Jesus With Long Hair

A common objection to the Shroud of Turin is that the hair on the man in the Shroud is too long to be Jesus' hair. Biblical passages like 1 Corinthians 11:14 are cited as evidence that Jesus wouldn't have had hair so long. And the issue of acceptable hair length is relevant in other contexts (how long we can let our hair grow today, the quality of artistic depictions of Jesus and other Biblical figures, etc.).

Steve Hays wrote some posts on the subject last year, largely addressing 1 Corinthians 11:14 and other Biblical issues. See here and here, for example. What I want to do in this post is discuss more of the extra-Biblical data and add some further conclusions to what Steve wrote last year.

I intended to put this post together a long time ago. I've been busy with other things. Last year, I consulted a lot of books and other sources on this issue of men's hair length in antiquity, especially Jewish men's hair at the time of Jesus. I came across a lot of claims, but not much documentation. I emailed scholars and other relevant sources on the topic. Some didn't respond, and others replied with answers that were of little value. Some went into more depth and made some good points, even as they told me that they didn't know the answer to my question or that it's hard to answer. I was told that hairstyles may have varied from one generation to another and from one social class to the next. One scholar told me that ancient Jews were often regarded as philosophers, which might mean that Jews often had the sort of lengthy hair associated with philosophers. On the other hand, surely some Jews would have wanted to emulate the shorter hairstyles of the Romans, for a variety of reasons. Another scholar told me that the Dura-Europos synagogue portrays Jewish men with a variety of hairstyles, sometimes lengthy ones, but added the qualifier that Dura-Europos is significantly distant from Jesus geographically and chronologically. I was told about some coins that might depict ancient Jewish men with long hair, but the ones I examined (through photographs) seemed ambiguous or dubious to me. I couldn't get much confirmation about just what's supposed to be portrayed on the Arch of Titus or just how long all of the hair is on the men portrayed there. One of the difficulties in evaluating some of the artifacts in question is that it's sometimes difficult to tell whether the figure portrayed is supposed to be a Jew and/or whether he's supposed to be a male. My impression, from the online and offline sources I've consulted, is that Jewish men of Jesus' day probably had a large variety of hairstyles, including some lengthy ones, and that there's a reasonable possibility that Jesus had lengthy hair even if we set aside the Shroud of Turin for the sake of argument.

If any of you can add anything to what I'm outlining in this post, please do so. I intend to update this post as I come across new information. What's below is just a beginning, and I'm open to any corrections or additions any of you have to offer.

Richard Hess wrote:

"This [Leviticus 10:6] is not a prohibition against long hair in itself; rather, it describes groomed hair, however long it is. On men, longer hair could be drawn back and tied, as reliefs in and around Israel suggest." (The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Genesis-Leviticus [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2008], 665-666)

I don't know what reliefs Hess has in mind, but see here, here, and here for some examples of ancient depictions of Jewish and Gentile men that show both with long hair.

The Jewish historian Josephus was a contemporary of the apostles and was born less than a decade after Jesus' death. Here are a couple of relevant passages from his writings:

"They therefore came to the tabernacle to offer sacrifice for the birth of the child [Samuel], and brought their tithes with them; but the woman remembered the vows she had made concerning her son, and delivered him to Eli, dedicating him to God, that he might become a prophet. Accordingly his hair was suffered to grow long, and his drink was water." (Antiquities Of The Jews, 5:10:3)

"Their riders [Solomon's bodyguards] also were a further ornament to them, being, in the first place, young men in the most delightful flower of their age, and being eminent for their largeness, and far taller than other men. They had also very long heads of hair hanging down, and were clothed in garments of Tyrian purple." (Antiquities Of The Jews, 8:7:3)

Josephus seems to associate Samuel's long hair with "vows" (plural), becoming a prophet, or both. Biblical figures like the Nazirites and Absalom had long hair for a variety of reasons. Josephus expands the circumstances in which long hair was acceptable. Somebody who had taken a vow and/or a prophet could have long hair. So could a king's bodyguard. We don't know how widely long hair was considered acceptable on men beyond the categories mentioned by the Biblical authors, Josephus, and other sources. But these sources give us a minimum to go by. Long hair was at least considered acceptable in these circumstances. It may have been accepted even more broadly.

Would, or could, any of these categories mentioned above have applied to Jesus? Yes. More than one of them, in fact. In various contexts, Jesus claimed to be or was perceived as a king, a close associate of a king, or a prophet, for example. And Jesus may have had long hair for some other reason or series of reasons. But even if we limit ourselves to what the extant ancient sources tell us about when a man could have long hair, there are multiple potential justifications for Jesus to have kept his hair long.