Jesus's skin Colour

[Lysimachus]

I'd spent all day telling my friends at school that he would have been caucasian, but not white-skinned. Anyone care to prove or disprove this?

[Manco]

We don't know of course, but in all likelihood he had the same skincolour as most Palestinians and non-diaspora Jews. Which would be a rather tanned olive-coloured skin I guess.

Funny thing is I'm told I look like Jesus all the time, while I look like your average pale North-Western European with brownish long hair and a short beard. And that's certainly not what Jesus looked like.

[Fiyenyaa]

Do Semitic peoples come under the "caucasian" label? I never really thought they did.
However, anyone who thinks that Jesus was white-skinned has clearly not thought about where he actually lived, or just ignorant.

[Lysimachus]

Do Semitic peoples come under the "caucasian" label? I never really thought they did.
However, anyone who thinks that Jesus was white-skinned has clearly not thought about where he actually lived, or just ignorant.

Well there's three categories:

Caucasoid
Negroid
Mongoloid

Africans, Caribbean and Pacific (island) peoples fall under that of Negroid.
Europeans, Americans (both continents, excl. Caribbean) and Middle Easterns fall under that of Caucasoid (they have the same facial features, Caucasian Asians just tend to have a darker complexion due to the climate).
East Asians would fall under the Mongoloid category. This includes Chinese, Japanese, Thai and other similar looking peoples.

What's sad about it all was that I was giving reasons behind what I was saying, they were just saying "WELL HE IS WHITE" and "WELL, HE'S WHITE IN THE BIBLE" even though the damned thing was created by whites.

[Elfdude]

Sorry, I feel the need to correct these very wrong statements.

Well there's three categories:
Caucasoid
Negroid
Mongoloid

Caucasoid
Mongoloid
Congoid (Negroid)
Capoid (Negroid)
Australoid

Africans, Caribbean and Pacific (island) peoples fall under that of Negroid.

No. Pacific islanders and Carribean-ers are Mongoloid.

Europeans, Americans (both continents, excl. Caribbean) and Middle Easterns fall under that of Caucasoid (they have the same facial features, Caucasian Asians just tend to have a darker complexion due to the climate).

True enough. Native Americans are mongoloid though.

East Asians would fall under the Mongoloid category. This includes Chinese, Japanese, Thai and other similar looking peoples.

Pacific islanders, inuits, and almost all new world natives as well.

As far as the skin color goes, it's like asking what color the train is in an SAT test. The color doesn't matter the train is merely hypothetical. There's no proof a single solitary man who was Jesus exists or ever existed. There's thousands however that fit the bill and have been in turn cited as Jesus.

[Manco]

Yep, Semites are Caucasian according to Blumenbach's original typology, so are Kushites (Ethiopians). He based it primarily on skull-types and not on actual skin colour.

[Manco]

He isn't white in the Bible, I don't think his skincolour is even mentioned. (and the Bible isn't really made by whites either, at the time most Christians would be variations of what we call olive-coloured)

[Lysimachus]

He isn't white in the Bible, I don't think his skincolour is even mentioned. (and the Bible isn't really made by whites either, at the time most Christians would be variations of what we call olive-coloured)

No, I mean bible writing after the Roman times. Since it was Europe that was Christian, and Europeans were white, they wouldn't have exactly drawn Jesus to be of a more darker complexion, they would have made him in what seemed a more ideal image (tranquil, heavenly, perfect etc.).

Nowadays, it simply comes down to that the stereotypical Jesus look is a pale white guy with long flowing brown hair.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I'd spent all day telling my friends at school that he would have been caucasian, but not white-skinned. Anyone care to prove or disprove this?

Caucasian is a pretty redundant term. No, he would not have been white skinned. He would have had the skin tone along the lines of this chap:



This fellow comes from Ma'loula in Syria, which is one of the last villages where Western Aramaic, the descendent of the language of Jesus, is spoken.

No, I mean bible writing after the Roman times. Since it was Europe that was Christian, and Europeans were white, they wouldn't have exactly drawn Jesus to be of a more darker complexion, they would have made him in what seemed a more ideal image (tranquil, heavenly, perfect etc.).

