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Want to know what Jesus looked like? If you do, don't depend on the folks at the Discovery Channel to tell you. Take their word for it and you'll be conned into believing that our Lord looked very much like a refugee Iranian cab driver from the Bronx.

In their forthcoming "Jesus: The Complete Story," a new documentary television series co-produced by the British Broadcasting Corp., the producers attempt to present what Discovery calls "a purely scientific investigation into the Messiah of Christendom."

Much of the publicity surrounding the series focused around an image that purports to be a good scientific guess about what Jesus might have looked like.

According to Discovery, the imaginary picture of Jesus is the work of "a forensic artist at the University of Manchester using the 2,000-year-old skull of a Jewish man from Israel. Cues on hair and skin tone were taken from frescoes of Jewish faces painted in the third century. The result is a dark-skinned, curly-haired man with a round, robust face and a stout nose.

Aside from the fact that this is nothing less than a stark example of sheer scientific arrogance, the producers ignore what is most certainly the genuine image of Jesus Christ - the image on the Shroud of Turin.

Yes, we know; there are those who dispute the validity of the Shroud image. But they are demonstrably wrong, and nobody but the most dedicated anti-Christian or atheist can ignore the solid evidence that testifies to the fact that the Shroud image is an actual photograph of Jesus Christ.

Those who maintain that the Shroud date back only as far as the 14th century and is the product of a devilishly clever forger ignore all sorts of inconvenient facts:

* No medieval forger could have known the accurate anatomical details present on the Shroud image and not available to medical science until 150 years ago.

*The Shroud image is photographic negative. No forger in the 14th century could have been clever enough to know how to create such an image since photography was unknown then and would not be discovered for about 600 years. Moreover, the image has been shown to be a three-dimensional photo. If photography was an unknown technology in the 14th century, it boggles the mind to think that a forger could have also mastered the art of 3-D photography.

*The wounds shown on the image are totally consistent with crucifixion. Forensic pathologists have testified that these wounds dovetail perfectly with the Gospel accounts of the Passion and Death of our Lord. Moreover, two wounds are on the wrists -and not in the palms where they have been commonly thought to be. Medical research has proven that had the nails been driven through the palms Christ's body would have been torn loose from the cross. Only by piercing the wrists could the body have been firmly pinned to the cross - facts not available in the 14th century, or indeed, until late in the 20th century.

*Recent research has shown that the Shroud was covered with pollen some of which could only have come from the Jerusalem area. Floral images imprinted on the cloth have been identified by an Israeli botanist as being those of flowers that grow only in the Jerusalem area in bloom only in the spring, when Christ was crucified.

*The sudarium (face cloth) preserved in Oviedo matches the Shroud in every detail. That cloth can be traced back to the 6th century, thereby establishing the fact that the Shroud was around then.

*The image could not have been created by hand, especially not by the hands of a 14th century forger. It cannot be duplicated today.

Finally, the carbon 14 dating tests that purported to show that the Shroud dates back only to the 14 Century have been all but discredited by the fact that research has shown that because the cloth is covered by all sorts of gunk and contaminants it cannot therefor be validly subjected to the carbon 14 testing process.

We know what Jesus looked like and we don't need some arrogant TV producers to misinform us.

Phil Brennan is a long-time student of the Shroud and author of Sancta Sindone - The Shroud of Turin.