Tell The Honest Truth If You Can: In Your Mind's Eye, Is Jesus A White

[Solomon]

Man?

And don't give me the "he's a spirit with no color" crap that people always try to palm off because they just can't bring themselves to answer the question.

I'm not asking if he was white. I'm asking you whether when you form an image of him in your mind, he appears as a white man.

Let's see how honest we can be.

I'll start off by saying this. I was raised with pictures of Jesus on the walls of my house. Now that I'm an adult, the intellectual part of my mind tells me that he probably wasn't. But, the seed of the image, having been planted in my brain, will not let go. No matter what my intellect tells me, because of the images planted in my brain, he is a white man.

Now I fully expect tons of people to chastize me for even asking the question. I expect to be lectured on how it doesn't matter and "God is no respecter or persons", etc. and his color doesn't matter.

Psychologically it has a devastating impact.

[Sandpiper]

1. Yes

I know in my brain that Jesus was a dark-haired, dark-skinned semite.

But after years of being bombarded with images of Jesus as a white European with dirty blonde hair, it's kind of hard to shake that.

[Solomon]

2. Thankyou for being honest about it. Even my parents wouldn't

answer the question, but my 85 year old godmother wasn't afraid to tell it.

By the way. This question is not restricted to "believers". But to atheists. agnostics, gnostics, whatever, as well.

[alittlelark]

3. Fundie-mom swears he is white - no arguing w/her...

but what a pile of BS !!!!

[shraby]

5. He came from the middle east, therefore

his hair was almost black and his skin was probably the color of the people who live there now, not black, not white but tanned looking.

[alittlelark]

6. NO - you are wrong.... Fundie mom KNOWS that he is WHITE !!!

And don't you be dissin' delusions !

[Igel]

45. Don't know about "white", but he was Caucasian.

Not in the geographic sense.

Hair short, probably black (although there are non-black-haired people in the areas).

Skin possibly lighter than the majority of Syrians today, although that's a tough call. Certainly lighter than most Egyptians, . Egypt's had a couple thousand years of intermarriage with blacks, and Syria's had a couple thousand years of black slavery (let's not forget that the group that got the Iberians hooked on black slaves weren't the British).

On the other hand, what with all the Slavic and E. European slaves and imports to Syria, that may be a wash. I just don't know.

[pnorman]

4. Judging by his pictures, he also appears to be Scotch-Irish.

DEFINITELY not one of the "Chosen Race" (aka: SWINISH sheenie).

pnorman

[Shadow Drifter]

67. by his pictures?

oh yes because they had cameras back then and the pictures we see today is a true representation of what he really looked like.

[Stuckinthebush]

74. Pssst

(I think the poster was being facetious)

[Sirveri]

7. I think he's whatever color the person in question is.

I remember going to Sunday school, the black kids all colored in the faces of the pictures, the white kids did not. So I'm white, so is Jesus. But I can understand the whole, buddy christ thing. But hey, most people who come up with that image were white, right?

[Solomon]

9. I can tell you as a black person, that no matter how much you color

in the faces of the pictures, how much you try, he is still a white man in your mind.

Nothing can supplant the initial seed sown in your mind. I have been trying for about 40 years now.

I think there is something to be learned here about the power of symbols as opposed to intellectual consciousness.

[Sirveri]

28. It mystified me as a kid. Kinda funny now.

I'm all agnostic now, but when I was a kid it was like... what... what are they doing, those people are all suppossed to be white! Pretty eye opening, step mother was a organist, played churches all over the place, ended up at a 'black' church (black pastor, black congregation, whites are allowed, but white people are afraid of black people and won't come, they'll have their own church). Picked up all this. But hey, if you'd never seen all those white Jesus's (which is hard to do), maybe the first time you got to that page of the coloring book you'd make him black too. I dunno. My guess is all those white Europeans had no existing pictures of Jesus, so they made him in their own image. Screw historical accuracy, we've never really seen a Arab, so we'll just make him a nice white Aryan guy like we're used to. And then everyone gets a symbol.