Nowadays, it simply comes down to that the stereotypical Jesus look is a pale white guy with long flowing brown hair.

People always have portrayed Jesus looking like themselves. Go to the oldest Christian country on Earth, Ethiopia, and you will find that Jesus and Mary are portrayed as black.

[John I Tzimisces]

People always have portrayed Jesus looking like themselves. Go to the oldest Christian country on Earth, Armenia, and you will find that Jesus and Mary are portrayed as near-eastern-ish.

There ya go

Beat 'em (Tiridates III that is, at some point between 301 and 311) to the punch by a few decades. I get paid 20 bucks every time I plug that.

Anyhow, to further the point, while I was in Armenia (of course), at the church's "capital", there were tapestries and other goods gifted to the church by diaspora communities in India and China dating from, I think, at the latest, the 18th or 19th century, and predictably, these portrayals of Jesus (and pretty much everyone depicted) were as Indian or Chinese. Well, maybe not predictably, but who knows how insular these merchant colonies were.

[Monarchist]

...while I was in Armenia (of course), at the church's "capital", there were tapestries and other goods gifted to the church by diaspora communities in India and China dating from, I think, at the latest, the 18th or 19th century, and predictably, these portrayals of Jesus (and pretty much everyone depicted) were as Indian or Chinese.

It's hardly uncommon, friend! People will portray great leaders as they see themselves. There's nothing wrong with a little cultural mirroring here or there. We can never really know what Christ looked like, and I can only assume that in Heaven He appears as a gender-less, race-less spirit, as we all must. It's quite a purposeless and pointless thing to debate about, really.

[John I Tzimisces]

It's hardly uncommon, friend! People will portray great leaders as they see themselves. There's nothing wrong with a little cultural mirroring here or there. We can never really know what Christ looked like, and I can only assume that in Heaven He appears as a gender-less, race-less spirit, as we all must. It's quite a purposeless and pointless thing to debate about, really.

Well yeah, I'm not implying he looked one way or another nor am I lamenting people portray him as how they want to, but if you want to look at this from an academic standpoint, the guy was a jewish preacher from 2000 years ago, and probably resembled what your average ancient Jewish/Levantine person looked like, which is probably not a whole lot different than how natives of the area look now (IE, palestinians, Syrians, those neo-aramaic people living in isolated pockets in Syria and Lebanon, yadda yadda)

[Manco]

Korean Christians depict him as Asian as well.

[removeduser_487563287433]

Korean Christians depict him as Asian as well.

Yeah, it happens everywhere. Japan too:



Many Christians will get pissed off when you point out how much of Christianity is copy and pasted from paganism, but here we see the exact same thing from a different perspective.

Do you have a more clearer picture of his, or another Syrian's face?

What, you don't have Google? It was pretty hard to find a picture of Ma'loula where the only people in shot weren't tourists.

Well the way I see it, groupings like "Caucasian" and "Negro" revolve around slight variations in skull and body structure. For example, Blacks have flat noses (=me) whereas a Caucasian I know who is actually darker than me doesn't (him=bengali). If you can get me a clear facial picture i'm sure it'll show both a darker complexion but still possess Caucasian facial features. I was getting pissed off because their arguments were pathetic. They somehow thought all of their opinions and weight of numbers actually meant anything and they just didn't want to be told. They just used base arguments that held no weight and then simply resorted to retorting HE'S WHITE which annoyed me even more.

Yeah, that's all massively scientifically redundant. Defining people by appearance is absolutely stupid. I mean, I bet if I gave you an aboriginal australian, an African and a European and asked you to tell me how close they were genetically speaking, you'd get it completely wrong. The Europeans and Africans are most similar, despite looking different, and the aboriginals and Africans would be most different, despite looking similar by your standards.

Humans have a tiny gene pool and extremely low genetic variation compared to almost all other mammals.

[Lysimachus]

This fellow comes from Ma'loula in Syria, which is one of the last villages where Western Aramaic, the descendent of the language of Jesus, is spoken.

Do you have a more clearer picture of his, or another Syrian's face?

