This is apparently what Jesus REALLY looked like

But state-of-the-art techniques have given us a new look altogether.

Forensic expert Richard Neave spent years rebuilding the faces of murder victims to help them discover their identities and catch their killers.

Now he has used the same techniques to draw a picture of "God's only child".

Neave concluded that Jesus would have had a much darker complexion and short, dark, curly hair, probably topped off with a beard.

He studied Semite skulls and drew up this portrait - a wide face, dark eyes, a bushy beard and short curly hair, as well as a tanned complexion.

These features would have been common among Middle Eastern Jews in the Galilee area, of what is now northern Israel.

Neave, who produced his first drawings of Jesus for a BBC documentary, Son Of God, in 2001, says he cannot be certain of the likeness without a skull to go on.But experts say the image is probably much more realistic than the countless religious paintings and sculptures.

Alison Galloway, an American professor of anthropology, says "This is probably a lot closer to the truth than the work of many great masters."

Carlos Cardoza-Orlandi, from Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, told Popular Mechanics magazine: "While western imagery is dominant, in other parts of the world he is often shown as black, Arab or hispanic."

Neave has also produced drawings of King Midas and Alexander The Great's father Philip II of Macedon might have looked like.

He has depicted Jesus as having short hair, as was the style at the time, and he is backed up by Saint Paul, who says in the Bible: "If a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him."

But Neave is unable to help on the height and weight of the 'Son of God'.

The average Semite in Galilee at the time of Jesus's life was only five feet one inches tall and weighed less than eight stones.

Scientists speculate that because Jesus worked as a carpenter until he was about 30 he would have been more muscular and physically fit and possibly weather-beaten because he worked outside a lot.

(dailystar.co.uk)