There may be no way to number the pictures of Jesus extant in the world today, but you can add one more to their ranks a computer-generated "photo fit" image of Christ as a boy, courtesy of Italy's police.
"The 'angelic' face of a 12-year-old Jesus has been created using the image taken from the Shroud of Turin to commemorate the two-month exhibition of the cloth believed to be Jesus Christ's burial cloth," The Christian Times reported.
According to Britain's Independent newspaper, the police took the facial image from the Shroud, which is on public display for the first time in five years, and "they reversed the ageing process to create an image of a young Jesus, by reducing the size of the jaw, raising the chin and straightening the nose."
The whole process of creating the images of a young-and-then-aging Jesus will be the subject of an Italian television documentary, media reports indicate. Pope Francis will be in Turin to view the shroud something the Roman Catholic Church has never declared to be the burial cloth of Christ though he is not expected to make any pronouncement on its authenticity.
The new images of Jesus have inspired speculation of their own, with London's Metro newspaper stating the images show, "the development of a beard, most likely in his mid-20s, giving credence to the popular belief Jesus was actually a hipster."
And while there's speculation about how Jesus looked in his young adulthood, there are also conflicting opinions on whether the shroud itself is genuine.
"In 1998, the shroud was carbon dated to the end of the 13th century, lending support to those who say it is a medieval forgery," the Daily Mail reported. "But it has retained its mystical air for many thanks partly to the fact that researchers have been unable to establish exactly how the image was created."
"The 'angelic' face of a 12-year-old Jesus has been created using the image taken from the Shroud of Turin to commemorate the two-month exhibition of the cloth believed to be Jesus Christ's burial cloth," The Christian Times reported.
According to Britain's Independent newspaper, the police took the facial image from the Shroud, which is on public display for the first time in five years, and "they reversed the ageing process to create an image of a young Jesus, by reducing the size of the jaw, raising the chin and straightening the nose."
The whole process of creating the images of a young-and-then-aging Jesus will be the subject of an Italian television documentary, media reports indicate. Pope Francis will be in Turin to view the shroud something the Roman Catholic Church has never declared to be the burial cloth of Christ though he is not expected to make any pronouncement on its authenticity.
The new images of Jesus have inspired speculation of their own, with London's Metro newspaper stating the images show, "the development of a beard, most likely in his mid-20s, giving credence to the popular belief Jesus was actually a hipster."
And while there's speculation about how Jesus looked in his young adulthood, there are also conflicting opinions on whether the shroud itself is genuine.
"In 1998, the shroud was carbon dated to the end of the 13th century, lending support to those who say it is a medieval forgery," the Daily Mail reported. "But it has retained its mystical air for many thanks partly to the fact that researchers have been unable to establish exactly how the image was created."