First Pic of Jesus Ever Created?

Simple portrait may have been rendered by those who actually knew the Savior

Seventy lead codices, booklets as large as a modern-day credit card were found in a cave in the hills overlooking the Sea of Galilee five years ago after a series of flash floods. An image found in one of the 2,000-year old codices depicts a bearded young man with flowing curly hair. The marks around the figure's brow can be interpreted as a crown of thorns. There is widespread excitement that this may be the oldest portrait of Jesus Christ, possibly rendered by those who knew the Savior while he walked among men.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - The book is sealed on all sides and has a three-dimensional representation of a human head on both the front and the back. One appears to have a beard and the other is without. The maker's fingerprint can be seen in the lead impression. One of the booklets appears to bear the words "Savior of Israel," one of the few phrases so far translated.

Bedouin trucker Hassan Saida who lives in the Arab village of Umm al-Ghanim, Shibli is the owner of the booklets. He has declined to sell the items, but two samples were sent to England and Switzerland for testing.

The artifacts were originally found in a cave in the village of Saham in Jordan, within three miles of the Israeli spa and hot springs of Hamat Gader, a religious site for thousands of years.

According to sources in Saham, the codices were discovered five years ago after a flash flood scoured away the dusty mountain soil to reveal what looked like a large capstone. A cave was discovered with a large number of small niches set into the walls. Each of these niches contained a booklet. There were also other objects, including some metal plates and rolled lead scrolls.

The codices range in size from smaller than three inches by two inches to around 10 by eight inches. They each contain an average of eight or nine pages and appear to be cast, rather than inscribed, with images on both sides and bound with lead-ring bindings.

Many of the books are sealed with metal rings, suggesting they were not intended to be opened, possibly because they contained holy words which should never be read.

The codex showing what may be the face of Christ is not thought to have been opened yet. Some codices show signs of having been buried, although this could simply be the detritus resulting from lying in a cave for hundreds of years.

Unlike the Dead Sea Scrolls, the lead codices appear to consist of stylized pictures, rather than text, with a relatively small amount of script that appears to be in a Phoenician language, although the exact dialect is yet to be identified.

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