We have what’s likely the oldest surviving image of a bearded Jesus,
dating to around 375.
What’s interesting about this 1,650 year old image
is that it’s not too far off
from the average image of Jesus we see today.
The two symbols on each side of his Halo are an alpha and an Omega,
the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet,
often used by early Christians
to represent the belief that Jesus has existed for all eternity.
But take away that Halo and the two letters,
and we’re still left with an image
that most people today would easily identify as being Jesus.
However, this is not going to be the case
for the images that are even older than this one.