The Bible does not provide us with any detailed physical description of Jesus. Yet, many people understandably wonder what he looked like. Given the limited amount of evidence available, what can be reasonably deduced about how tall Jesus was?
Why the Bible not mentioning Jesus’ height might be useful
The primary source of information about Jesus is, of course, the Bible. Most of the books in the New Testament predate all other references to Jesus by several decades, so it is clearly our most valuable source. With this in mind, what does it reveal about his height?
There is no passage which explicitly describes what Jesus looked like. Although unhelpful, there may, nonetheless, be something useful to be gleaned from this. There are various occasions in which the Bible specifically mentions a feature of someone that makes them stand out from most other people.
For instance, King Eglon in the time of the Judges is described as quite stout, King David is described as ruddy, likely referring to his hair, and his son Absalom is noted for his long, thick hair. Regarding height in particular, the Bible notes King Saul’s exceptional height, while in the time of Jesus, it mentions that Zacchaeus was short.
Therefore, the fact that the Bible makes no specific mention of how tall Jesus was may well be useful. Of course, we cannot use this as definitive evidence, but we could take this to indicate that he was neither exceptionally tall nor exceptionally short. In this case, he would have simply been of average height.
Evidence that Jesus was as tall as the average Jew
Within the Bible, we find additional evidence to believe that Jesus was about as tall as the average Jew of that time and place. There are several passages which indicate that Jesus did not have any especially notable physical characteristics.
For instance, on one occasion, the Bible describes how Jesus traveled across the country without anyone recognizing him. An even more obvious example is in the case of his arrest by the Romans. On the night prior to his death, Judas led the Romans to Jesus to have him arrested. To point him out to them, Judas had arranged with the Romans that he would greet Jesus with a kiss.
At that time, Jesus was with his faithful apostles, a group of only eleven men. If Jesus had been either exceptionally tall or short, then Judas’ kiss would surely have been unnecessary. The fact that Judas could not simply describe Jesus to the Romans shows that he did not stand out among the apostles.
Sources outside of the Bible
There are various references to Jesus outside of the Bible from the first and second centuries. For example, the Roman historian Tacitus mentioned him in a famous passage about Christians. The Jewish historian Josephus also mentioned Jesus, possibly twice.
Furthermore, the Roman historian Suetonius referred to him as ‘Chrestus’ and claimed that the Jews in Rome were causing unrest for his sake. Pliny the Younger mentioned Jesus in the context of Christians who had been sent by the Romans to die.
Unfortunately, despite these various references to him, none of these ancient non-Biblical sources refer to Jesus’ height or even his appearance generally.
Interestingly, there are some early depictions of Jesus which portray him as short. However, this is evidently because Jesus is actually portrayed as a youth in these depictions, following the Greco-Roman idea of youth being beautiful and pure. It is for this same reason that they also depict him as clean-shaven, despite him definitely being bearded (as was required by Jewish law).
The claim of Celsus
However, we do find a specific claim about Jesus’ height in the work of Origen, a Christian writer in the early part of the third century. He wrote a manuscript specifically refuting the arguments of Celsus, a pagan philosopher who, in the year 178, had written extensive criticism on Christianity.
In Origen’s Against Celsus, we find that Celsus had made the following claim:
“This person [Jesus] did not differ in any respect from another, but was, as they report, little, and ill-favoured, and ignoble.”
This is quite interesting because it is a specific claim from relatively early on in Christian history about how tall Jesus was. The claim is that Jesus was “little,” or short. Celsus claims that this was “as they report,” referring to the Christian writings. Yet, Origen retorts by declaring that there is no basis whatsoever for such a claim.
Since Celsus was a firm enemy of the Christians, he is far from an unbiased source. Furthermore, since Origen vehemently rejects the claim, its usage is clearly very limited.
How tall was the average Jew in Jesus’ time?
As we can see, Jesus was probably about as tall as the average Jew of that time and place but roughly how tall was this anyway? Using ancient skeletons and other pieces of evidence, historians generally believe that the average height of a Jewish man was around 5 feet 5 inches, or 165 centimeters.
Therefore, that is probably how tall Jesus was—at least, if we accept the conclusion that Jesus was most likely about as tall as the average Jew. More evidence is needed to provide a more precise answer.
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