Just a side piece to the discussion: many of the surviving paints of Christ are biased by the author towards appearing more like the people of the area, in addition to symbolism of the era. Christ Pantocrator of St. Catherine’s Monastery is one of the oldest depictions of Christ and deviates from the modern European style.
I’m so proud of this place that there’s not a single comment in here for a mod to even consider looking at.
Idk man I see something else in this picture entirely
Jesus was black tho
thatsthejoke.jpeg
That’s just factually wrong. The Middle East (and by extension the Levant) has always been a hotbed of diversity because its unique geography.
You would have found anything from black to pale white (but tanned obviously) skin, black to blond/red hair, brown to blue eyes. Most were darker skinned and dark haired like a modern Middle Eastener, but it wasn’t a monoculture, like implied here.
Easiest counter example are the Scythians, but there are countless more.
To add a bit to that: Greeks and Turks are pretty much physically identical, but one is seen as “whiter” than the other (guess which). The eastern end of the Mediterranean saw all sorts of people from northern Africa and southern Europe because of the ease of sailing across the coast, even with the relative low technology of ships from 3,000+ years ago.
If the jews of today, especially the ones that never left the Levant, are a faithful picture of their ancestors of ~2000 years ago, then it’s not too much of a stretch to assume Jesus could’ve been white, or “white”.
Side note: gotta love (/s) how much importance is still given to skin color. I’d love to see people throwing hex codes around instead of color names. “We don’t like fceadc here!”
Tbh the only thing I have as a counter argument is that he was poor and likely had a tan
