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Some very crude cave paintings have been found that are many, many thousands of years old, but they tended to be preserved because of the constant environment in caves. Normally, rain, wind, sun, vandalism, war and general deterioration has caused virtually all artwork that was created before about 1000 AD to have disintegrated by now. Only a very few paintings exist that are as old as about 400 AD (20 generations after Jesus). In general, the cloth or other backing material has decayed, either from natural aging, weathering or vandalism or war.
Essentially, this means that ANY painting that depicts ANY figure from the Bible was painted by an artist who relied on general information about an individual, and upon his own "artistic license".
A very few statues have endured from Greek and Roman times. They tend to be statues of famous Greek or Roman leaders. Essentially no statues exist from that era of anyone else, so the relatively unknown individuals who wrote or are mentioned in the Bible are generally not represented in statuary. In addition to this, any statues that Jews or early Christians might have made were primary targets for destruction by the countless enemies that have wanted to exterminate Jews and Christians over the centuries. So, even whatever statues might have been made by devout individuals have generally been destroyed. VERY occasionally, some hidden cache of artifacts are found in a cave or other secret place, which includes such important artwork as well as other items.
The point being made here is that ALL of the thousands of paintings and drawings of Jesus and everyone else in the Bible, are NOT based on accurate information! The vast majority of features in all such paintings are exclusively the result of the creativity of the specific artist. There IS the possibility that an artist was Divinely inspired, to create accurate paintings in such a situation, but there would be no possible way to document that. So, the impressive ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome, which includes a multitude of very realistic-seeming paintings of Biblical characters, is essentially entirely a work of the creativity and imagination of Michelangelo.
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C Johnson, Pastor
A Christ Walk Church