to all people? (I knew a matured woman that had a rough life at the hands of a tyrannical father & an abusive husband. To her, the Trinity was feminine. That was the only way she could keep her faith. Men had caused her too much pain) Anything but a “white “Jesus doesn’t work in the church. To even mention anything contrary to this traditional Jesus is seen as pretty much blasphemy. How is it that many Christian churches are more willing to accept a gay pastor – which goes against the Word of God- but will not even consider the idea of Jesus being anything BUT Caucasian? I love the Lord & every person He has created. I know Who Jesus is to ME & He is a God of love. Doesn’t the Word of God tell believers to study for themselves and not just take what they are told as 100% truth? Bye the way, I am a matured Caucasian female.
“Our skin was black like an oven because of the famine (Lamentations 5:10, KJV). Did the Jew(ish) people turn black because of the starvation at Auschwitz? The Hebrews were Black people. Askenaz (Askenazim) was derived from the lineage of Japheth not Shem, whom Abraham descended from. Jew(ish) is a European trope that has evolved into calling Eastern European converts Jews.
This argument does not make sense. The language of the Israelites eventually evolved into Paleo-Hebrew and then later forms of Hebrew as they became a dead spoken language. You are citing the King James Version of the Bible, which is a late translation of the Bible produced hundreds of years after its initial writing. If you look at a direct Hebrew translation, a better translation is “Our skin is hot like an oven because of the burning heat of famine.” In other words, they are saying (if both black and hot are linguistic correlates of the thing they are talking about) that they are BURNT. They are made overcooked, burnt, hot, or blackened by the heat or oven of famine. That has nothing to do with skin color; it has to do with the sensation and metaphor. If anything, it means that the so-called blackened state would NOT be normal to impose upon the identity of an Israelite. And for the record, the Jews and their skin WERE burnt at Auschwitz. Additionally, you are citing only one sub-group of Jews. The Ancient Israelites were probably some form of brown, and then they were forced to migrate post-Exile, and they took on the skin colors of their surrounding populations. Some Jews went South to Ethiopia and became Black Jews, and these are called the Beta Israel. Some went even further South to far Sub-Saharan Africa and became the Lemba People, an even “blacker” Jew. Some went North or West into Europe or North Africa and mixed with the local population and became white Jews, and the Jews that went further North mixed with whiter and whiter populations. Some Jews went East and mixed with Indian populations, becoming the Bene Israel (Indian Jews), and some went even further East into parts of Western China and became the Kaifeng Jews. It turns out that when you scatter a people, they tend to go in any direction where they can survive, and for the Jews, this meant traveling wherever they could. No people are “purely” any ancient ethnic group. There is a constant flow, unless the population is completely and totally isolated. (Additionally, the Khazarian Hypothesis has been proven false by modern genetics, and shows that the Beta Israel, Lemba People, Ashkenazi Jews, Middle Eastern (Mizrahi) Jews, and North African/Spanish (Sephardi) Jews all share at least a handful of common paternal ancestors denoted by the occurrences of West Asian and North African haplogroups). All of the people in the comments here have clearly never studied biblical criticism, archaeology, Israelite History, or genetics. You can’t just pick random quotes out of the Bible to support an arbitrary perspective that you LIKE. You have to use the LOGICAL AND RATIONAL capacity that GOD gave YOU.
The term Ethiopian uses the same definition for the black skinned people the Greeks described as Athiops, Burnt face.
No. The Israelites or should I say the Hebrew Israelites had Olive colored skin and we’re not black nor White
I so completely agree with you… cultures claim the best things for them selves… as protestants and catholic have attempted to erase the very Hebrew nature of the New Testament Jesus ( or Paul or Peter) couldn’t be Hebrew or Jewish… as Jesus is the Best of The best each group claimed his appearance … or is that just the way God is working through each culture… God Is Love and Love of God is all there is
Were these even Jews coz Jews is a new term ? Mary and Joseph we’re told to hide baby Jesus in Egypt and so what Alexandria Egypt is in Egypt ! at what time was it , who’s rule was it under lol what if they was Carpathian , parthain under Jewish/Hebrew law ! that then fell under roman loled .
Jesus Born: c. 4 BC; Judea, Roman Empire
Caucasian? is a wind range lol and not even people understand lol a lot of shit has gone down but if at this time he was only really Caucus coz Caucus-Asian are more northern
Many so called Caucasians living in and round their at that the time ! .
Mount Ararat
Near the top of Mount Ararat in Turkey, Noah’s ark.
where the sons of Noah went out from ! is where they we get are our name from Caucus ! .
technically Caucus also describes many black people if you look up the correct definition…plus the skin adapts to higher radiation from the sun and becomes darker. They were probably olive skinned, but It really doesn’t matter.
Awesome acknowledgement. And you’re right.
