In her 2018 book What Did Jesus Look Like?, Taylor used archaeological remains, historical texts and ancient Egyptian funerary art to conclude that, like most people in Judea and Egypt around the time, Jesus most likely had brown eyes, dark brown to black hair and olive-brown skin. He may have stood about 5-ft.-5-in.

While the Bible does not explicitly state the height of Jesus, historians and forensic archaeologists in 2026 utilize skeletal remains from 1st-century Judea to provide a likely estimate. Based on the analysis of male skeletons from that era and region, the average height for a man was approximately 5 feet 1 inch to 5 feet 5 inches (155 to 165 cm). This stands in stark contrast to the taller, Westernized depictions often seen in Renaissance art. Furthermore, in the story of Zacchaeus (who climbed a tree to see Jesus), the text implies that Jesus was part of a crowd where his height did not naturally make him stand out, supporting the idea that he was of an average, "common" stature for his time. Forensic reconstructions, such as the famous 2001 BBC model and subsequent 2026 AI-enhanced historical renderings, typically portray him as a stocky, olive-skinned man with short, curly hair. The emphasis in historical theology is that Jesus was physically "unremarkable" so that his message, rather than his physical presence, would be the focus of his ministry.