Far too many people think that Jesus from the Bible was light skinned, even though he grew up in what we call the Middle East.
If he actually lived it might even matter.
There are historical records of somebody named Jesus that lived at the time. The Bible story is just horse shit. He was an apocalyptic preacher just like today, and probably had undiagnosed schizophrenia, thought he could talk to God, and was the son of God. Plenty of people think that today, and we put them in Institutions instead of create a whole ass religion out of their life.
I will say this, I can’t think of a thing Jesus says in the Bible that isn’t pretty based. He prioritized pragmatism over rules and protocol, compassion and understanding over judgment, generosity over greed, forgiveness over scorn, acts over words. Everyone following his death like Paul seem to be the ones that start to miss the point.
Knew a theology professor (ended up in his class for credits somehow) who went with the "multiple Jesus's" theory. Apparently it's quite possible that stories of a variety of healers/figures got combined into the Jesus mythos. Explains a lot of the time and geographical inconsistencies with the historical record iirc
He never claimed to be the literal son of God, this is something that was addded into the dogma 2 to 3 centuries after his death during the Council of Nicaea (check Arianism).
We have no idea if he was apocalyptic. We suspect he was a reformer as reformist movements were popular at the time.
There are historical records of somebody named Jesus that lived at the time.
No, there are no contemporary primary sources about him from his purported lifetime. All sources stems from several decades to centuries after his purported death.
The consensus about his existence is established based on the likelihood of him existing, but his existence can never be verified with absolute certainty. And what he actually did or said is impossible to determine as well. On that we can only rely on what people living relatively long after his purported death wanted him to have said.
It's like how Saint Nicholas really existed but wasn't Santa Claus. My go to rebuttal whenever someone tries to bring up historal evidence as existence of Jesus. If you believe in the mythological version of Jesus, then you must also believe in Santa Claus
The best argument for Jesus' existence comes from Christopher Hitchens.
It goes like this: We know the nativity story is made up because of the census. There was a census near the time, but it was after Harrod's death and cannot fit the story. But why fabricate the nativity? Probably because Jesus of Nazareth is supposed to be born in the "city of David": Bethlehem. So then, if Jesus was invented whole cloth, why not make him Jesus of Bethlehem and save the aggravation?
Yeshua of Nazareth is a historically confirmed individual. He was real, really the son of a god? Probably not.
Since it was a fairly common name, you might as well say John from Richmond is a confirmed individual.
Yeshua of Nazareth is a historically confirmed individual.
He is not. We have no contemporary primary sources for his existence. However there is a general historical consensus that he most likely did exist. But absolute confirmation is an impossibility.
Entirely too many people give a shit about a shitass collection of bronze age bullshit in the first place.
I don't know who you are, where you live, or what you do for work, but if you talk crap about the quality copper ingots of Ea-nāṣir, I'm gonna whip your ass. That stuff is dope!
Or is there something else to say about that time?
In todays standard Jesus would be a communist.
Really more of a communal theocracy. It says right in the New Testament that you are expected to give all of your wealth to the church, with the implicit trust that the church is meant to distribute those resources fairly, starting with those most in need.
Yeah, in some kind of merger of state, church, and corporate power.
What's the name for that again?
Lemmy moment
We have an American commercial illustrator named Warner Sallman to blame for the canonical Jesus’ melanin deficit.
Yeah, I think Italian Renaissance painters may have pre-dated that somewhat.
Blonde, light-skinned with blue eyes? Nope.
i think it goes back a little further than some dude from the US...
That would go against the narrative that every thing bad comes from the US
That's a ridiculous claim.
Here's a picture of Jesus' baptism from Normandy, painted in 1185.
Plenty of others here: https://smarthistory.org/standard-scenes-from-the-life-of-christ-in-art/
Europeans tended to paint Jesus as white because they didn't understand there were no photos or movies or TV around, so someone in Norman France didn't know there was an alternative possibility.
After reading that I just had an idea for what I think would be a good premise for a film. In the 70s Jesus "returns" in the US somewhere, but as someone who gets labelled as a black man, noone believes him. Because he keeps getting knocked down at every turn due to systemic racism, and because he is so fed-up with the "White Jesus" trope he joins the Black Panther Party. He ends up being shot by a cop. Final shot slow-zooms in to show cop's name on a tag. First name Judas.
Do you think Ancient Jewish people were black? Have you ever met anyone who lives around the Mediterranean? He would look like a version of that guy who worked outdoors. He was from the Levant not sub-Saharan Africa. He wouldn't be "black" rather he would be seen as Middle Eastern.
Nah, he would have been seen as Arabic and thus be labelled as a Muslim, being even more intenselly and more widelly hated in the US than if he had been deemed a Black man.
Also in terms of probability he would've probably 'return' to somewhere in Asia or Africa since there's were most of the population is nowadays.
I was going to paste the same link. :) Have my upvote instead.
