AI's Dark-Skinned Jesus
Those piercing brown eyes
As a Christian fascinated by visual portrayals of Jesus throughout history and popular media, I wondered how AI is depicting Jesus. So I did a test.
I had many platforms to choose from, but I only had time for one. Since I had received a free trial, I chose Jasper, a tool designed to help marketers and businesses create high-quality content.
Not much is written about Jesus’ appearance
The Bible does not provide a physical description of what Jesus looked like during His life on earth. The closest description we have is a prophecy from the prophet Isaiah:.
He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry round. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.” (Isaiah 53:2, NIV)
I want my Jesus to look beautiful, majestic and desirable. Historically, I think most portrayals of Jesus make him appear like a 98-pound weakling with pale skin.
For years, I have wanted a portrayal of Jesus that depicts him with the muscular build of a carpenter from that era. I also wanted a somewhat rugged face.
My initial prompt: “Create a photorealistic digital painting of Jesus Christ from the Bible, in a serene and contemplative pose, with a natural and earthly background. Use warm colors and soft lighting to convey a sense of peace and spirituality. Use digital techniques to add texture and depth to the portrait.”
Jasper gave me an option to "enhance" my request, which I did.
Don’t choose the Andy Warhol Jesus!
What “mood” do I want my Jesus art to evoke? Choices from Jasper:
Happy
Fun
Exciting
Calm
Gloomy
Whimsical
I chose “Happy.”
For artistic inspiration, a dropdown menu offered Andy Warhol, Claude Monet, Norman Rockwell, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali and Vincent Van Gogh. Not wanting to disturb any graves for this test, I chose “none.”
For the artistic medium, I chose photography. I asked for no particular style and no keywords.
What AI rendered
So, what messianic images did AI produce?
Below are the four depictions I initially liked best.
When my article was published on Medium with these images, a reader made a valid critical comment:
“Why do all these images look like they are white, and not a hint of a Middle-East look? Could we start with a darker complexion? Maybe even a very dark complexion?”
Back to AI for a brown-skinned Jesus
I went back to Jasper’s drawing board and asked for a handsome, masculine Jesus with much darker skin. This is the image I got:
The more I look at it, the more I like it. Jesus appears to be a handsome prince, or perhaps a king. I feel like bowing my head or even falling to my knees in reverence.
It’s rare to see Jesus in a headdress. It doesn’t bother me because it makes sense — Israel was hot and sometimes cold, and a headdress would give protection. I’m not sure what to make of the medallion dangling from the middle of his headdress.
The face is intense. I can understand how some might not like it. This is not a warm and fuzzy Jesus. I don’t want a warm and fuzzy Jesus.
All-knowing, all-loving eyes
The brown, all-knowing eyes make this elegant, dark-skinned Jesus my favorite.
The eyes are so calm, so confident, so still, yet they seem to follow you like the eyes of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Mona Lisa, viewed by more than 10 million people a year at the Louvre.
The main difference is that the eyes of this Jesus follow you, penetrating your flesh and bone to see and love your soul, which is what a portrait of Jesus should do as we remember his death and Resurrection this Easter weekend.