You are correct. The Israelites of that time were dark olive skinned, they would have looked very much like the arabs do. Arabs are also descendants from Abraham, like the Israelites. When the Jews were scattered around Europe many married Europeans and thus over time many of them ended up with lighter skin. I suppose that is part of the confusion. Jesus would have been dark olive skin tone with dark brown or black hair and likely brown eyes (though an occasional genetic anomaly is possible). Since I was a child the movies and paintings depicting Jesus as white have greatly bothered me.
I never met a “Caucasian” or anyone for that matter who really believed that Jesus was fair skinned or light eyed… people simply portray Jesus in a relatable way, there are Asian Christians who portray Jesus as Asian… so this is a non issue that you are making into an issue unnecessarily.
Way to go Michelle! So many people thing Jesus is a white man like some of the eastern pictures show Him. HE IS NOT!!!!!
I am a white guy and I have no problem worshiping Jesus.
Thank You for sharing. Its refreshing to hear the truth sometimes in writing. Especially when it comes from someone who has nothing to gain to present the truth. THank You.
Well Jesus never proclaimed to be god , but son of god. Jesus no doubt looked like everyone in that region. Point we should take away is that of love. Love for god and love for neighbor and as humanity we are lacking .
Jesus Christ was Caucasoid. Caucasoid refers to bone structure not skin tone. Jesus wasn’t a pale skinned Caucasoid but he was a Caucasian.
Here is what the ancient Israelites looked like according to scripture before all of the white washing/Roman renaissance era. Shalom!!
-Job had BLACK SKIN Lam 5:10/Job 30:30
-Children of Israel had DREADLOCKS Isaiah 47:1-2 (Lock=Dreadlock)
-Bloodline Hebrews /Descendants of ALL 12 TRIBES (Not just Judah/Jews as the letter J is only 500 years old and the gentile Jews off today converted in the 7th century because of king Bulan/documented history) Deuteronomy 28:48 & 68 (Transalantic Slave Trade/Southern Tribes scattered to the Americas & the to the 4 corners of the earth)
-10 Northern Tribes ARE STILL IN AFRICA TODAY Isaiah 11:11-
-SONG OF SOLOMON had a BLACK WIFE/ Daughters of Jerusalem were Beautiful Black Women Song of Solomon 1:5-6
-Original Arabs had BLACK SKIN Gen 25:13/Song of Solomon 1:15
-Moses married a Ethopian/AFRICAN woman Exodus 4:18-26, Numbers 12:1 Zipporah was a Cushite/ Ethiopian/Beautiful Black African Woman
-The Nazarite Vow included both men & women with dreadlocks before shaving there heads to make the vow complete. Numbers 6:5
-Paul was mistaken as an Egyptian Acts 21:37-39
-1st generation people of faith were BLACK PEOPLE Acts 11:26/Acts 13:1
-Simon called Niger Luke 23:26
Job was not an Israelite. Famines are temporary, so if their skinned darkened due to the hot sun during a famine, that means it wasn’t dark before it, and possibly after it. Isaiah 47:1-2 says nothing about locks. Just because Israelites were slaves doesn’t make them black. Israel that were scattered and lost are in Africa and will likely have dark skin, but also went north-west, and shall come from the north countries from Israel, e.g. the Caucasus, Russia, Europe (north east), and Scandinavia. There will be dark skinned and fair skinned Israelites because skin colour means nothing to the Lord. Skin colour changes over centuries. Those in hot climates will be dark and those in cold climates will be fair. In Songs of Solomon the dark skinned woman was dark because she worked outdoors in the vineyard and was unlike other Israelites for she asked that her skin colour not be despised by other Israelites. Locks of hair are not dreadlocks. As for Paul being mistaken for an Egyptian, in his days Egypt had been occupied by Greeks with the reign of the Ptolemies for a few centuries before his day.
Job was suffering from sickness and he was a servant of The Most High. No heathens were identified as faithful servants of The Most High in the Holy Scriptures. But back to the skin issue. When Brown skinned people are sick or suffering from famine their skin goes in to a condition called hyperpigmentation this is common among the African race of people when they exhibit grave sickiness. I’m surprised people don’t get this. reading the text of job and lamentations I see this clearly and as a former missionary in Africa I’d see it all the time in many villages where there was sickness of famine.
You should read the scriptures you posted again. Lamentations 5:10 is about the skin feeling hot and being black like an oven because of a famine.Job 30:30, skin is black, bones are burning. Again, because of a famine the skin was turning black and was feverish. Plagues cause the skin to turn black. Locks does not mean dreadlocks. Locks is hair in multiple verses in the Bible talks about hair that’s like wool, black like a raven. 1 Timothy 2:9 says “not braided”…
I’ll let you figure out the rest
My research is coming up the Israelites had usually blue eyes and blonde/red hair. Even the oldest mummies all over this planet are of the same description.
It is quite easy to know how the Israelites looked in the beginning because Samaritans split off from Am Israel 2,500 years ago and only married each other up until modern day, they still reside in Israel and still look like white, Near Eastern Jews
Us Jews tho are mostly mixed but Jews are a bloodline not a race
What about Judah?
Yes there are black Israelites. Few and far between that carry the rh-blood that the nordics passed thru assimilation