And of course I am always amased when I see videos from baliwood which have swasticas flying thru the air. In India the Swastica is just this symbol, but over here it's got a lot more charge to it. After a pause I can go, oh yeah, India. But my first reaction is WTF? Is this a Aryan brotherhood video or something?

[Solomon]

34. You said it and how. I was confused about the swastika too when I

learned that it was somebody else's symbol before the Nazis hijacked it.

By the way, I want to make it clear that I don't see the depiction of Jesus as white as some kind of sinister conspiracy. It's only natural for people to make their gods look like themselves.

But then again, according to the good book, no images should have been made in the first place.

[dutchdoctor]

8. Yes he's definitely white,

but I am not a christian, so I am not sure if he ever really existed and if he did he was not that special.
The fact that white people have taken a man from middle eastern descent and turned him into a white idol is just another proof of the idiocy of christianity, IMHO

flame away!

[alittlelark]

10. WOW !!! You are worshiping at the alter of delusion..........

but I won't flame, due to the fact that you seem to recognize that J is uh, middle-eastern.... ?

[Solomon]

16. a little lark. It looks like you may have misunderstood what dutchdoctor

is saying. He is agreeing that the image of Jesus is white, not that Jesus was in fact white.

Don't want people to get upset over misunderstandings when the subject is as touchy as this one. :smile:

[alittlelark]

17. No misunderstanding... trying to be humorous...

...guess I failed?

[Solomon]

18. Oh! I get it now. Sorry. LOL!

[Solomon]

11. I'm not sure he really existed either but I wouldn't say it's proof that

christianity is idiocy. I see nothing wrong with the philosophy of christianity, but I do believe that christianity was hijacked by white supremacy much as we complain about Islam being hijacked by the terrorists.

[dutchdoctor]

15. Agreed.. You just said it better than I did..

[malaise]

13. Touche

Most of the images are Michelangelo's fantasies!! I'll stick with the laws of nature.

[ecstatic]

68. He's white, just like Cleopatra and the Kings depicted on the

African pyramids in Egypt

:eyes:

[Vektor]

12. Actually no -

I have never pictured him as a white man - In my mind's eye, he has always looked like the people native to the region where he was born - more of a middle eastern/Palestinian appearance.

Humorously - I have always pictured him to look like Oded Fehr, from "Deuce Bigelow". Long before the movie came out. When it did, I thought, "Holy Crap, it's Jesus!"

[Solomon]

14. Congratulations. Were you raised in America?

And if so, how did you learn that people were different colors before the image of Jesus was planted in your brain?

As I look back on it. I was implanted with the image before I even knew that there were different "races".

I am always amazed by this. I distinctly remember a time when as a child I saw absolutely no difference between "races". On the other hand, I still feel the scar on my psyche when I learned about racism.
I still remember it like yesterday. I was seven years old in the second grade reading a history book in school when I read about slavery and I still remember the gradual dawning on my mind as I read and started to look at my skin and realized WHOA ... WTF?!!


I hate to say this, because I know it will be misunderstood by some, but intellectually, everytime I see Osama Bin Laden, I think to myself, he looks like what Jesus is supposed to look like.

Don't flame me for saying it. I'm not a Bin Laden supporter. I just think he looks like what Jesus is supposed to look like imagewise.

[Vektor]

19. I was raised in Boston -

and not from a terribly religious family, though we are "technically" Catholic. My parents never beat me over the head with religion, and though I was never bombarded with too much "caucified" Jesus imagery,(or maybe I just didn't pay attention?) I did learn a bit about the history of Jesus, and knowing where he was from, I just pictured him as I did. I guess it's the same as if the bible said Jesus was of Asian descent and born in China - I'd picture him Chinese. I also have a real active imagination, and have been prone to assigning visual images to the written word which are far more "colorful" than the printed description.

Example: I've always envisioned the whale that ate Jonah to be electric blue, and kind of sparkly, like toothpaste. :-)

Edited to add re: race - I guess I always noticed the physical differences between the races, and being from a multi-ethnic area thought nothing of it. I also remember at a very young age, maybe four or so, noticing that some couples were same sex, just as some were opposite sex, and never thinking much about it. There was a lesbian couple who lived down the street from us, and I think I asked my mom if sometimes two boys were a couple as well, and she said "Oh, sure."

