He was not caucasian. He did not have blonde hair and blue eyes. His nose was probably not grecian in appearance. His skin was not white.
JW's came to my door..which I dont mind. I was in the middle of cleaning my ride since I used it sweeping the front stoop and taking a break from the stirring the brew kettle...bat wings were not quite ready yet to simmer, so I had time to politely take their pamphlet and tell them Im sorry but I am not interested in their flyers. They thanked me kindly and left. I then read the pamphlet while I waited for the lizard legs to be pre nuked to be dumped in the kettle with the bat wings....and the first thing I noticed was the picture of jesus they had on that pamphlet. I still read the words, but the pic bugged me. Hence....this topic.
That is all. Just a pet peeve of mine seeing Him portrayed like some Sears male model in immaculate white robes in all His stunning caucasian glory.
You are quite correct. Pinhead Christian White Americans think they own Jesus. They make me sick.
There are only three races of human beings on this planet and those races were determined by very real and identifiable differences in several structures in the body beyond the obvious skin color differences where the race of someone can still be identified even if the only thing left is their skeleton - but are not so different as to change the species. (The human "race" is actually a species, not a "race".)
I think we can safely rule out Jesus being of the Mongoloid race. So now we are down to Negroid and Caucasian. This one is easily answered and requires no strain of the brain. (The names of the different races are not slurs and were never intended as such - but identify either a geographical location where it was believed two of the three races dominated before spreading out from there. "Negroid" comes from the Portuguese word for "black", first used by the Portuguese to simply describe the people of sub-Sahara Africa they encountered in their travels and eventually capitalized as a proper noun by the English who believed it was the proper name of the people of sub-Sahara Africa.)
Jesus was born to a Semitic people (which is where the term "anti-Semitic" derives which is a reference to their origin, not their religion). A Semite is someone who is a descendant of the original inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula which also includes the people of Saudi Arabia, Syria, Palestine, Oman, Yemen, UAE, Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon and a couple of small areas within Libya. It excludes nearly all the people of Libya, all Iranians, Algeria, Egypt or any other African nation. Semites have a fairly distinctive ethnic appearance that was well recognized centuries before Jesus -swarthy, dark eyes and hair. Not uniformly obviously since there are still individual differences seen within communities in coloring -but in general. The Semitic people share the same general ethnic characteristics as well as the same race. And that race is Caucasian. Physical characteristics due to ethnic differences, no matter how dramatically distinctive they may be from group to group -NEVER changes someone's race.
Ethnic differences among the races are largely determined by geography and the amount of time exposed to the sun combined with physical traits and attributes of the breeding population. Semitic peoples are ALL Caucasian. And that includes Jesus.
I think what you object to is people who portray Jesus as having Scandinavian coloring which is of course highly unlikely. Blue eyes, blond hair and pale coloring are also another set of ethnic characteristics that never changes a person's race either. Scandinavian or Arab -both are Caucasian and the VERY same race!
It is actually human nature for a people to try and portray their deity as looking like themselves going as far back as you want to go -and even if that trait gets your panties in a bunch today. It is actually pretty universal among all the races and even within ethnic groups within those races. Look at ANY ancient African, Chinese or Japanese art depictions of their idea of the supreme being at the times and forward -and not so oddly enough they are either depicted as looking much like themselves -or as inhuman entirely. And they do even after significant encounters with those of other races.
The first depictions of Jesus as a blue-eyed, golden haired man were NOT done by Christian Americans, clearly a breed of people you hold in total contempt and are clearly willing to instantly blame for whatever pisses you off. But you are in fact blaming AMERICANS for what is in reality a universal HUMAN trait. The first depictions of Jesus with light eyes and hair occurred in GREECE and it was based on descriptions like these in a sampling of letters from people who existed during His lifetime and claimed to have met or seen Jesus. And variously described Him as having gray eyes, light eyes, chestnut hair or golden hair etc. I am not debating about the accuracy of these descriptions but only pointing out the fact that these existed even then and were well known within the Christian community. Take a good, hard look at exactly WHO wrote these letters. Hmm -not a one was an American. Kind of takes the wind out of your stupid (nonexistent) point, doesn't it?
Physical Description of Jesus
As Christianity moved further north into Europe with the Romans in a very rapid expansion of the religion the depiction of Jesus became even lighter although the hair was not painted as really blond until the religion moved into the Scandinavian regions -painted by people who undoubtedly never set eyes on an Arab, never visited the region and painted Jesus to look like the only people they ever saw. These paintings were often quite beautiful and stunning -many have survived and are on display in museums on nearly every continent. So it is NOT something "white Christian Americans" did - asshole.
One of MY pet peeves is people who just aren't bright enough to grasp the difference between RACE and ETHNICITY yet feel a need to spout off about it anyway!
have given us their idea of what Christ looked like, but they never knew him in his earthly form. Their vision of his looks are no more accurate than my own.
