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Why do depictions of Jesus always seem to portray him with long hair and a full beard? The reason stretches back to the earliest centuries of Christianity. The first images of Jesus actually depict him as beardless, but by the 4th century, bearded Christ was much more common.

Bibliography:
Thomas Mathews, "The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art," Princeton University Press, 1999.

Joan Taylor, "What Did Jesus Look Like?" Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2018.
Joan Taylor, “What Did Jesus really look like?” https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-351...

Michael Peppard, "The World's Oldest Church," Yale University Press, 2016.

Mike Fillon, The Real Face of Jesus, Popular Mechanics, article: https://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...

Claudine Chavannes-Mazel, “Popular Belief and the Image of the Beardless Christ,”

John Dominic Crossan, “The Essential Jesus: Original Sayings and Earliest Images,"