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Y Religion

Episode 143: Picturing Christ (Daniel Becerra)

Y Religion

BYU Religious Education

Religion & Spirituality, Education, Christianity

4.9 • 1.8K Ratings

🗓️ 1 April 2026

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

What did Jesus actually look like, and does it matter? In this episode, professor of ancient scripture Daniel Becerra discusses his new book Picturing Christ, co‑authored with Jennifer Champoux, Mark D. Ellison, and Matthew J. Grey. The book traces how Christians, Latter-day Saints and others, have imagined and portrayed Jesus across two millennia of art and what these evolving images reveal about a shared desire to understand the divine through faith and culture.

Becerra explains that while what Jesus did matters more than how He looked, the way we picture Him still shapes how we relate to God and understand the scriptures. He dives into how assumptions formed by analyzing familiar artwork can influence our spiritual interpretation in subtle ways. The conversation also highlights what archaeology and historical research can teach us about Jesus's real-world context. Insights from excavations, early Christian artifacts, and material culture help ground scriptural stories in historical reality, enriching the way listeners imagine scenese from the New Testament.

Through Picturing Christ, Becerra et al. invites listeners to see the Savior through a broader historical and artistic lens by opening fresh perspectives on the scriptures and deeping our discipleship.

Publications:

Click here to learn more about Daniel Becerra

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hello, wide religion friends. John Hilton here.

0:03.8

When you picture Jesus, what does he look like?

0:07.6

I recently asked this question on social media and got a wide variety of responses.

0:12.7

One person said, I see the Del Parson image of Christ wearing a red robe.

0:18.2

Another person said, I picture Christ with darker skin, curly black hair, very kind, and full of love.

0:25.7

Another person simply said, I picture him smiling.

0:29.8

When I was growing up, I pictured Jesus as looking like a white Northern European because

0:34.9

that's how I always saw him depicted in artwork. Today, the church's website

0:39.1

actually discounts that idea. On the page Race and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day

0:44.7

Saints, we see the following question and answer. Question. Does the church teach that Jesus

0:50.8

Christ was a white Northern European, as is sometimes depicted in church art.

0:56.0

Answer. No, Jesus Christ was born in Bethlehem to a Jewish mother and raised in Nazareth.

1:02.0

The fact that some popular church artwork has portrayed Jesus as white does not mean, as some had mistakenly argued,

1:09.0

that Jesus was white according to a modern understanding

1:12.8

of race."

1:13.9

And I quote from the church's website.

1:15.9

So what do we know about what Jesus Christ looked like?

1:20.0

And how is the way he has been depicted in art changed over time?

1:24.3

Just within the last couple decades, the church has been making even more concerted

1:27.3

efforts to encourage more diverse and historically accurate art to represent Just within the last couple decades, the church has been making even more concerted efforts

1:27.6

to encourage more diverse and historically accurate art, to represent Jesus as more as a Mediterranean-looking

1:33.8

man as well in his time and place. This will only continue, I believe. The church continues to

...

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