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Viral image
Viral image
stated on July 31, 2024 in a Facebook post:

“Scientists at Exeter University have reconstructed this 3D model of how Moses might have looked.”

False

Moses wasn’t a professional WWE wrestler, despite what social media posts suggest

If your time is short

  • This is an online joke. Scientists at the University of Exeter didn’t reconstruct a 3D model of Moses that looks like the wrestler Hulk Hogan. 

See the sources for this fact-check

Hebrew prophet Moses is well-known for parting the Red Sea, but what about for his leg drop

In a recent Facebook post, a purported rendering of the Biblical figure looks a lot like retired professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, most recently spotted ripping off his shirt at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. 

“Scientists at Exeter University have reconstructed this 3D model of how Moses might have looked,” the July 31 post said. An image below the text shows what appears to be a depiction of Hogan. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

A reverse-image search of the image led us to a 2018 post on ArtStation, a site featuring games, film, media and entertainment artists. 

Besides the bust are other images that make clear this is Hogan — not Moses — such as a nod to the wrestler’s signature yellow-and-red costume

They were created by 3D designer Yaroslav Bugaev, according to the site. He described the images as his “latest work… a model of the legendary wrestler Hulk Hogan.” 

We found nothing on the website of the University of Exeter, in the United Kingdom, to support the claim that scientists there rendered a 3D model of Moses. 

But this claim is like others that connect celebrities to universities purportedly making models of Biblical figures. 

As fact-checking website Snopes noted, other social media posts have claimed scientists at Stanford University and Bishop Sycamore University created 3D models of Moses that look like Ian McKellen as Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy and actor Morgan Freeman, respectively. 

In 2022, PolitIFact fact-checked a claim that Stanford University scientists published a 3D image of what Joseph of Nazareth might have looked like: a rendering of André René Roussimof, a French former professional wrestler and actor known as Andre the Giant. 

This claim gets the same rating: False.

 
Our Sources

Facebook post, July 31, 2024

PolitiFact, This Instagram photo is not a 3D rendering of Joseph from the Bible, Nov. 4, 2022

New York Post, Hulk Hogan’s iconic leg drop is his big wrestling regret, May 26, 2023

X post, Oct. 27, 2022

X post, Oct. 28, 2022

ArtStation, Hulk Hogan, 2018

 

Moses wasn’t a professional WWE wrestler, despite what social media posts suggest

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