Did Jesus Have Long Hair?
by David K. Bernard
Podcast recording (no venue stated in the delivered transcript)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: 1 Corinthians 11, Isaiah 50, Numbers 6

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/david-k-bernard--did-jesus-have-long-hair
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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Let's take 1 Corinthians 11 just as it states and it says God has given a woman long hair for her glory. And it says even nature teaches you this. It also says it's a shame for a man to have long hair. Now the it's very clear what God's will is. So if if you want to know what God desires, he wants a woman to have long hair because it's her glory. He wants a man to cut his hair short, at least distinctively short from the typical woman in his culture.

Because the whole point is to make the distinction between male and female, which the Apostle Paul says goes back to the creation account when God created male and female. Now, some people will quibble, well, it doesn't say it's a sin. Doesn't say I'll go to hell. What if I'm a woman? I I don't I don't want the glory and I don't mind the shame. What if I'm a man and I don't care about the shame? My answer to that is that is a legalistic argument. That is treating the Bible like a book of laws. And if I can find a loophole, then I can ignore what it clearly says.

So it doesn't say I'm going to hell, so therefore I can safely ignore it. But we're not supposed to be legalists. We're not supposed to live by the law. We aren't earning our salvation by our works. And when people accuse us of legalism, by the way, they seem to assume the alternative is do whatever you want, license. But that's not the right alternative. The all right alternative is love. I'm motivated because I love God. I want to do his will. Uh I'm motivated by faith. I believe God's word is right. I'm motivated by the Holy Spirit. God's spirit works in me to desire what is right.

So if you look at this as a legalistic code book, you could say, "Yeah, I can get away with not obeying." But if you look at this from the point of view of faith, love, and the spirit, it's obvious what God wants. That settles it. That'd be like arguing with your wife. You know, I'm I don't have to do what you say. But if you love her, you want to please her. So, it's not about whether she can force me or if I don't do what she says, she can divorce me. It's a matter of do I want to please her. Do I love her?

Is this important to her? And so, if you really love God, you'll want to do what he says. is obvious what he wants. That should settle the question uh right there. Now, so I think we easily dismiss that. When we read the Bible, we're not asking, "What's the legalistic loophole that I can get out of doing what the Bible says?" We read the Bible saying, "What does God want me to do?" In 1 Corinthians 11, it's very obvious what God wants me to do. That settles the question. Now to the historical uh point uh the depictions of Jesus having long hair come from the artists of the middle ages and especially the Renaissance because that was the custom at that time.

But when you go back to ancient history you cannot find that at all. Now it interestingly you it's very rare to define to to see a visual depiction of Jewish males because there was such a strong pro prohibition against idolatry and making a graven image that the ancient Jewish people did not want to make any physical depiction of a human. Uh but so I did a little research and uh what you do find is the u foreigners or the enemies of Israel would somehow make depict sometimes make depictions. So there's a very famous um uh some reliefs uh uh produced by the Assyrians when they conquered ancient Judah.

They conquered the city of Lakish which is mentioned in the Bible. This battle is mentioned and we have some reliefs of these where the Assyrians actually did carvings of on on rock of these Jewish captives. And so I looked it up just to double check and it does show beards but it shows uh cropped hair for the males which would look like maybe shaggy by our standards but look like conforming pretty closely to the head. And then for the women, it has long hair going down just hanging down to the waist or longer. Uh, and these were captives. And so there's several of these. So that's probably the clearest example in antiquity of what Jewish people look like, Jewish males.

You also have at the time of Christ, you have several um rulers named Phil uh Herod. There's Herod the Great, Herod Phillip, uh, Herod Antipus, u, there was Herod Agria one, Herod Agrippa 2, and some of them did have coins. And those that did, I think it's Herod Phillip and Herod Agria had themselves put on coins. And again, the men's hair was uh, pretty close to the head. Now, if you look at Roman coins and statues of the time, you see that's uniformly the case. They would have typically curly hair, again by our standards, shaggy, but not hanging down, not considered long, not like a woman.

And so all the secular evidence that we have, all the physical evidence would say that Jewish males from antiquity and even Jewish males of the first century and the other males of the first century in that same uh Greco Roman culture all would have short hair. Uh so there is no evidence of the kind of long hair that you see depicted in the medieval and renaissance paintings of Jesus. That would be totally contrary to everything we know in history. But now uh let's think about the Bible. So in Isaiah 50, you do have a prophecy of the Messiah plucking his beard. And that that does seem to be a uniform thing you could see.

Whereas Romans in the first century uh typically would not have a beard. It's always Jewish males are always mentioned as having a beard but usually a cropped beard and the lakish examples cropped beard. Also there is an obelisk um which I think is also Assyrian or king Jahu um paying obesence paying tribute to the Assyrian king. And there's a debate among scholars where it's literally Jay Hugh or just a figurative representation, but he is depicted with a beard and he is depicted with somewhat long hair, but it's kind of hard to tell what's a headdress versus what's a hair. And and as I said, we're not sure if that is a stylistic rendition by the Assyrians in general or specific.

But anyway, um, so while you do see Jesus having a beard according to, uh, Isaiah 50, you there's no reference to him having long hair. Now, thinking of it biblically, if you go back to the Old Testament, number six talks about the special Nazerite vow that would set apart a male. Um, and Samson was unusual in that it was lifelong. Most of the other cases were temporary, but one of the points of separation that would mark this person distinct is that he would have long hair. Well, just think about it. If it if that was the standard for Jew Hebrew males, then it wouldn't have been a mark of distinction.

So, the very fact that this indicated mark of distinction means it was unusual and different from everybody else. Another example is Abselum, David's son in scripture is particularly mentioned as having long hair. Again, why would they make us such a big deal of that if all the males were like that? He was different. He was unique. So, I think the biblical evidence and the historical evidence all indicates that Jews from ancient times, including through Christ time, would not have had long hair. And I think perhaps a conclusive argument is going back to um 1 Corinthians 11 again and that is let's imagine the first century Paul is writing and he says all the churches of God have this custom.

So it's not just I'm not just talking about Corinth but the churches of that day included Jewish people, Samaritan people, uh Greek people, Roman people. And so he said, "This is what all the churches practice." So let's say that was not true. Let's say that most males or let's say let's say only Jesus had long hair. Well, the classic rejoiner would say, "Paul, your own Lord had long hair. What do you mean?" So the fact that Paul could write this and expect it to be a convincing argument be because there were people alive that actually had seen Jesus. They knew Jesus. And of course, the other apostles had been with Jesus.

And so the the simplest reputation in the world would have been well Paul that's obviously ridic ridiculous because Jesus Christ himself had long hair. So I think just common sense as reading the scripture will let you know. Um the Bible is pretty clear that Jewish males of that era and Jesus in particular did not have long hair. Now when we say long hair uh they did not have the same type of modern barbers in instruments which by the way is is one of the reasons for the beards as well. It was hard relatively difficult to have a clean shaven face especially just for ordinary common person.

So, the hair would have been shaggy compared to maybe what we're used to uh in our uh typical 21st century western culture, but it still would have been noticeably short and more or less around the head, not streaming down the back or, you know, shaggy hanging over the eyes or or over the ears or things like that. Um, and in a day when it was universally expected that women would have long hair, if a man did have somewhat we would consider shaggy or long hair, but it's clearly shorter than all the women, then they would have considered that short. Whereas today, of course, so many women cut their hair very short that I I think it behooves us as men to have our hair noticeably short so that we still have that distinction from the majority of the women in our culture.

But as far as Jesus having long hair, I think that is just plainly historically and biblically false.