Also, the apparent lack of images for the first 200 years or so, was it due to doctrine that one can not have an image of God?
Please take into account the most early Christians (we can probably say "all Christians" up to the time when preaching to the Gentiles started to make a difference, but also significantly longer) did not consider themselves starters of a new religion. There is no evidence in the Bible, in my opinion (not only mine, by the way), that Jesus considered himself anything different than a Jew fully abiding to the Hebraic law. There is no reporting of the word "Christian" until ca. yr.150, if I remember correctly. Christians were almost unanimously considered a Jewish sect for the first two centuries of their existence as a community. In the community itself there was a strong argument between those who wanted to follow closely the Hebraic law and precepts, and those who thought it more fit to relax strict discipline in order to gain more appeal outside Jewish communities. So I think it is very likely that the absence of any representation of Christ's features in early Christianity is linked to the Hebraic ban on human images, but I think it is also difficult to prove it without a direct source of information. Take also into account that since the IV century and afterwards, when the Christian religion became state religion, extreme care was taken to remove any link between Christianity and Hebraism and to conceal the Hebraic origins of Christianity.
Regards, P.
It may be that we don't have early images of Jesus because the
church at the time was so small that it didn't leave any that survived. It grew slowly, but it's only in the 3rd Century that it became important.
You're absolutely right that not one of the New Testament writers ever suggests that they're starting a new religion, rather, they're reforming an old one. It's only as the two drift apart that the Christians start to see themselves as a distinct faith.
the earliest mention of the word 'Christian' is in the Book of Acts; the believers in Antoioch 'were first called Christians' (
XRISTIANOUS). We can't, of course, be sure that whether this really happened at the time Luke is
writing about, or whether he's being anachronistic.
If Acts was a standalone document, I'd have no problem with it as a mid-2nd Century
work, but it's closely linked with Luke's Gospel, and I can't see that as later than the end of the 1st Century, or at the latest the beginning of the 2nd. Michael Goulder, my New Testament tutor, was happy with the commonly accepted date for the Gospel around 90 AD, and there were no flies on him!