Monday, December 3, 2012

First Ever Portrait of Jesus?



Monday after Advent I
December 3, 2012

The Lord be with you

I typed into my search engine “the oldest picture of Jesus” and I came across a fascinating discovery. It seems that an Arab fellow has found/acquired a number of “books,” made of led plates, dating from the late first or second century. They come from a cave in the same general area as the Dead Sea Scrolls and Masada.

Now finding ancient artifacts in that part of the world is not all that surprising. What is surprising it that one of the “books” contains what may be the oldest portrait of Jesus. The portrait is on this page. If you want to read an article about it, click here.

One of the amazing things about this discovery is that it didn’t make the national news. If this had been discovered a century ago, it would have been the topic of everyone’s conversation. Now, such an amazing discovery was so under-reported that I didn’t find out about it until it is really old news.

Whether or not this is an actual representation of Jesus made, perhaps, in the life time of those who knew him face to face, will be debated by scholars. Perhaps, if we are blessed, the media will keep us abreast in an unbiased way. Wouldn’t that be great.

Blessings in Christ,
Pastor John Rickert

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