{"id":579,"date":"2023-12-05T13:30:42","date_gmt":"2023-12-05T13:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/2026\/01\/28\/did-jesus-have-all-teeth\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T06:33:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:33:12","slug":"did-jesus-have-all-teeth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/did-jesus-have-all-teeth\/","title":{"rendered":"A Fun (and Maybe Profound) Question to Chew On: Did Jesus Have All His Teeth?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Here\u2019s a fun conversation to have around Christmastime:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Do you think Jesus, when he was an adult, had all his teeth?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, maybe it\u2019s only a conversation for the right crowd. Some can\u2019t imagine the idea that Jesus\u2019 adult teeth weren\u2019t perfect by 21st century American standards. When we cast actors in the role of Jesus, you better believe they\u2019ll have no obvious dental issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The truth is, we don\u2019t know what his teeth looked like. But we do know a few things: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Jesus was truly a man.<\/strong> God humbled himself and became one of us, to the point of putting on flesh and being born among animals. And since that flesh was very real, he was liable to sunburns and sprained ankles and tired feet and the flu. He had real scars, which he bore for us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him.<\/strong> There was nothing in his appearance that made him particularly desirable. (\u201cBut Brant, you can\u2019t say that.\u201d \u201cBut I totally can,\u201d I reply, \u201cbecause Isaiah 53:2 literally says \u2018He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.\u2019\u201d)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Dental standards back then were radically different.<\/strong> Even today, when people don\u2019t have access to fluoride, dental floss, toothpaste, or modern dentistry generally start losing teeth in their twenties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author and scholar David Capes wrote this<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, did Jesus have all his teeth when he embarked on his public ministry? Probably not. We cannot say for sure. But even if he had, no one listening to Jesus teach would have thought it strange because most everyone they knew of that age had lost one or more teeth.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sure, it\u2019s hard for us to picture a Jesus who\u2019s missing teeth, just like it\u2019s hard to imagine him not being shorter than most of us. Yet, given the average height of his day, it would make sense that he was, say, 5\u20193\u201d or 5\u20195\u201d. That\u2019s hard for us to process, too, thanks to paintings and statues and movies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that\u2019s just it: This should all just re-startle us to the most profound truth, that God humbled himself to become a human. If we accept that, it should certainly be believable to think he would even look like a normal sort of man for his time and place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wait: He had dental issues? Exhaustion? Sickness? Pain? Scars? Bleeding and suffering?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God would do that for me\u2026?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Oh yes, He would. And He did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s love.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Merry Christmas,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brant Hansen
<\/a>Morning Show Host, STAR 99.1<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This post contains affiliate links, which means that STAR earns a small commission on products purchased through these links at no extra cost to you. Thank you for supporting the mission of STAR in this way!<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brant Hansen\u2019s newest book, Life is Hard, God is Good, Let\u2019s Dance: Experiencing Real Joy in a World Gone Mad<\/a> releases January 16th and is now available for pre-order!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/a>\"\"\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here\u2019s a fun conversation to have around Christmastime:<\/p>\n

Do you think Jesus, when he was an adult, had all his teeth?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":580,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-13 22:17:38","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/upliftingstar.com\/star991\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}