Considering the makeup of the population of the region back when Jesus lived, he could have had white skin due to the Roman, Greek and Anatolian (modern Turkey) presences, though light hair would be super unlikely. Of course, the most likely appearance would've been that of a common Egyptian, almond-ish skin, #D5915A, and black hair
This guy is directly descended from David, and therefore would have been from the same family as The Christ, just many many generations removed. The Christ probably looked very similar to the guy in this photo.
Levantine people don’t have very dark skin, they definitely aren’t as white as Western Europeans though
All the applying of modern ethnic categories here is making my head spin.
I mean, rendering Jesus as a blonde guy is weird, but the way the pushback is parsed is just about as weird in the exact same way.
Modern Levant and Levant people three thousand years ago are both different in appearance. You can thank the Romans and Crusaders from Europe for changing this.
To expand on this with some small context albeit way older than the Romans. Egyptians gave the Peleset land in the Levant. Theorised that they were warrior peoples of the sea and the Philistines of biblical text somewhere in the late second millennium BC before the bronze age colapse. There is an incredible documentary by Pete Kelly (History Time) on youtube. Well worth the watch. Another great video he did about the Akkadians called The first Empire. He also did a great video about the Hittites. His whole channel is a goldmine of knowledge of the ancient world.
Any way the ancient world is filled with peoples from all over, moving around. Trade was a major factor. War was another. People from all over the Mediterranean and beyond mixed knowledge, their trades, their crafts, blood on battlefields and likely genes. Probably long before there was a written word pressed in clay.
Were all muts.
Ancient Romans weren't even really white. More olive toned.
There aren't any white people in the Bible.
People also think that Jesus was all love and light and goodness because they ignore or don't know about the other parts about Jesus.
Like when he says, just two verses after the famous John 3:16 verse, that you worship him or go to hell:
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son
Then there's him being super racist:
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
Mark 15:21-28
Or when he says in Matthew 19 that you can only divorce a woman (and, of course, a woman can't divorce a man) if she's cheating on you, essentially condoning domestic violence:
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
There's more where that came from.
I'm sure some Christian would be happy to come in here and hand wave it all away with being out of context or misinterpreted or whatever. And yet quoting the Bible out of context happens every time they go to their church and they have no issues.
People most often praise Jesus for the Golden Rule. He didn't invent it.
Oof. Where do I begin? You actually incorrectly cited the source of the verse you are quoting, so we’re off to a great start.
First off, you’ve incorrectly cited the verse to Mark 15:21-28 which is about Jesus’ crucifixion instead of Matthew 15:21-28 which you also sneakily removed the last two verse (27, 28) which are necessary to understand the context.
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Also, Jesus alludes to his Parable of The Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:10-14, Luke 15:3-7) when he said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”. In this context, the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 is just one of many lost sheep.
In regards to marital divorce in Matthew 19; yea, this one is pretty easy if we take into consideration that social customs have been continuously evolving. The first verse in Matthew 18 begins with Pharisees attempting to catch Jesus in an ideological “gotcha”.
“Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
Jesus responds by saying, “…they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Keep in mind, when the Israelites were autonomous from foreign rule, they imposed the death penalty to those who committed adultery. It wasn’t until Moses that the concept of a divorce certificate was created, eliminating death to adulterers, which was a socially progressive move for that ancient time period. After all, you can’t create the act of divorce without first creating the act of marriage. I’ll continue with Matthew 19:7:
“Why then,” the Pharisees asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.”
The hearts of the people during Moses’ time had become hardened, cold, unsympathetic to those who committed adultery and sentenced them to death. The certificate of divorce that Moses proposed allowed for the hearts of people to soften instead of, you know, killing in the name of law.
So, when the Pharisees present this question to Jesus, he doesn’t actually say anything about whether women can or cannot divorce their husband, as you seem to imply. Jesus simply explains the history of the Pharisees’ own religious law back to them. They wanted him to take a definitive side so they could have him arrested for heresy and he didn’t take that bait.
So Jesus called gentiles dogs and only healed the daughter after her mother crawled in the dust? Not very loving, which is what OP pointed out. The two added verses don't change that.
Also, he admits here that he is there for the lost Sheep of Israel.
I always find it funny how Christians rally around a guy who called them dogs and made it clear he doesn't care about them, just because a random dude (Paul) had "visions" of Jesus 30 years after his death and from there on pretended that gentiles were part of the ingoup. While contradicting Jesus as well if the church of Jesus actual fucking brother on this very issue.
It's just wild.
Hey, I called it.
The bible contradicts itself a few times. I think ultimately faith is faith based. (shocking I know)
The golden rule is so stupid too, I want to be left alone, should I leave people alone? My friend likes people coming to his place unannounced, should he come to places unanounced?
It's like everyone takes the rule and twists it so it benefits/excuses how they live and do.
May just be the neurospicy in me, but who likes people unannounced? Like, people can go about their day, knowing anyone could come at any time and they're ok with that?
Those seem like misinterpretations to me. Underlying your desire to be left alone is the desire to be treated how you want to be treated. So you can quite easily extend that reasoning, how do others want to be approached? The golden rule then suggests we should have the conscientiousness to inquire and respect the relative boundaries that each of us have.
