Was Jesus long haired?
QUESTION In Corinthians, the apostle Paul states: ‘If a man wears long hair it is a disgrace to him. But if a woman has long hair it is her glory.’ Does this mean the portrayal of a long-haired Christ is wrong?
PAUL’S words in Corinthians match those in Leviticus 22:5: ‘A man shall not put on the clothes of a woman.’ Almost all cultures have different garb for men and women, with women’s being longer and more elaborate.
Effeminate men may adopt more feminine clothing, which is what the Bible counsels against. However, what comprises men’s clothing or hairstyle has varied greatly over time, with our culture of men wearing only trousers being exceptional. Most men have worn a skirt or dress-like garment throughout history.
In Jesus’s day, and for some centuries afterwards, men wore dresslike garments down to the knee and grew their hair to shoulder length. Women wore more elaborate ankle-length gowns and grew their hair much longer.
So male dress and hair 2,000 years ago was different from women’s, though it might look rather feminine in 21st-century Europe.
From 1500, Anglo-Saxon culture, as it colonised the world, adopted a more military style, incorporating trousers for everyday wear, sometimes as a deliberate contrast to loose-fitting indigenous male fashion in hotter climates.
The military often preferred its soldiers to have short hair and to be clean-shaven. Trousers and shorter hair were adopted by the business class from the 1800s and continue to today.
Dr Hillary J Shaw, Shropshire. THE answer to this is discussed in the new book What Did Jesus Look Like? by Joan E Taylor.
There are no authenticated contemporary likenesses or descriptions of Jesus. In all likelihood, Taylor concludes in her wide-ranging, richly-illustrated study, he was probably around 5ft 5in, slim and reasonably muscular. He had olive-brown skin, dark brown to black hair, and brown eyes. He was likely bearded (but not heavily), but with shortish hair.
Lyn Pask, Blackwood, Gwent.
QUESTION Which British soccer club has had the most Irish players through the years?
FURTHER to the previous answers, the late, great Irish international Tony Grealish captained Brighton and Hove Albion against Manchester United in the 1983 FA Cup Final at Wembley.
Another Irish player, Michael Robinson, came close to giving Brighton a late victory but opted to pass the ball to a better-placed colleague, leading to the immortal line from commentator Peter Jones: ‘And Smith must score!’ Although striker Gordon Smith sent Gary Bailey the wrong way, the ball hit the keeper’s ankle as he dived. United won the replay.
Kieran O’Regan from Cork and Gerry Ryan from Dublin were also on the Brighton panel that year but one of the club’s best players, Mark Lawrenson, signed for Liverpool for a record fee in 1982.
Albion’s fortunes declined after the Lawrenson, Grealish and Robinson years and they reached rock bottom when they struggled to stay in the old Fourth Division.
This year, however, Brighton are back in the Premier League, thanks to the astute manager Chris Hughton, a superb Irish star in his day.
And continuing the Irish connection is another top player, Shane Duffy.
Tim Horgan, Dillon’s Cross, Cork.
QUESTION What is the origin of the Japanese shogun? How did they become more powerful than the emperor?
SHOGUN was the title given to the highest-ranked military commanders. General Sakanoue Tamuramaro (758-811), serving Emperor Kanmu (737-806), was the first to be appointed shogun and given the task of conquering the Emishi people in north Honshu.
Shogun was an abbreviation of seii taishogun meaning ‘barbarian-quelling commander’. Legally, the shogunate was under the rule of the emperor, but in feudal Japan, control of the military was tantamount to control of the country. Minamoto Yoritomo (1147-1199) established the supremacy of the samurai caste in 1185 and created the bakufu (tent government) at Kamakura. This became the true government of Japan. He declared himself shogun in 1192.
For seven centuries, Japan was ruled by shoguns, whose titles were hereditary, though weak rulers were usurped by rebel factions. During this time, the Emperor’s role was ceremonial.
After the collapse of the Kamakura shogunate in 1333, Ashikaga Takauji (1305-58) established a shogunate run from the imperial city of Kyoto and appointed constables or shugo as heads of each province. The 180 shugo began calling themselves daimyo or lord.
In 1600, Tokugawa Ieyasu (15431616) gained power over the daimyo and in 1603 established the third shogunate in Edo (now Tokyo).
This was the most powerful central government Japan had yet seen: it controlled the emperor, the daimyo and the religious establishments.
In 1867, the 15th Tokugawa shogun, Yoshinobu, was forced to return his power to the emperor’s
QUESTION In the movies, after a car crash, the car horn starts blaring. Does this happen in real life?
THE reason this may happen is because of the way the car horn is wired. The completion of the circuit to earth the current that flows through the horn is usually through the button in the centre of the steering column.
This wire is always live, which means that if any section of the wire from the horn up to the button has its insulation damaged, and this damaged section contacts any metallic parts of the car, the horn will sound.
If the horn wire is routed up through the centre of the steering column, and this becomes bent as a result of an impact, contact with earth is inevitable and the horn will sound continuously until the battery is disconnected. Alan Knight, Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
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