Is this the face of Joseph? Well, no…

A trending post on Twitter purports to show the face of Jesus’ earthly father, but there is a little more to the story.

In keeping with a wider trend on the social media platform, a Twitter user recently posted a 3D picture of a man’s face. The image came with the description that read, “Scientists at Stanford University have reconstructed this 3D model of how Joseph, the husband of Mary the Mother of Jesus Christ might have looked.”

Accompanying the tweet was a 3D model of André Roussimoff,  better knownas André the Giant.

Roussimoff, who passed away in 1993, was a beloved professional wrestler and actor, known for his role in The Princess Bride.

One of the clues to the image was the use of ‘Stamford University’, located in the same city as WWE’s headquarters.

The image was originally made by graphic artists Mathewdc on Sketcfab.

The post is part of a wider trend using celebrity images to parody more serious posts. One purported to recreate what Mary may have used, drawing on Lady Gaga’s likeness.

At the time of writing, it has over 96 thousand likes and has been retweeted more than 7000 times.

A number of high profile projects have sought to represent what Jesus probably looked like. In a recent example from 2020, Dutch photographer and digital designer Bas Uterwijk used artificial intelligence to create a ‘photograph’ of Jesus.

Mr Uterwijk was not entirely reliant on the software, and made a few of  his own judgements while creating the image, including to portray Jesus with shorter hair.

Mr Uterwijk’s other subjects include famous historical figures such as Elizabeth I, Napoleon, and George Washington.