It's encyclopedic in view of the historical context on how people from the past perceived Jesus. Who knows what Jesus actually looked like? However given the subject's significance in art, particularly Renaissance Art, I see no valid reason to preclude such images.
On 05/02/2008, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
All question of censorship aside, does it really make sense to have any image of historical persons that is not based on the actual likeness of that person on any page except [[depictions of...]] pages?
Maybe there are a few exceptions, where a particular depiction has become universally identified with the subject. But that's not the case with most historical figures, Jesus and Muhammad included.
Many, many depictions of Jesus look very European, which doesn't seem to be encyclopedic to me. But there's also a trend lately to have other depictions of Jesus that are targeted to a particular audience, without any concern for historical accuracy. This may be fine in liturgical settings, but not in an encyclopedia. But this is only more obviously wrong than a more "historically accurate" depiction. They're both still wrong.
-Rich Holton
Meg