And that was that.

[Solomon]

21. Ah. Maybe you didn't have a picture of him in every room like we did.

LOL. I was raised in a very religious atmosphere.

[Vektor]

24. The pictures I do

remember seeing, he looked more Italian. But since there were more than one, and they all looked a bit different, I sort of just saw them as a reference, or an artists's rendering....like composites. I figured that whoever painted those images just had to use their imagination, and that was the best they could do.

[alittlelark]

20. He looks like Tom Cruise (or, insert hollywood star)

yeah.

[Vektor]

23. Uh, no.

I was referring to the coloring and the hair and beard of the man pictured.

And definitely did not reference Tom Cruise.
At all.

[Solomon]

25. I didn't want to say it littlelark but you provoked me. The picture

posted looks pretty white to me.

I was intrigued by the Passion phenonmenon. First it struck me as odd that in the year 2004 they would depict Jesus as a white man.
But then it occurred to me, the movie would have made no money if it DIDN'T depict Jesus as a white man. Nobody would pay to see a dark skinned man getting the crap beat out of him for two hours. "Nothing to see here, move on."

[Vektor]

27. The actor in the photo is Israeli.

His name is Oded Fehr. He is not white, and doesn't look anything like the pallid, blue-eyed, sandy haired Jesus images so prevalent today. He is ISRAELI, and was born in Tel Aviv. This is very much what people native to that area look like. What I said originally, is I imagined Jesus to look native of that area.

[Luminous Animal]

33. RE: "The actor in the photo is Israeli"

And it looks like they picked the "whitest" Isaeli possible. I loosely work in advertising and a common phrase heard during casting is, "We want a black woman but not too ethnic." Which means, "We want a white woman with dark skin."

[Vektor]

36. Sadly, the Israeli actor pool is limited -

So I had very few pictures to choose from. Just like any other race, there is a wide of range skin tones - this guy looks pretty standard Israeli to me, as far as his coloring, but these pictures, one B&W and one faded and photo-shopped, are pretty washed out. As I mention in a previous post, I had to go with what Google provided me to find someone with a similar look to the description I was trying to convey.
See post number 32.

In a nutshell: All I meant was I pictured Jesus to look more middle eastern than blue-eyed, pale, and Germanic as he is often depicted. And that's it. I did not mean that he is the clone of this actor. After all, I can only guess, right?

[Maat]

77. I really agree that that is probably what Jesus looked like.

n/t

[Sirveri]

29. Dude, if I want to watch black people get beaten I'll watch COPS.

Oh man, I'm gonna burn in hell for that one. Even worse since I plagarised it from another comedian. Who probably plagarised it from somewhere else.

[Solomon]

31. My point precisely. We'll both burn in hell.

[Vektor]

32. Oh my.

Yeah - that might piss some people off. I think I have already provoked the wrath because I used a photo of an Israeli actor to suggest Jesus might have resembled that type - since "Random middle eastern non-famous guy who MIGHT look like Jesus but isn't handsome enough to be an actor" didn't yield much, Google-wise, to support my description.
:shrug:

[Luminous Animal]

22. Absolutely

Growing up as a white catholic in a white catholic town, a white Jesus is imprinted in my minds eye. And I'll go so far to admit that whenever I think of Jesus (rarely), he's white with golden brown hair.

BUT, whenever I see Jesus depicted as white, it upsets me both emotionally and intellectually.

It's really hard to break through the conditioning. Especially when the erroneous image is still being univerally perpetrated in our culture.

[Solomon]

26. But now that we can see this, and you put your finger right on it, just

think of all the other situations in which the symbols in our minds can impede on intellectual thought.

Scary isn't it? I see the same type of thing going on with people on many issues, not to mention what the Bushes are doing.

