[Religion...again] Who cares what Jesus looked like?

black jesus?

So Mary conceived a black baby?

 

if mary was black, why not?

 

God works in mysterious ways.

 

Sorry, I'm confused. The wording is a little strange and I thought it might be a typo, or it might not. You DO think Jesus was black? And, by 'black' do you mean in the American sense (African heritage) or the English sense (not Germanic) or some other sense? And, what records are these anyway? Do you think there is an ancient scroll somewhere with the names of all the children born in Roman Judea with checkboxes for ethnic identity, and the checkbox next to Jesus H. Christ was changed? I know that's not even the question of the thread, but it's all very strange and confusing.

 

If Jesus was any less black he would be clear

 

The Jewish people as a whole at the times were not fans of Christ. If they falsified records, then it would have been to show him in a negative light, or to remove him completely from the records.

However, Jesus was from Galilee and more than likely he was of middle eastern descent. Not black, not white. That being said, like you mentioned, he came for ALL people, not people of any one particular race.

 

People care, because people like to feel important. It's easy for a white guy to accept that God is important if God's son is white, or a black guy if Jesus is black. It makes the religion seem less foreign. Just look at the early Bible movies with a blonde-haired, blue eyed Jesus.

 

Yup. How would all the Christians like a Jesus that looks like this?

 

Maybe just for historical accuracy? Or maybe to bridge the gap between cultures?

Or maybe just to stop the revisionist history that exists with the current depiciton of Jesus? After all, look at all these dark faces!

Jesus may not have been black, but I think we can all agree he didn't look like Barry Gibb.

 

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/health/forensics/1282186

Popular Mechanics article that depicts what he probably would have looked like.

Pretty funny as very different from the John Lennon "Jesus" look of the West.

 

I wasn't asking because I wanted to debate Jesus' blackness. I guess I just don't run in a lot of Afro-centric circles, so that people wanting to say that Jesus was black (and therefore a minority within his Jewish society) is surprising to me. I wasn't sure you wanted to say he was black in the typical way people feel like others must be reminded that Jesus was not the blue-eyed, brown-haired softy you see in those bad religious paintings, or that he was actually black and somehow it never came up in the Bible.

I'd say it's fine if you don't want to bogged down on that side of the debate, except this one thing: I'd agree that, of course, blacks aren't superior to others because of Jesus' blackness, and everything Jesus teaches about in the Bible reinforces that, but if someone has already embraced the untenable (as I see it) position that Jesus is black in the first place, the logic from there can go in many ridiculous and unpredictable directions. So, the reason why you'd think Jesus was black does become important. Because how Jesus manages to be black and still have the Bible unfold the way it does might have implications for black Jesus theology I never even considered at my white-bread church. Is the implication here that the Bible itself has been altered to remove references to his blackness? If so, and the Bible is not the inerrant Word of God, why believe anything it has to say? At that point, you can pretty much write your own rules, including the assertion that blacks are superior to other races.

So, I suppose -- depending -- I'd say that that sort of black supremacy is no better (morally) than white supremacy, but it could be better factually (if it's true that Jesus was black and that, in turn, had implications about who is better than who). But, I'm not sure it matters when the underlying axiom I'm asked to assume is nutty (imho, no offense).

 

Lol. I see what you're doing here.

 

it doesn't matter to me whether Jesus was white, black, middle eastern, or whatever. Debating that is irrelevant and not a good use of time

 

I'm a Christian and I could care less what color Jesus' skin was.

 

If you care about Jesus as an actual historical figure and believe historical accuracy is important to understand the context of his teachings, then I think it does matter.

 

The portrayal of Jesus to be white played a huge role in the proliferation of Christianity in the West. Seriously, Christians in the west would worship a man of color while they denied basic rights to those same people of color? I don't see that.

 

Lol. What am I doing? I'm not very imaginative; I generally just say what I mean.