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

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.