Jesus Was Not White
 

Okay, so becasue of my avatar and title I got in a conversation about this in #tfp. And I figured it was a good topic for Black History Month.

Now we all know that Jesus was Jewish... and becasue of the time he was born in there was no way that he was white... but for some reason over the years he has lost all traces of being dark skinned. Why do you think this is? He went from looking like he should to looking almost like Brad Pitt. It makes me sick.

EDIT: Avatar and title have since changed.

He was not black either. Have you ever seen an Arab??? Because thats what he was, and thats what he would've looked like. Darker features, olive colored skin. He definently wasn't seem Shaka Kahn looking mofo.

I've got to agree that he wasn't white. Your avatar is probably an exaggeration as well. I think "Jesus was black" is misleading, at least since most people associate black with negro, which Jesus was not.

You do make an interesting point though. I think history, specifically the European dominated papacy of the 12th-15th centuries, made images of Jesus that the average European could associate with.

I saw a special about Jesus on the Discovery Channel a while ago. They made a image of Jesus on the computer of what he should look like and the man turns out to have curly hair, bushy beard, and a round, chubby face, yeah dark skin like the Arabians too.

:lol: those silly artists back in the day in Europe and their wild imaginations :lol:

Now, I do agree he wasn't black... as we know black today. Evolution does funky things to people.

Now part of the reason Jesus has become white over the years is that every sect of religion has their own opinion of what Jesus looked like. For some he always wore white and looked like a king... others make him out to be a poor looking begger in ratty clothes and messy hair.


Oddly, my avatar was stolen from a Google search... I typed in "black Jesus" and that's what came up. It's a perfect picture for the statment.

GREAT thread WK... :)
not sure what to even say here... for i'm afraid i would fill pages with emotion and rhetoric...
evolution is a cool and crazy thing you are right... and the way human beings have needed to categorize and "box things up" never ceases to amaze me...
Christ's image has inevitably changed as the power and leadership in the church needed and ultimately influenced it' to change.

really interesting stuff... looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts on this one.

Skin color evolution... puh-leaze.

Why do you think there is a differnce in skin color in the first place? The less sun you see the more pale your skin. This is why Africans have dark skin. It's called pigment.

What does that have to do with anything? Evolution??? I somehow doubt that the skin color of Arabs has greatly changed greatly in 2000 years. He wasn't from Africa. He was from the land of Palestine, right by the Sea of Galilee, not Ethiopia.

Yes... but at the time Jesus was born Earth was further away from the sun... so the Middle East wasn't the dessert wasteland that it is today. And as the Earth moved closer to the sun thier skin pigment adapted to the increased Utra-Violet radiation.

And because now most of us live our lives indoors in climate controled/neon light bliss... our skin has become more and more sensitive to the sun. We've become more pale and pasty. That's evolution.

And as we've become more white so has Jesus. It's a shame.

there's some great theology that deals more with the idenity of the risen Christ as opposed to the human Jesus, and Christ's racial idenitification with all groups. Jesus was a semetic Jew. Christ is black, jew, arab, asian, native american...well, even white too.

Likely Jesus was dark skinned as was the entire local population. In response to the thread, European leaders of the church have rewritten virtually all aspects of the origional teachings. The appearance of christ was likely changed to make the leaders seem more connected to god and his son.

just reminds me so much of the movie"Dogma", amongst the best ever made in my opinion.

Jesus became white when the importnat white people in charge fo the church paid for paintings of him.

His face isn't important, the message of loving your neighbor and doing good is what matters.

if you'd like to know how jesus looked, the most probable appearance would be like a jew who is native to the galilean area of palestine. i'm certain that is different than what the average arab looks like.

those middle-easterners who live nearer the mediterranean (like palestine) often have a more olive skin tone and hair that is still dark but more reminiscent of a caucasian than an eastern arab.

if jesus fit that description, then he certainly wasn't white in the European sense, but i think many would categorize a person with those features as "white" in a general sense. i say this only because many lump people into 3 or 4 groups, not accounting for the many racial varieties that exist.

