Why is Christ nearly always pictured as a thin, weak man?

Question

Shouldn't Christ be pictured as a rebust man, a man of age and maturity?

I don't mean then, I mean now. He is not longer that person who spent 30 years on Earth. He is far more.

Answer 1

There weren't that many calories floating around for an itinerant preacher in Palestine in that century. And he was in his thirties, if the stories are true, when he preached and died, so he shouldn't look that old.

Answer 2

You have to remember this was 2 thousand years ago. Age 30 was pretty old back then. You'd be lucky to live past 30 at all. There wasn't a lot of good healthy food that had a lot of nutrients for poor people because the rich got all the great food. Jesus also would have been a lot shorter than people today.

Answer 3

First of all the pictures you see of HIM are some effeminate artists
rendition of HIM. In the Scriptures he made whip and turned over
the money tables with righteous anger. No wimp could do that.
Stop looking at stupid pictures of Christ, that's not the Christ that
I worship. HE DID NOT have long effeminate hair like the artists
thought HE did. When you study the Scriptures you get a real picture of a real MAN who is GOD.

Answer 4

Papa Bear,
You added:
"I don't mean then, I mean now. He is not longer that person who spent 30 years on Earth. He is far more."

Well, As Jesus is in heaven, yes, I hope he is fit and healthier "looking". Well fed, no scars,etc.
Humans would not understand this, as we only have one cultural mental picture to live by. But of course Jesus, and everyone in heaven has received their new body, as promised. Whether Jesus looks robust and mature could also be debated, as he is timeless, so ageless, thereby still 30 in human years.

Answer 5

Many tries to picture Jesus, If you picture him as a thin man, OK, he fasted alot, if you picture him as a weakling, & immature, Then why did this weakling & immature person confounded the Priests of his hour at the age of 12, & why did this so call weakling man you talk about went into the Temple & turn over the tables of the moneychanges. Jesus sounds like to me wa a mature person with no fear of what man might do, & at age 12 he had more sense then those highly educated Priest.

Answer 6

Considering it is said that he died at the age of 33 he should not be depicted as a man of age. Thin does not mean weak any way. The depictions that show him with light-skin and blue eyes are furthest from the truth as his ethnicity suggests he would be olive completed with dark hair and brown eyes.

Answer 7

Jesus Christ spent the first 10 or so years of his adult life as a carpenter before He began his ministry. That was before they had pick up trucks and lumber yards and power tools. Jesus must have been buffed going out and chopping down trees and hauling wood and working it with hand tools. As to his age, the Bible says that He was about 30 when He started preaching and his ministry lasted only about 3 & 1/2 years so He probably didn't look all that old.

Mark 6:3 Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?" And they took offense at him. 4 And Jesus said to them, "A prophet is not without honor, except in his hometown and among his relatives and in his own household."

Luke 3:23 Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the son of Heli,

John 8:54 Jesus answered, "If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, 'He is our God.' 55 But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. 56 Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad."

57 So the Jews said to him, "You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?"

58 Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am." 59 So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.

He was certainly tough enough to put a whipping on the merchants who were defiling the temple.

John 2:13 The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. 14 In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers sitting there. 15 And making a whip of cords, he drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and oxen. And he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables.

16 And he told those who sold the pigeons, "Take these things away; do not make my Father's house a house of trade." 17 His disciples remembered that it was written, "Zeal for your house will consume me."

Answer 8

i think that Christ is always pictured as being weak to make people feel bad. i think that it is supposed to have a psychological effect upon us to make us repent and to always remember what we have been taught of how he suffered at the cross for our sins. i suppose that if he was pictured as being strong, most people would not really think of HIM having suffered much at the cross. the way he is portrayed is done purposely

Answer 9

He is the King of Kings! He is the Master Worker. I can't stand the way the Catholic and Orthodox church still have him nailed to a cross, bleeding, emaciated...it shows great disrespect. Also, I live in an Orthodox country where they refer to Jesus as Little Baby Jesus all the time. They teach their kids to refer to God as My little God! Show some respect, please! (I'm talking about Greece)

Answer 10

how would you picture a man who's always fasting and giving out his food to others rather than keep for himself?
of course He's going to be thin and weak!