This gets into letter of the law, vs spirit of the law. If you care about the latter, then the golden rule is quite good. But if you take advantage of the former, then you can subvert and break down any rule.
I have family, DEVOUT Christians, that live in the actual holy land. I asked them "who is that?" in response to their posting a picture of white-as-fuck Jesus on the Facebook page for the family village. They have yet to respond
I like my sky wizards to be of authentic skin color thank you very much.
If The Christ was, in fact, directly descended from David, then this guy would have been one of his Niblings/ Cousins, many many generations removed. The Christ probably would have looked very similar to the man in this photo.
He rode into battle on his noble T-Rex named Herbert. He can be any color he wants.
diabitus american in Alabama needs him to be white as a cope
Far too many people only think they're following Jesus.
The original whitewashing
He was surely not white like in the images and sculpture but we don't know how much darker his skin was. Skin color is a big spectrum
Yeah, for all we know he was full on albino
Isn't there a physical description of Jesus in the Bible that says his skin is the color of bronze and his hair was wooly like a sheep? 🤔
That was Revelations, which was written far after anyone who ever saw Jesus would have died, and describes Jesus' divine form. The only gospel that describes anything about him was about a transformation. "His face shown like the sun," but that is in Luke, so between 50 and 80 years after his purported death, and continued to be edited throughout the second century. So essentially it's all made up and none of it matters.
I remember when I learned all the gospels were written decades after the “fact.”
I can’t remember what I ate for lunch yesterday, and we are supposed to believe people played a game of telephone for a few decades and got everything correct when writing it down?
Sure, Jan.
I figure if you look at the Mizrahi Jews from Morocco he looked like that.
These days it is way more widely accepted
Before it was problematic since religion was used to justify hate crimes against people of color
If I learned anything from all of the Sunday school my parents forced me to go to it's that Jesus was a white dude with amazing abs.
Korean Jesus?
Very nice episode about this came out lately on the 99% Invisible podcast. Here's the link: https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/615-your-own-personal-jesus/
When you picture God what skin color do you see? What gender do you see?
According to the usa census it you are from the Middle East you have to put caucasian. My family on my dads side came from Syria
Modern day Palestinians come in all shades from "white" to "black". As someone who studied and argued the genealogy and ancestry of the region, here's the gist of it:
Too
Well, most gods are created in mans image. Along those lines, any religious "fact" can be altered to fit whatever agenda the churches have at the moment to justify the widest level of religious adoption "in the name" of their god.
How many white people would have worshiped a darker skinned person while slavery was still an acceptable practice?
Some people are still able to rationalize the many images of jesus from around the world. (IMHO, this is yet another attempt to obfuscate discrimination by bouncing back and forth between reality and the meaning of religious symbolism.)
I question using religious scholars as references to a religious post, but at least that same site seems to be speaking out against white supremacy. I don't quite know what to think about that post, but it seems the intent was positive. Absolutely make a call-out if I missed some glaring.
He had albinism, next question
“Too many,” or is “far to many” a new phrase that the younger folk are using? I’m trying to keep up with the changes to language.
Yes, it’s a strategy to make low frequency events seem like major problems
TBF thats not a coherent argument on its own. People in modern day UK were Black in the ancient times. You need to look at historical and genealogical information to make a statistical result.
The people who can reason that out probably aren’t very religious.
To the untravelled artist, everyone was white with the exception of a few going through town if in a major city. There was no way to know he wasn't white and it just stuck.
There used to be more diversity in the middle east. But there's been a bunch of genocides since then.
Yeshua Hamashiach, the person modern Christianity knows as Jesus, rumor according to records that have been found, show not only did Yeshua actually exist, they were likely light skinned. That doesn't mean they were white, and since we have no living person to question, and assuming the romans were being correct in their documents(I think romans, I'm being lazy and not looking it up, also it might be buried in a tome somewhere, or a history journal where they classified someone known as Yeshua Hamashiach as roman inflection or some such meaning lighter skinned), Yeshua might have been somewhere between Ricky Ricardo and the Weekend. Also I've never found a lick of evidence for turning water into wine, so not saying the miracles are true or not(miracles can happen, tho I do wonder how many miracles would actually be miracles if we just understood the actual process taking place), but Yeshua Hamashiach, aka Jesus seems to have actually existed. Probably a granola eating hippy type that preached about equality, and freedom for all, and was the first to do so and melted everyone's damn mind...
Oh, well if there's a rumor...
Also, "Hamashiach" means the exact same thing that "Christ" means- "messiah." It wasn't his name. His name would have been his name and then the name of his father, like any Jew. And since people didn't generally agree with him on who he claimed his father was, he would have been Yeshua bin Yosef.
Incidentally, if you are going to go with Hamashiach as his title, it means "anointed one" (as does messiah). You know who else has been anointed by holy oil? Donald Hamashiach Trump.
I don't care if he was purple, his message was be kind to each other and we've failed to grasp even that simple philosophy.