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A prime example of the earliest coded depictions of Jesus Christ, which were as a Good Shepherd. Notice that he is very plainly human, with realistic details in the clothing and even the sheep. Over time this image morphed, simplified and stylized, into a richly enthroned king (like contemporary secular images of the Roman Emperor) when Christianity was made legal and could declare itself out loud. The sheep went away and esoteric intellectual symbols linking spiritual prophecy and earthy power were added. And then as the new religion took over and vanquished its rivals by force and spread, Jesus started showing up as an armed warrior prince with a sword and even chainmael. The "biographical themes" of his life like nativity and crucifixion, in that order, and finally the miraculous supernatural resurrection, became dominant Christian motifs, overtaking the earlier Jewish "protection" narratives like Jonah and Daniel. I think it's important to add that for obvious reasons most of the earlist Christian images which survive are funerary and that probably made a difference in their themes, too.