Another thread here someone said the phrase Jesus is not mythological. I think historians and other religions as well would say that Jesus was a real man, most of the other stuff about him being the son of God, being a virgin birth, etc. is definitely on the shady side of what we could truly know about him. My question is about his race. Jesus just according to where he was born, the native people of that area, could not possibly be white yet I've always seen him portrayed that way in this country. Funny enough, I have a good friend who happens to be black and I was recently invited for a get together and was able to meet his parents and his family and they are devout Christians. It so happened that they had religious art in their home depicting Jesus as black and angels as black. I'd never really thought about it before but I don't know how common this is really. Is Jesus an empty bottle? Every culture or race depicts him as they see themselves? Is this a whitewashing of who Jesus, the man, really was to depict him as white with caucasian facial features and hair when everyone must know he was anything but. I'm more Buddhist inclined so I have no real dog in the fight, we respect Jesus for his wisdom and his teachings, but it strikes me as crazy that the most important figure in Christianity is intentionally depicted wrongly.
one of the least important characteristics of Jesus Christ was his race. the sooner you look past his humanistic attributes, the sooner you will better understand him.
Well hes ethnically Jewish so he is the same thing the Israelis are today, dunno what color it could possibly be.
Surely if Jesus was a real, living man we'd have accurate information about what race/ethnicity he was. His contemporaries, and even predecessors, had as much. I guess going into the details about Jesus's humanistic attributes just contributes to the notion that he either didn't exist, or existed in many forms across many cultures, which contraindicates the whole Christianity thing altogether.
Gen-X grew up introduced to black Jesus via good times. So awesome. You didn't stand a chance. The episode is still great - watching it on youtube now.
That a deity or divine figure is portrayed to those who would encounter or worship him or her as being of their likeness is nothing new in any religion... that said, you, like anyone, have been exposed to his image in your culture which has been predominantly white, so it stands to reason he would be portrayed that way to and among that culture. Whitewashing? I dunno, probably just more personal context, but that doesn't mean that a culture that is predominantly whatever majority race wouldn't monopolize and perpetuate said projected image. That said, I immediately thought of that Good Times episode as well.
The source for the Nordic-Jesus is medieval and Renaissance painters who didn’t know any better. It just sort of carried over into the modern era by tradition, as is often the case with culture and religion. Go look at paintings by Jan van Eyck - it wasn't just Jesus who looked European, it was everybody. Euro-Jesus just fit into the crowd. Discussing depictions of Jesus as metaphors for cultural identity is applying a postmodernist classification to what is essentially a premodernist phenomenon. Square pegs and round holes. As far as an accurate depiction of what someone of Jesus' background may have looked like, it was the subject of a Popular Mechanics story in 2002. The representative result they produced was:
so, if you knew precisely what Jesus Christ's race was... you'd have a better grip on your faith in him?
Israel has changed a lot in 2000 years (and it was diverse even then, lots of Romans, remember?). All Israelis aren't Jewish. All Jews are not ethnically the same. Ashkenazi, Sephardic, Mizrahim, Falashas, there are Jews of every shade from white to black.
Ottomaton, I have grown very fond of your posts. You're a very underrated member here. I don't always agree with you, but I enjoy your wide range of knowledge on many different topics. However.... the article you posted has a flavor of self-pwnge. not exactly an "accurate depiction"