WTF!?

So black parents who move to a cooler, less bright climate will give birth to white kids?

evolution doesn't happen in a day, but it does explain the difference in skin pigment throughout the regions of the world, what you might call races.

here is a picture of a caucasian australian, approximately 200 years after the first europeans migrated:
http://www.lynnejames.com.au/images/Shelly%20White3.jpg

here is an aboriginal australian, whose ancestry in australia dates back about 50,000 years.
http://www.presenciataina.tv/aborigine.jpg

wait a few millennia and the white australians might not be so pale.

bermuDa, in order for that to happen, white australians would have to be dieing in droves before managing to give birth. I am aware that skin cancer is a major problem in Australia, but I don't think it could really be though of as a slection pressure.

I give up.

-never give up....never surrender!-

You actually did a great job with this topic....and I think your point is taken if not proven. Never let the unconcious racist preferences of those less endowed with an open mind get you down.
There are actually quite a few people with low melanin levels who put little or no thought into skintones. I personally dont know or care if Jesus was black or white, and I doubt he did either.

ever notice that likenesses of jesus often is modeled after the congregation?

but hey, we can't even figure out when the gospels were written so i don't know how we're gonna figure out what he looked like.

as for educated guessing, i'd be interested in seeing the discovery channel thing. note that the ancient egyption race was blended into extinction as many native american tribes have- who knows. i bet his complexion was arabic but maybe his features were quite different than the people in the regions today.

bermuDa, you're my hero! ha!

lookee... WK inspired me... ;)
don't give up WK... or else i might become emotional *wink*

Uh...no. You started the debate in this thread, and from what I can see, it's a damn good thread. It's a very good topic, and it's right up your alley. Now get back in there.

*shoves TOK back into the fray*

Hmm, perhaps the idea that god created man in his own image is the wrong way round. Maybe it is man who creates god in his own image.

I think that bermuDa might have a good point on the evolution of such things. It tends to take a long time in that we don't evolve as an individual we evolve as a race.

In this sense the idea that Australians won't be so pale in a few millennia seems quite plausible. The problem of skin cancer reduces the chances that the susceptible (paler) people will pass on their genes. It doesn't mean that paler people are wiped out, only that their gene pool becomes less prolific, reduced through the environment. Although this is only my understanding of the subject which may well be flawed.

Back to the question at hand I think that the reason for Christ been white is one of early forms of marketing and branding. Prejudice is still a big problem in today's society, back in the day it is unlikely that a true picture of Jesus would have taken off. Many Europeans would not have even seen a black person so the idea that they would accept something alien to them as their saviour may have prompted the PR exercise. This may be less a problem of prejudice and more a problem of exposure and experience.

I agree with many of those views above, great thread TOK. Very interesting indeed.

I agree with Parkhurst... it is all about Marketing and Branding (even if they didn't call it that at the time).

The chuch, in an effort to sell the idea and ideas of Christ had to make him more palitable to their congreation or potential congregation. In Western Europe that means he had to be white.

First of all, the earth is not significantly moving closer to the sun. The earth was cooler back in the day because of natural processes, the same sort of processes that create ice ages.

And the fact that he was depicted as white has more to do with the nature of medieval art than anything else. Until the renaissance, and the "Age of the World Picture", painters painted everyone (that's right, everyone, not just Jesus) as a European, most often dressed as a typical inhabitant of that reason. So a Tuscanese painter would paint Charlemagne as a Tuscan nobleman, a French painter would paint Caesar as a French nobleman, and so on. They didn't have the same sense of historicity as we do, and so were quite freely anachronistic.

You know why I give up on this topic?

Because therecan be no worse topic then one that involves race and religon. And you can tell just by reading the thread. No one knows why we have race or why we have religion and to put them in the same question is asking for a flood of ignorant comments just to keep the argument going. Its almost a waste of time. I thought this would be a good place to start this conversation seeing as how most of my friends would think I was nuts even suggesting that Jesus wasn't white. This is the reason this was the first time I had ever posted in Tilted Philosophy.

