My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark Caleb
A diverse crowd of Israelis at a performance in Tel Aviv
If you have a look at the Jewish population living in Israel today, you will probably be struck by the huge multifariousness of physical traits. Millions of people all calling themselves "Jews" accept gathered together after over 2000 years of being scattered throughout the world: Northern Europe, the Mediterranean Basin, North Africa, Ethiopia, Persia, the old Soviet Wedlock, the Americas and the listing goes on. All these Jews await rather different from each other. And withal, all claim to exist descended from a single ancestor: "Abram the Hebrew" (Genesis xiv:13). Is this really the case? Is it even possible to know what the ancient Israelites actually looked like?
No, unfortunately it is probably not possible to verify with any real certainty what Abraham looked similar. Presumably, if he was born in Ur of the Chaldeans, located in modern-day southern Republic of iraq, he would accept had dark wavy pilus, an olive complexion; an advent feature of the populations that have lived in this region for millennia: Kurds, Turkmen, Jews, Armenians, etc. We tin look to the Song of Songs for an description of what the Israelite ideal of dazzler was (Song 5:x-16). However, across this very vague prototype, it is near impossible to know nigh the concrete advent of Abraham or of any of his Israelite descendants. If we cannot obtain concrete information about the genealogy of the ancient Israelites (nature), what about cultural features (nurture) of their advent: habiliment, hairstyle, facial hair, etc.?
Old Jew from Babylonia. Created by Bayard after photo of unknown writer, published on Le Tour du Monde, Paris, 1867
In popular imagination, 1 of the most "obvious" features of an ancient Israelite man'south advent is a full beard. Whatever modern illustration depicting the biblical period contains lots of dusty, turban-wearing Israelite men with unkempt beards. Yous will never see a make clean shaven Israelite in a biblical picture or drawing. Why is this? Is this just meant to make the actors look authentically "old-fashioned" or do nosotros take show for the absence of shaved faces among Israelite men?
Joshua and Caleb; as in Joshua 14:half-dozen-xv; illustration from a Bible carte du jour published by the Providence Lithograph Company, 1901
Contrary to the the aboriginal Egyptians (who were clean shaven) and Mesopotamians (who wore long clean-cut beards) who depicted themselves extensively in their art, the Israelites hardly left us images of themselves. The biblical prohibition confronting making graven images (Exodus 20:iv) prevented the Israelites from producing fine art depicting themselves. So scholars more often than not demand to utilize textual descriptions constitute in the Bible to reconstruct the Israelites' physical appearance.
Detail of Assyrian warriors with long curly groomed beards
The Hebrew Bible contains many passages which make it articulate that beards are vital part of Israelite manner. The Volume of Psalms compares dwelling in peace with i's brothers to "fine oil on the head running downwards onto the bristles, the beard of Aaron, that comes down over the collar to his robe" (Psalm 133:2). Mind to two unlike musical versions of these words here and here. This metaphor is difficult to understand. Why is a well-oiled beard similar to brotherly harmony? Is information technology because dwelling in peace creates a feeling of overflowing bounty like to the oil on Aaron's bristles? Is it because in the aboriginal Near East guests were welcomed by being anointed with fine oil? Perchance. The main betoken for our purposes is that the loftier priest, Aaron, had a very long beard.
A statue of Aaron wearing the priestly garments and a long beard, in Cistercian Abbey of Rudy (Poland).
But lest one conclude that beards were but worn by the priestly grade, we can find many biblical passages that indicate otherwise. Every Israelite man is commanded "you lot shall not circular off the pilus on your temples or mar the edges of your bristles." (Leviticus 19:27). This is the biblical ground for the sidelocks of hair(Hebrew: pe'ot) that Ultra-Orthodox men vesture to this twenty-four hour period, equally seen in the image below. Ane might fifty-fifty get as far as to say that long sidelocks were the most distinctive feature of the Israelites' appearance (circumcision was too very distinctive, merely not outwardly visible). Jeremiah refers to the foreign nations that surround State of israel collectively every bit "all those with shaven temples who live in the desert" (Jer. 9:25).