[Luminous Animal]

30. Absolutely scary!

I'm pretty lazy about it, though, because I'm not a Christian. Other issues were more important to me (feminism, racial justice, poverty), so I actively fought against my ingrained prejudices. It was not an easy struggle, though. It took years to overcome societal and familial conditioning. I am surprised that the myth of a white Jesus (and Mary and the apostles) persists given that the practically the entire western Christian world is aware of his ancestry.

[Solomon]

35. The thing is, symbols and archetypes communicate directly with

the subconscious. In that way they are more powerful than words. You have to intellectually think to process words. Not so with symbols and archetypes.

It's very scary. Methinks the repugs are communicating with symbols whereas us democrats communicate with words. We're at a disadvantage there, no doubt. In fact, Nazi Germany is a good case in point. I don't think the average German was down with the program, but the symbols, flags, music, etc., overwhelmed them.

[moobu2]

57. Deleted post

[T_i_B]

37. I blame the renaissance

The art of that time is where a lot of us get our ideas of what Jesus looked like. Plus I think that people of every colour skin want Jesus to be one of their own. And because Christianity has often been seen as a European faith Jesus has often been percived as a white man as a result.

However, as you will see if you read the Bible, Jesus was a Jew born into a Jewish society. He would have looked like a normal person in Galilee and that is all we can say 2000 years on.

The important thing is not the colour of Jesus's skin though, as Christianity is for people of all races.

[Telly Savalas]

55. I blame "Jesus Christ Superstar"

In the modern era, we should have a more enlightened understanding of such racial matters, but our media still persists in presenting Christ as a European looking white guy.

What's the buzz? Tell me what's-a-happenin'
What's the buzz? Tell me what's-a-happenin'
What's the buzz? Tell me what's-a-happenin'
What's the buzz? Tell me what's-a-happenin'

[Az]

38. I can atest that many people do think he is white

Let me describe myself. I have long blonde hair, I have a beard and a mustache, blue eyes, and am 6' tall. I am quite often told I look like Jesus. If I can pass for a middle eastern religious figure then the actual image of Jesus has been pretty corrupted from any likely truth.

[BurtWorm]

39. In my atheistic opinion, he wasn't a man really.

He's a story, a myth. But it is a story about a Jewish man/god, hence about a man who is "white" if Jews are white.

[MemphisTiger]

40. Does it really matter if He was white?

[Solomon]

41. Here we go. I was wondering how long it would take for someone

to ask this.

In a perfect world it wouldn't mean a damn thing if he was white.

But as I said in the original post, in this world, the myth that he was white is pyschologically devastating; both for whites who subconsciouslessly get to feel superior, and for non-whites, who have to deal with inferiority feelings.

For hundreds of years, the "white" Jesus was the vanguard for a people who justified slavery of blacks, segregation, etc. If you can't make the connection between believing that God is white, and the lack of conscience over what was done to non-whites, then I can't help you.

I see the same thing now. Do you for a moment think that we would have invaded a white country that didn't attack us? It's easier to fuck over non-whites when subconsciouslessly people believe that God is white.

And as I said, according to the commandments, there shouldn't have been an image in the first place.

Let me ask you this way. Search your soul and ask yourself, would it have mattered if he were black? Would that have made history any different in your opinion? Would there have been racial slavery?

And ask yourself, why, when we know different, was Jesus still depicted as a white european in the Passion.

[MemphisTiger]

47. I see your point, but it seems these questions get

asked to generate dissent then jump to another topic, like invading Iraq. The point of my question was to attempt to stifle these types of loaded questions. I don't know. Maybe I'm being easily riled up after the shrubs speech last night.

And ask yourself, why, when we know different, was Jesus still depicted as a white european in the Passion.
Very good point. I think it was due to marketability.

[GreenPartyVoter]

42. I always figured he had olive skin, dark hair, dark eyes... but...

so do I, so maybe I just see what I want to see.

[Maat]

78. How are you holding up, GreenPartyVoter?

[moobu2]

43. In japan and China Jesus is often portrayed with slanted eyes

It's the same with Buddha.

Buddha was from eastern India but when you look at examples of statues of the Buddha from China and Japan, they take on the ethnic look of those races. I've even seen an early Buddha statue that looked roman which was found in south western India because Alexander conquered those area's.

