In nearly every movie, painting or Sunday school coloring page, Jesus Christ shows up with a full beard and a head of perfectly tousled, shoulder-length hair. Whether it’s The Passion of the Christ, The Chosen, Jesus Christ Superstar, or the dusty devotional art hanging in your grandma’s hallway, cinematic and artistic Jesus looks like he just walked out of a 1970s shampoo commercial.
But if you’ve ever read up on first-century Jewish culture—or, you know, skimmed 1 Corinthians—you might start to wonder: Wouldn’t long hair on a Jewish man have been, well, kind of frowned upon?
The short answer: yes. The longer answer: it’s complicated.
According to Dr. Lawrence Schiffman, professor of Hebrew and Judaic Studies at New York University and one of the foremost experts on Judaism during the Second Temple period, long hair just wasn’t the norm.
“Jewish men back in antiquity did not have long hair,” he explained.
In fact, he notes, Jewish texts from the time actively mocked long hair as something associated with Roman and Greek elites—think philosophers, emperors, and dramatic pagan gods.
There wasn’t an explicit religious law saying, “Thou shalt get a trim every few weeks,” but cultural expectations made it clear: clean-cut was in. Even the apostle Paul, who wasn’t exactly shy about calling things out, weighed in when writing to the Corinthians: “Does not the very nature of things teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him?” (That’s 1 Corinthians 11:14, if you want to double-check.)
Paul wasn’t just spitballing. He was echoing what was already widely understood in the Greco-Roman and Jewish world—men with long hair weren’t taken seriously.
Which leads to the obvious question: If Jesus was a Jewish man living under those cultural norms, why have we spent the last 1,600 years painting him like a bearded model for Biblical Pantene?
It turns out, the answer has less to do with history and more to do with art.
Starting in the 4th and 5th centuries, Christian iconography began to borrow visual cues from classical mythology.
Early artists didn’t have a selfie of Jesus to work with, so they defaulted to what already signaled power and divinity: the image of gods like Zeus and Jupiter, who were almost always portrayed with majestic beards and long, flowing hair.
It wasn’t historically accurate, but it got the message across. In an age of illiteracy and symbolism, looking godlike mattered more than looking local.
By the time Byzantine art got involved, the long-haired Jesus was set in stone—literally, in mosaics. This “Christ Pantocrator” image, where Jesus looks stern and glorious with shoulder-length hair and a trimmed beard, became the template for how He would be depicted for centuries.
Renaissance artists doubled down on it. Filmmakers picked it up and ran with it. And audiences, familiar with the iconography, didn’t question it.
There’s one more theory that occasionally makes the rounds: maybe Jesus was a Nazirite. In the Old Testament, Nazirites like Samson vowed not to cut their hair as part of a specific, temporary dedication to God. But there’s no real evidence Jesus ever took a Nazirite vow.
The confusion probably comes from the fact that Jesus was from Nazareth, and the words sound similar. Nazirite and Nazarene are two completely different things. (Think “Floridian” and “Florist”—related letters, not related concepts.)
So what would Jesus have actually looked like?
Archaeological evidence from first-century Jewish communities in Galilee suggests men wore their hair relatively short and kept beards trimmed. Artifacts like busts, coins and ancient graffiti back this up.
It’s likely Jesus looked less like Obi-Wan Kenobi and more like a Middle Eastern tradesman who could blend in with the rest of the community—because that’s what he was. He wasn’t going for divine drama in his personal style. He was trying not to stand out.
Of course, suggesting a short-haired Jesus in today’s pop culture would probably cause a minor theological meltdown. It’s hard to compete with centuries of reinforced imagery.
For now, we’ve collectively agreed that long-haired Jesus feels right—even if history tells us it’s probably wrong. The image sticks because it signals something more than just appearance. It says: This is someone different. This is someone important.
So while the historical evidence stacks up against the cinematic locks, we keep letting it slide. Because, honestly, who’s going to fund the next season of The Chosen with Jesus sporting a fade?
And let’s be clear: how Jesus styled his hair doesn’t change anything about his teachings or his significance. It’s a fascinating reminder of how tradition, art and cultural expectations shape our mental picture of God.
But maybe it’s time we gave Short-Haired Jesus his due.