A Hasidic human with long sidelocks (pe'ot) prays at the Western Wall, Jerusalem
Among ancient Israelite men it was apparently considered humiliating to have one'south face shaven. When King Hanun of Ammon clips off one-half of the beards of David's courtiers, he instructs them to "remain in Jericho until your beards grow back" (two Samuel 10:5). Waiting several weeks for the pilus to grow back in the ghost boondocks of Jericho (abandoned since Joshua's destruction of the city) was evidently preferable to the easier solution of but shaving the other side off. A mutual course of greeting a fellow Israelite was to "grab his bristles with the correct hand to kiss him" (2 Samuel 20:9). Prior to visiting male monarch David, it was imperative for Saul's son Mephibosheth to set up himself past doing the following: taking care of his feet, trimming his mustache, washing his dress (2 Samuel 19:24). The mustache (Hebrew safam) was trimmed, but non the beard (zakan). Maybe the reason why shaving i's beard was humiliating was that it was a infidel rite (Leviticus 21:5), a mourning practice (Task 1:20), or alternatively, a symbolic act performed past a holy man. The prophet Ezekiel, for example, is instructed as follows:
Now, son of human being, take a abrupt sword and use it as a hairdresser's razor to shave your head and your beard. Then take a set of scales and separate up the hair. (Ezekiel five:ane).
In fact, at that place are works of fine art from the menstruum of the Bible that do depict Israelites. For case, this frieze found in the throne room of Sennacherib in Nineveh depicts the famous battle of Lachish. This was i of the most important battles fought by the Assyrians every bit they conquered nigh of the southern kingdom of Judah in 701 BC. In the paradigm below we see Israelite prisoners being led off into captivity. Notation the curt curly beards on the faces of the men. These are closely cropped as opposed to the long beard of the Assyrian soldiers.
Iii Israelite men playing lyres equally they are led off into captivity following the Assyrian victory at Lachish. This recalls the Bible's description of the Babylonians forcing the exiled Judahites to play songs of Zion on their harps (Ps. 137). The Israelites' beards are shorter than that of the Assyrian soldier on the left.
Here is a depiction of King Jehu of State of israel bowing down to the Assyrian male monarch Shalmaneser III. Note the beard.
Item from the Blackness Obelisk of Shalmaneser III (reigned 858-824 BC). The effigy bowing down is the Israelite king Jehu. This is the primeval artistic delineation of a specific figure mentioned in the Hebrew Bible.
Another rare creative delineation which might be depicting Israelites is this tomb painting from Egypt. A item from the tomb of Khnumhotep Two, an blueblood buried in the Beni Hasan cemetery in Middle Egypt. This painting depicts a family of nomadic traders entering Arab republic of egypt from Canaan in the 19th cent. BCE. This is a very rare depiction of ancient Semites, dressed in colorful tunics, every bit opposed to the Egyptians wearing only white waistcloths. Perhaps they have come to buy grain. The man angle over the ibex is named "Abisha the Hyksos" according to the inscription. This is a very nice visual counterpart to the story of Jacob'southward sons migrating to Arab republic of egypt.
The man on the upper register property a dark brown ibex is labeled Abischa (sounds similar the Hebrew proper name "Avishai") and bears the title Hyksos ("shepherd rex").
The Hebrew word for beard is zakan (זקן) and appears xix times in the Hebrew Bible. Interestingly the Greek equivalent pogon (πώγων) does not announced even once in the New Testament. What should we brand of this? Were Jews clean shaven during the Roman catamenia? No. Certainly the majority of Jewish men still had beards, as they did during the period of the Hebrew Bible. There was a small population of highly Hellenized Jews that might have shaved their beards, as was the custom amidst Romans. Merely it would accept been very odd to see a Jewish man in the Country of Israel without a bristles until the 20th century. The Babylonian Talmud states that Rabbi Yohanan was very handsome but did non possess perfect dazzler because he lacked a beard. Interestingly, the bristles is referred to by the allonym "the adornment of the face up" (Baba Metzia 84b). Let's conclude by quoting one of the rare examples of a description of an ancient Jew. The post-obit description of the concrete appearance of the apostle Paul is found in the the 2d century apocryphal volume, the Acts of Paul and Thecla:
He was a man of middling size, and his hair was scanty, and his legs were a little crooked, and his knees were projecting, and he had large eyes and his eyebrows met, and his nose was somewhat long, and he was full of grace and mercy; at one fourth dimension he seemed like a man, and at another fourth dimension he seemed like an angel.
Non a very flattering description! Evidently, Paul's beard was so obvious that the author did non even encounter the need to mention it.
Source: https://blog.israelbiblicalstudies.com/holy-land-studies/ancient-israelites-look-like/
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