Religion Writer Vets Justin Bieber’s Newest Tattoo

Photos taken on Wednesday of Justin Bieber in Venice Beach were big news across the Web, because they exposed his latest tattoo. It’s another image of Jesus Christ, this time on the back of his left calf.

However, according to Mollie Ziegler of GetReligion.org, the Daily Mail got it wrong when they reported that the image was inspired by a 1610 Rubens fresco. She jokes that this topic may not be the most pressing issue to cover, but that she is doing so because her item earlier in the week about Christians in Nigeria got almost no hits:

I think the inspiration [for the Bieber tattoo] is the image I picture above (which I guess is a computer generated image of much more recent vintage, also done in the Ecce Homo style). This isn’t a science, but… I think it looks closer to the Ecce Homo I embedded at the top of the post. It even looks closer to Guido Rene’s Ecce Homo than Rubens, doesn’t it?

I really worked hard to find the artist behind the image at the top, incidentally, but couldn’t.

Ziegler adds that the Daily Mail was still one of the few outlets that tried to add some religious context to its Biebs bulletin. In the reader comments, someone mentions they own a picture of the image depicted by Ziegler, dated 1901.

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.