Actually, Ray Istre comes late to the notion of a less-than-photogenic Jesus. The BBC did a piece five years or so ago wherein they reconstructed a possible Jesus from many different visual sources and came up with a short, solid, swarthy man. It raised much uproar about the "proper" way to depict Jesus -- offenses and umbrage were taken. Take a look yourself: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/1243339.stm
Michael Bettencourt
read Les Marcott's article