The bottom line is whenever a culture adopts another cultures religious figures those figures usually take on the appearance of the adopting culture.

I think Jesus would look more like an Arab palastinian than a jew because of the Jews having lived for several thousand years in Europe and interbreading with people from those cultures.

[Az]

44. Really?

My time in Japan exposed me to the notion that they seem to like to use westerners for advertisement and representation. The few Jesus figures I saw over there were decidedly of the Europeon design. Do you have any pics of these Japanese Jesie? (er is that the plural of Jesus? ;) )

[moobu2]

49. here's you a few Jesus'z

I found a few ethnic Christian images and put them together for you.
I'm sure the Church would rather the Christian characters be portrayed as European because most of the churches are European but invariably the characters get thought of in whatever culture the Christian is in. It's the same way with Buddha. I've seen Buddha wearing a Roman togas and of coarse Chinese Buddha's, Japanese Buddha's as well as Indonesian Buddha's..

[Az]

50. Cool

Had not scene these before. Thanks.

[More Than A Feeling]

52. That Jesus the Sheperd-Japanese is a powerful image , IMHO

n/t

[Rabrrrrrr]

75. And, I think, that's really the best way to represent Jesus

In biological truth, he was Jewish, and surely looked liked one.

In theological truth, since Jesus is for everyone, he looks like whatever is appropriate for one's own culture. It's sad the whiteys seemed to have infiltrated a white Jesus all over the place, but it just makes sense to have Jesus looking like yourself. We all have a bit of the divine in us, Jesus is with us, and Jesus is for everyone.

So the brazilians with their darkskinned Jesus, the Costa Ricans with their brightly clothed Jesus, the Japanese and CHinese with the slant-eye Jesus, the Africans with their very dark-skinned Jesus - it's all correct!

[Igel]

46. When I picture Jesus as he was, he's not Nordic.

But neither is he Bantu.

In any event, I have trouble picturing him as he is. That is, outside the banal race box.

[Theres-a]

48. yes. ... Image of white man planted in my brain

[More Than A Feeling]

51. Yes, the stereotypical image

Even though he probably wasn't as majestic as he is usually portrayed. John the Baptist says (I think in the Gospel of John) that if God hadn't told him, he wouldn't have recognized that Jesus was the son of God. To me that does not indicate the handsome visage he is usually portrayed as having.

[ulysses]

53. of course.

That's the cultural representation. That's deeply-ingrained stuff in the huge majority of us, I'd imagine.

[Dervill Crow]

54. He looks like Jeffrey Hunter in my mind's eye,

even though I know he was really Jewish.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

56. We're all influenced by the pictures we saw in childhood

but realistically, he was a Middle Easterner, from a part of the world that was the crossroads of the Roman Empire and previously conquered by Greeks, Assyrians, Persians, and Babylonians.

Chances are that most people in those days looked more like Yasser Arafat than like Peter O'Toole in The Ruling Class.

[moobu2]

58. This is an artists rendering of Jesus from the historical accounts

[Az]

59. Er... Historical accounts?

We have those now?

On edit: Perhaps you mean the biblical accounts.

[moobu2]

60. Flavius Josephus's discription was used along

with biblical accounts of Jesus's racial heritage and other tidbits of information. The artists rendering was just an educated guess from the little existing evidence, who really knows....

Here's one part of F.Josephus's discription.

Both his nature and h0is form were human: for he was a man of simple appearance, mature age, short growth, three cubits tall , with scanty hair, but having a line in the middle of the head after the fashion of the Naziraeans, eyebrows meeting above the nose so that the spectators could take fright, with a long face, a long nose, and with an undeveloped beard, dark skin, and hunchbacked.--Flavius Josephus'

[nemo137]

61. Given that I'm a white male, yes.

I know he was middle eastern, but in my mind's eye, he's pretty much white. Dark hair, beard and eyes, but white. The same reason I refer to God as "he," pretty much. I'm male, so that's the pronoun I default to.

