Christ's Figure

To the grief of the devout, the writers of the New Testament neglected to give a satisfactorily complete description of Jesus. So little, so very little is known of His appearance that opportunity comes to many* for working out an elaborate thesis that He never existed.

Yet now and then, here and there, as Biblical researchers probe into moldy monastery caches or Roman tumuli, they bring to study some off-hand reference to the Man. One student, from some remnants of manuscript, puts His height at 5 ft. 2 in. (TIME, Feb. 15).

Last week another, Dr. Robert Eisler, working in his musty study in the Palais Royal at Paris, was collating an Old Russian (Slavonic) text of Josephus/- with fragments that referred in Russian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin or Arabian to the times of Jesus. By collation he has worked out this visualization:

"At that time also a man came forward, if one may call a man, one whom his Disciples called the Son of God. His being and his figure were quite human, a man of middle size with a stooping back and a long face, a prominent nose and with brows which grew together so that those who saw him would get frightened, with very little hair and having in the middle of his forehead a sign, according to the habit of the Nazarenes. His looks were quite simple, only his pose was more than human because he performed wonders through some invisible power.

"Considering, however, his quite ordinary nature, I for one, shall not call him an angel. His name was Jesus and he was nicknamed Messiah. By the Gentiles he was believed to be a soothsayer, but some of our people said of him that he was our first lawgiver, Moses, and had risen from the dead and was now showing forth many cures and arts. . . .

"He did not observe Sabbath according to our ancestral law. Not that he did anything shameful or criminal himself, but through his words he instigated everything, and many from our folk followed him and accepted his teaching, and many souls became wavering, believing the Jewish tribes would set themselves free from the hands of the Romans."

Further, and in close accordance with the Gospels: "Now, it was his habit to stay most of the time on the Mount of Olives, before the city, and there he also avouched his cures to the people. And there gathered themselves to him one hundred and fifty slaves, and of the populace, a crowd. But when they saw his power, which could accomplish everything he would by word, they urged him that he enter the city and hew down the Roman soldiers and Pilate and rule over us. But when knowledge of this came to the Jewish leaders, they gathered together with the High Priest and spake, 'We are powerless and too weak to withstand the Romans ... we will go tell Pilate what we have heard, and be without distress, lest if he hear it from others we be robbed of our substance and ourselves be put to the sword and the children of Israel dispersed.' And they went and told it to Pilate and he sent and had many people cut down.

"As for that wonder worker, he had him brought before him and after he had tried him, they took him and crucified him according to their ancestral custom."

*See Historicity of Jesus by Shirley Jackson Case (U. of Chicago Press) and Historicity of Jesus by Arthur Drews (Open Court Pub. Co., Chicago). /-Judeo-Roman historian of the Jews, lived from about 37 to about 95 of the Christian era: wrote in Aramaic, the language of Jesus, but also prepared Greek translations. The Aramaic versions are lost: not so the Greek.