Caucasian is a pretty redundant term

Well the way I see it, groupings like "Caucasian" and "Negro" revolve around slight variations in skull and body structure. For example, Blacks have flat noses (=me) whereas a Caucasian I know who is actually darker than me doesn't (him=bengali). If you can get me a clear facial picture i'm sure it'll show both a darker complexion but still possess Caucasian facial features. I was getting pissed off because their arguments were pathetic. They somehow thought all of their opinions and weight of numbers actually meant anything and they just didn't want to be told. They just used base arguments that held no weight and then simply resorted to retorting HE'S WHITE which annoyed me even more.

[Monarchist]

I think it likely that Jesus' skin was as dark as any other Jew whose family had lived in the sun-drenched Fertile Crescent for generations. What's the problem with his skin colour; I mean, who cares? Christ may have been blue, for all I care. His values and actions are what matter. What annoys me about the current Moslem invasion of Europe isn't that they're darkies, but that they're Moslems. If all the immigrants' families were Coptic Christians or Orthodox, I would encourage the surge of those people.

I don't even know of anyone who cares about Jesus' skin colour, let alone know anyone who does.

[removeduser_487563287433]

I think it likely that Jesus' skin was as dark as any other Jew whose family had lived in the sun-drenched Fertile Crescent for generations. What's the problem with his skin colour; I mean, who cares? Christ may have been blue, for all I care. His values and actions are what matter. What annoys me about the current Moslem invasion of Europe isn't that they're darkies, but that they're Moslems. If all the immigrants' families were Coptic Christians or Orthodox, I would encourage the surge of those people.

I don't even know of anyone who cares about Jesus' skin colour, let alone know anyone who does.

1) No it doesn't matter what colour Jesus' skin tone was
2) The Muslim invasion of Europe is a conspiracy theory that people have disproved on this forum many times
3) Christianity is as foreign a religion to Europe as Islam - two religions that are very similar and share the same heritage

Is that based on the "out of Africa" theory? Seeing as Africa and Europe are closer to one another than Australia, it would be unsurprising that the former two places comprised of people with more similar characteristics then that of the Aboriginal Australians.

No, it's not it's based on genetic study. But the out of Africa theory does explain why it is so - humans expanded to South East Asia and into Australia a very, very long time ago so they have had the time to grow more genetically distinct (in really rather tiny ways, still) due to genetic drift. Even though you would probably confuse the two people. In contrast modern humans only gained a persistant presence in Europe at a much later date due to the Ice Age. Meanwhile it is not as if the genes of people in Africa remained static.

Basically, your views are massively flawed and you need to read more books, or at least wikipedia, rather than drawing your own conclusions from what you can see.

[Mist and Shadow]

2) The Muslim invasion of Europe is a conspiracy theory that people have disproved on this forum many times.

Get over yourself...

[removeduser_487563287433]

Get over yourself...

What? It has. And not just by me.

3. Don't be silly. Christianity has been inextricably linked with Europe from approximately 955 (Magyar defeat and conversion) or the 1280's (the last Polish/Prussian/Lithuanian pagans converted) up to 1945 or so.

Centuries before that, I'd say. But Indo-European religions were practiced for perhaps millenia before. Christianity is a foreign, semitic, cult.

[Monarchist]

Centuries before that, I'd say. But Indo-European religions were practiced for perhaps millenia before. Christianity is a foreign, semitic, cult.

Indeed! To say "centuries before that" only strengthens my position. Semitic cult it may have been in A.D. 300, but no longer by A.D. 800. When it dominates a whole continent for a thousand years after the coronation of Charlemagne, it can hardly be called foreign any longer. Just stop it with the "mysterious, exotic, pagan cult" rubbish. It'll do in a pinch if you're an agnostic out for a laugh, but not when you wish to think properly about the matter.

Phier, was Jesus really a Rastafarian? Looking at those dreadlocks makes me want to ... well, I won't go there.

I like this post. It tells me you can see the cultural evolution that occurs throughout history.
Look forward to western Europe in a hundred years or so, having evolved without prominent religion. Exciting

M.S.N.B.A., I see.