The year is coming to an end, and Christmas is here, carrying the news of a happy ending, along with the hope for a new beginning. Every corner of the city block has been decked up with colourful lights. People are on the streets with one thing on their minds-"It's Christmas time!" It is a season that revolves around memory, belief, and the birth of Jesus Christ. Every year, this time of joy and happiness returns with his birthday. But behind all the candles and hymns, a silent question awaits: what did Jesus Christ really look like?
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There has been very little evidence to confirm what the son of god looked like. However, there have been many theories that keep surfacing during discussions around this topic. One theory has quietly resurfaced, especially during conversations about faith and art. Which claims that the familiar Western image of Jesus Christ did not come from history, but from the Renaissance.
According to a Snopes fact-check report, this theory suggests that Jesus was modelled after Cesare Borgia, the son of Pope Alexander VI. The story often claims that artists were encouraged to use Cesare’s facial features and that this likeness slowly became the standard image of Christ across Europe. The idea has appeared in modern retellings and is sometimes linked to references made by French writer Alexandre Dumas. The story has multiple variations, making it difficult to reach a definitive conclusion.
The Cesare Borgia theory might sound prominent due to it's dramatic turns and twists and according to a HistoryDefined report, this claim continues to be widely circulated online; however, there's no document from the period that supports the theory.
However, looking back in the pages of history, the story begins to become much clearer. According to the Snopes report, there has been no credible historical documentation found that proves Cesare Borgia was ever used as a model for Jesus. Historical data show that depictions of Christ with similar facial features had been in existence centuries before Cesare was born. Early Byzantine mosaics and medieval icons already showed a bearded, long-haired Jesus, long before the time of the Renaissance.
Art history supports this view. According to History.com, early Christian artists were not trying to create portraits. They were creating symbols. Jesus was shown in ways that reflected Roman and Greek visual traditions, not real physical descriptions. Over time, these images evolved as Christianity spread across Europe, adapting to local cultures rather than a single individual’s face.
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he written descriptions also come into play when validating the theory. According to The Times of Israel, no contemporary historical source describes Jesus’s physical appearance in detail. The New Testament offers no such information. Later texts, such as the Letter of Lentulus, which appeared centuries later and are considered fictitious.
In the end, the story of how Jesus came to be portrayed is layered, shaped by faith, culture, and art rather than certainty. The Cesare Borgia theory exists, and so do the records that challenge it. Between belief and evidence, tradition and history, the image remains open, inviting everyone to pause, reflect, and decide what they see for themselves.