[Cobra_for_Reps]

62. Christian or Michaelangelian (Michaelangelo)

Since he was the first to use his familys image to portraite Christ, Mary etc..
If you worship a blode, blue eyed Christ, then you are Michaelangelian NOT Christian. Christ was Egyptian from the linage of Moses.

A good read would be "Retake Your Fame" since it touches and mentions over 200 other sources to support it.

Excerpt:
"All the major world religions had their origins in Africa.
Most of the Church Fathers and Biblical Characters like St.
Augustine, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Jesus Christ and his
mother Mary were black.
Several Prominent Greeks like Pythagoras studied in
ancient Egypt under black priests/professors.
Blacks constructed the pyramids and megalithic remains
like Stonehenge. Blacks have fought and died in all of

America’s wars. The Black Moors ruled parts of Europe for close to 800 years
and their efforts helped usher Europe out of the Dark Ages and into the
Renaissance.
Some of the world’s most famous individuals like Beethoven, Haydn, Alexander -
Pushkin and Alexandre Dumas had black roots. "

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D1418455830/computers0c6-20/103-0901559-6107002

[tjwmason]

63. Yes - and rightly so

because I am white.

Before you all roast me over open flames allow me to explain. The fundamental meaning of the incarnation is that Christ became 'one of us', the God voluntarily chose to make himself like his creation for the sake of that creation.

Therefore for me (as a white man) Christ is white, for the black person working in the next office He is black &c.&c. This is where renaissance art is correct; it places Our Lord, and the Saints among the figures of the day. Christ is not to be placed as 'up there' or 'out there', He is among us. As an historical figure, of course He was typical of a middle-eastern Jew; but in a deeper theological sense He is as white as I am, and as black as a black man is.

[salvorhardin]

64. Computer rendered image of Jesus

This was back in 2001.

The makers of BBC One's upcoming Son of God series have employed modern forensic techniques to create a model of Christ's face based on the skull of a 1st century Jewish man.
more...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1244037.stm

[Zynx]

76. There is no physical description of Jesus in the Bible.

We must therefore assume that he looked something like that image of him that they show.

[struggle4progress]

65. Jesus looks like --- whoever's suffering and oppressed RIGHT NOW.

Jesus looks like those people because -- Jesus IS one of those people.

So go meet some of those folks. Then you can come back and TELL us what Jesus looks like.

[Shadow Drifter]

66. No

I believe that if Jesus did exist that he was of dark skin. It just seems more reasonable to me.

[leanin_green]

69. No, I consider him to be very dark. Consider the region.

Anyway, he was Jewish. He lived and worked out of doors for crying out loud. Hell, I'm white and work out of doors in the desert too. In the summer, I'm almost golden brown.

[Cobra_for_Reps]

70. Being Black and Tanned are different

There are whites who lived for generations in scorching heat of Equatorial Africa, they are still white.
If you study origin of religion, it will take you back to the Nile Valley on where, how, why, who created an ancient probably the first form of politics (to govern people by fear and reward for obidience).
It is darkening though, to see people taken in to this at this space age.

[leanin_green]

71. Perhaps you missed my meaning.

I still don't see Jesus a white. Never have. However, if you left that same white along equatorial Africa for generation after generation, over time the skin DNA would mutate in order to allow for adjustment to the conditions. We all stem from original lines that evolved to meet environmental conditions. This is not a short process but takes eons of time. Your whites of Equatorial Africa would remain, essentially, Caucasian with mutations.

Your right, however, about the fact that it is darkening to see people taken in at this date and time. Although we can change physically to adjust to our environmental conditions, I'm sad to say the mental/emotional/spiritual changes take much longer.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

72. Everyone knows

That Jesus looks just like John Lennon, in the same way that God looks like George Bernard Shaw.

[Dob Bole]

73. Honestly, I envision a white light. Apparently, that's not normal...

I do tend to see the historical Jesus as a kind-of white guy, though...simply because that's how he looks in the movies. But in my mind, I realize that he was a middle-eastern Jewish person with plenty of sun exposure, quite muscular if he was a carpenter, and mostly a vegetarian, which would indicate that his teeth were more rounded than mine.