I think everyone agreed with you that he wasn't white. I personally just think your insane and off base saying he was "black". For the third time this thread... he was an Arab, and he would look as such.

I can see your point, but please dont give up on this board. We need people of intellect here.

The whole fertile crescent area used to have lots of vegetation, the land of milk and honey and so on but I really doubt that the Sun caused much of it to turn to desert. It was most likely caused by environmental rape by the ancient civilizations.

You're also mixing up Darwinian and Larmarckian evolution. While living under neon lights might affect our skin, it certainly won't affect our children's skin. The only way it would would be if pale and pasty skinned people had more children than other people.

Right on virus, I noticed that too, Jesus takes on the appearance of whoever is worshipping him. I guess it's just more comforting to have your savior look like you instead of some other race.

Sorry to go off topic.

Jesus was a Jew.

Most Jews tend to be whitish (outside of Ethiopia).

Jesus may well have been white.

Maybe, maybe not, but white people were living in the same area at the time.

I really don't care.

most jews tend to be whitish?

judaism is a religion

Actually traditionally being Jewish is an ethnicity. The core of the religion is passed through marriage and heritage. Only way you can be a true member is to be born as one or to marry in.

Listen here sweetheart, for the 400th time in this thread. I know he wasn't black. It was a joke and meant to get a rise out of people that assume he was white. Now, I'm not sure if your goin' for a Nobel Prize here or not but we know you what you think... He was Arab... he would look accordingly. But what you've seemed to miss for the, again, 400th time in this thread I wasn't asking what he looked like I was asking why over the years he has become a fuckin' honkey. You understand... for the 400th time?

Now that the thread is answered im gonna hijack it a bit more :P

I have a question.
Before the Jews lived in the Middle East they were slaves of the Egyptians, right? Therefore, to really find the true color of Jesus, wouldn't you have to find out where the Jews were taken from by the ancient egyptians? That would narrow down his color a bit more if you were really trying to look into it.

The fact that the Jews were living in so many places before they settled down in the mid-east also holds the possibility of lots of different colored people mixing together with them. This would make one individual person's skin color pretty hard to pin down. You would, however, have to take into account the fact that many Jews probably would not have married outside of their own.. but it does happen (people converting.. etc)

Jews came from Israel. Moved to Egypt, later were taken as slaves. At this point Canaanites & Philistines moved into the land. Then you have the exodus and all the fun afterwards.

There was also time in Persia too.

I saw the 'face of Jesus'on discovery as well and felt they may have over done his 'arabness' a bit. While the face they gave would look very normal there now, the Arab invasions we well after Jesus's time.

About the only thing we can be sure of is he didn't look like me Irish white :)

I think jesus probably looked a lot like James Caviezel.
[IMG]http://groups.msn.com/_Secure/0RADOAjYVGu0Cy04C3QBrORgOWR7XlWM3Naaf55Zn0!EGzr75Ty4uujPbfR383k*Og721Bqto9rSsHQRU3uNkKK3qdRdVEECnAXVEjphFw6Q/mp_passion.jpg?dc=4675458432761358475[/IMG]

Notice his initials.

:hmm:

And Babylon, unless that was the same incident.

The Original King
So basically this thread was nothing more than blatant trolling?
Well done.

However, I still don't get it. Why is it such an "outrageous" question to ask if jesus was black?

When you consider the number of people who, without even thinking about it, assume that the classic depiction of christ is accurate, it seems to me a genuine thing to discuss.

I also failed to see the "flood of ignorant comments" in this thread. The general concensus was that he was probably not "african" black, but rather was "tanned".

The only ignorance I saw was the inaccurate statements with regards to the significance of the immesurably tiny difference in the distance from the earth to the sun 2000 years ago, and the claim that race not genetic but rather is an aquired characteristic no different to a tan.